What is Florian's strategy?

Alright, you can skip out on addressing all the other stuff, but you aren't convincing many people simply by saying it's wrong without more discussion.. and judging by your comments here, you certainly don't seem to be short of ink or time to address issues. At your discretion don't address my points.

>> "Abstract" in a patent law sense is certainly not how you define the term.

You say this, but then you provide nothing of substance. That's not very convincing.

Fact is that if being "abstract" was obvious, the Court could have given more examples and the USPTO would not have sent out their S.O.S they just did asking for opinions on judging patents applications that should be granted patents or not based on the Bilski ruling (where the main point of unanimous agreement was that the Bilski patent was "abstract").

Can you point to me where the term is defined by the Courts or Congress?

Bilski was ruled abstract 9-0, yet I'm sure the lawyers representing Bilski would argue it should have gone their way.

Algorithms are abstract.

Their meaning of "abstract" is not cut and dry. It's not like mathematics. It's not like software, where there would be little ambiguity over what code represents were we willing to trace the steps for a particular run.

"Abstract" can be defined in many ways based on context, but look at Diehr to see that the software steps there were not patentable but the overall process (an industrial process) was as the claim was on changing the form of matter.

Can you give an example of a software patent where the SCOTUS said, that is a great patent that applies to general purpose computing devices despite no transformation taking place?

And simply saying my usage of that term is wrong but providing no examples is not very convincing and makes it look to me like you don't really know what abstract means or how to convincingly show my statements make no or little sense (as you assume is the case).

BTW, I expect I have a greater standard for overcoming abstract than the Courts, but it would help if you point out where/how. There is much not defined precisely and different parties and individuals draw different lines.

>> The Bilski ruling in terms of the majority position didn't change anything about post-solution activity. You can look at the dissenting opinions and try to conclude something from them, which is kind of speculative because it's the actual decision that really matters.

Well, most of what I mentioned was reinforced in the majority opinion; however, the majority opinion did not say very much at all about software specifically.

So which part of what I said do you think is not part of a majority. There might be some, but let's focus on that and I can back off it perhaps.

The majority had references to Benson, Flook, and Diehr along the lines of what I covered.

I don't remember saying that Bilski changed the "post-solution activity" interpretation (and it appears you are claiming I did). They did at least add another example of what is an abstract patent.

That the USPTO grants many bad patents doesn't mean the Court would agree with them. There is a risk in appealing to the SCOTUS and most patent threats get settled much earlier than that.

>> But the Constitution itself says that Congress can grant "exclusive rights" of the kind nowadays referred to as IPRs.

See next.

>> Just comparing what you say about the Constitution and Congress in this context to what the Constitution actually says (see the link I just provided) should be enough of an indication to many reasonable people that one can't take your baseless rants seriously.

OK, so I follow your link since you are a person of such few words and this is what I find:

"Its power is limited with regard both to subject matter and to the purpose and duration of the rights granted. Only the writings and discoveries of authors and inventors may be protected, and then only to the end of promoting science and the useful arts."

There is more stuff, but I am having a lot of trouble seeing what part of what I said is it that you see as "baseless rants" and why? Can you provide another link that will speak for you a little better?

Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 219-20 (2003)"
> In addition to spurring the creation and publication of new expression, copyright law contains built-in First Amendment accommodations. See id., at 560, 105 S.Ct. 2218. First, it distinguishes between ideas and expression and makes only the latter eligible for copyright protection. Specifically, 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) provides: “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.” As we said in Harper & Row, this “idea/expression dichotomy strike[s] a definitional balance between the First Amendment and the Copyright Act by permitting free communication of facts while still protecting an author's expression.” 471 U.S., at 556, 105 S.Ct. 2218 (internal quotation marks omitted). Due to this distinction, every idea, theory, and fact in a copyrighted work becomes instantly available for public exploitation at the moment of publication. See Feist, 499 U.S., at 349-350, 111 S.Ct. 1282.

Note that "software patents" pre-empt original creations and expressions through software. Patent law was not designed to apply to information used by many, eg, for expression (that's not what a machine or process patent are, eg). All software running on a computer is but a manipulation of an abstraction (digital model), of information, then the device/computer shows it on screen (obvious post-solution activity). Patent claims (one-sentence each) cover very broad ideas that don't anticipate a very very large amount of the details in an actual implementation.

OK, getting back to that link you provided http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art1frag71_user.html , I'll quote one more piece:

"The concept of originality is central to copyright, and it is a constitutional requirement Congress may not exceed."

Patent law does not trump the First Amendment to the Constitution. It makes no sense to assume the Court would allow patents to walk all over originality (ignoring any further analysis, for the moment) protected by First Amendment when they rule that Copyright law cannot.

>> If you believe IBM's statements concerning the TurboHercules antitrust issue, you might as well have believed the Iraqi Information Minister in 2003. Similar degree of accuracy.

What they say, to which I was referring, is clear and believable: the software TH was pushing did not have licenses, and that software included Microsoft platform software.

What I think about IBM and patents in general or suspect about them is not important. They stated they rejected a product that had Microsoft closed platform software with it. TH was not pushing THsoftware on Linux.

If you have evidence otherwise, then show me the letter where TH does push Linux and no proprietary MS platform software and then the corresponding IBM reply.

>> IBM threatened TH with patents that have nothing to do with Windows. IBM refused to enter into operating system licensing negotiations that were unrelated to whether Hercules would run on Windows or Linux.

Well, I don't have a copy and looked at this quickly only then, but I will adjust my position if you show me the letters and how IBM was not rejecting a product bundled with MS software but was rejecting generally the TH totally open source software.

>> There's also nothing that Hercules does in its Windows version that would be any different from a GPL point of view than what its Linux version does.

TH said they had special integration with Windows and that is what I mentioned and am basing that GPL remark on. [Update, I don't have all my notes and files with me easily accessible, so from memory I went to TH site and looked at what they had to day about their turnkey solution. I found a link that goes to a different website but found nothing like what I remember they had. Go here http://www.turbohercules.com/solutions/ and click on the left column link mentioning "MVS Turnkey System" to see what I mean. It looks to me like they have changed their website around since that time.]

>> The combination of al the things you say looks like you may be GroklXX-brainwashed.

Groklaw is fairly well respected by many folks here. FWIW, I don't think I quoted groklaw at all. I did reference some SCOTUS comments and that link you provided.

>> No matter what the reason for your absurdities is, I just wanted to show to reasonable readers

I'm not sure how not answering me directly in most cases is a solid way to convince a reasonable reader.

It would help your case, if you went back and picked just a handful of the many "absurdities" I mentioned and then easily showed what a fool I was.