This is just crazy... [LWN.net]

This is just crazy...

Posted Jan 20, 2012 6:04 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Software is The Glass Bead Game by giraffedata
Parent article: LCA: Addressing the failure of open source

For the purposes of testing your invention, you use an existing, not very interesting, process to convert your software to something physical.

If this is indeed existing, not very interesting, process then the patent is not needed.

Drugs were mentioned above as patent-worthy because they are hardware. They're software.

How come?

The part where you express a drug as a pill and put it in someone's mouth is a fairly small part of the invention process; if we could download a drug into a test subject through the retina, the drug wouldn't be much less costly to invent.

The part where you express drug as a pill has nothing whatsoever to do with sane drug patents. The part which explains how drug affect the patient is what is patented (I assume there are patents which explain how you can create round, square and triangle pill - these are netirely worthless). You can not express this as math because you can not express patient as math. You can design some models, etc, but ultimately you must test your model on real patients - and this is where bulk of costs comes from.

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Hardware vs software

Posted Jan 20, 2012 16:46 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I'm not sure what your point is, since you start with "This is just crazy," then agree with most of what the parent post said.

For the purposes of testing your invention, you use an existing, not very interesting, process to convert your software to something physical.
If this is indeed existing, not very interesting, process then the patent is not needed.

Right, the inventor does not apply for a patent on that process. Mainly because the machines that fabricate the drug are already patented (they were interesting when they were new). The patent claims cover the informational inputs to that process.

Drugs were mentioned above as patent-worthy because they are hardware. They're software.
How come?

That's what the sentences after "They're software" were intended to explain.

The part which explains how drug affect the patient is what is patented You can not express this as math because you can not express patient as math. You can design some models, etc, but ultimately you must test your model on real patients - and this is where bulk of costs comes from.

And all of that applies equally (except in degree) to one-click web ordering and to ibuprofen. Which is why I say there isn't a distinction, for the purposes of this discussion, between hardware and software.

Right. Drama and prose are the same. Law and Science are the same.

Posted Jan 20, 2012 17:42 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

And all of that applies equally (except in degree) to one-click web ordering and to ibuprofen.

You may as well decree that all texts are the same. Law and science, prose and verses, patents and computer programs - they all use the same 26 letters and occasional punctuation and few foreign words. There are no difference between them (except in degree)!

Which is why I say there isn't a distinction, for the purposes of this discussion, between hardware and software.

If there are no difference then why US5960411 talks mostly about client system, server system, HTML documents and other things which have no relation to the physiology of humans at all while US5288507 talks about advatages of analgetic/antacid combination over the combination of racematic ibuprofen with an analgesic? If the patent indeed is all about how human which should react on 1-click web design then surely observations of human reactions should fill the bulk of patent? And surely "novelity" and "non-obviousness" should be related to this aspect? In particular you should concentrate on the idea that less clicks will lead to larger sales and this observation (tested in real world) should be checked for novelity and non-obviousness and computer-side architecture can be confined to non-protected examples?

Right. Drama and prose are the same. Law and Science are the same.

Posted Jan 21, 2012 19:10 UTC (Sat) by java_developer (guest, #82469) [Link]

"You may as well decree that all texts are the same. Law and science, prose and verses, patents and computer programs - they all use the same 26 letters and occasional punctuation and few foreign words. There are no difference between them (except in degree)!

You're hiding. You're driving your opponent's argument into a reductio ad absurdum while hoping no one notices that for your own argument the road to absurdum is the briefest of brief, straight shots.

For the one-click patent, no part and no combination of parts exists at a level which is not purely abstract. It's not about single clicks. It's not about clicks at all. It's about a unitary intention emanating from the user.

It doesn't require mice. It doesn't require a specific input device at all. It's about any human computer interface device which transmits a humans intention to the computer whatsoever.

It's not about the specific steps executed by the javascript code. It doesn't require any language to execute any specific instructions of any machine at all.

It's about the abstract resulting end state of a set of abstract entities irrespective of the individual steps through which that ends state was achieved or what the embodiment of the abstract entities are.