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Non-mathematical patentsNon-mathematical patentsPosted Jun 5, 2009 10:47 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433)In reply to: Non-mathematical patents by bojan Parent article: Donald Knuth: Mathematical Ideas, or Algorithms, Should Not Be Patented (Groklaw)
Thing is, if you follow the recipe AS EXACTLY AS POSSIBLE twice, you are likely to get TWO DIFFERENT RESULTS.
A patent is meant to protect your tricks for following the recipe, such as you guarantee the same result both times. The recipe tells you what to do, the patent describes how you follow the recipe - how *you* *personally* follow the instruction that says "cream the sugar and butter together".
Thing with Maths, there's only one way to follow the instruction, therefore you always get the same result, and anybody else following the same recipe (algorithm) will get the same result.
Even something as simple as "bake on a low heat for 10 minutes" will have twenty people doing it forty different ways!
Cheers,
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Non-mathematical patents Posted Jun 6, 2009 10:22 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I don't see your point. If the trashcan patent is implemented on two separate desktops, they will contain different code, look different, and probably work differently in subtle ways too.It works for most patents and algorithms: no two implementations of the RSA algorithm will be identical; computer language, variable names and so on will change. But even when using the same language independent coders will generate programs with wildly varying performance, accuracy, options, failure modes... Not to speak about the "computer on dashboard" patent -- independent implementations will be vastly different. That is why patents are not just math; they can be expressed mathematically, sometimes and for some aspects, but quite often what is not math is the meat of the matter.
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