US Supreme Court looks at patents again
US Supreme Court looks at patents again
Posted Apr 15, 2014 17:09 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642)In reply to: US Supreme Court looks at patents again by giraffedata
Parent article: US Supreme Court looks at patents again
I don't think they were arguing this. The discussion looked more like: is this "invention" just an abstract (and unpatentable) idea simply running on a computer, or is there anything extra?
> While there may be a single abstract threshold for all inventions, such as "the invention isn't obvious," there would be a more concrete threshold for each of the various kinds of inventions.
I don't think there is any more concrete threshold that this - with or without computers. Can you give some example? Preferably outside computers to keep it simple. Preferably in the patent field to keep it relevant.
Posted Apr 17, 2014 17:56 UTC (Thu)
by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
[Link]
I think that's just the basis of the argument that an invention implemented with a computer is less patentable than an invention not implemented with a computer.
We have to remember something that I think gets overlooked a lot in analyzing the so-called "software patents": the inventor isn't claiming a piece of software or algorithm; he's claiming the machine (a nice, tangible classic patent-worthy thing) that does a certain thing because of programming.
There is a theory that when such a machine is based on a general purpose computer, then it's probably not so much a new invention as an obvious way of using an old one, and thus not patentable.
So I think you're saying the discussion centered on whether this fell in the "probably" category or not. But if there hadn't been a general purpose computer at the bottom of it, the discussion probably wouldn't have been necessary, hence the idea that when an invention is implemented with a computer, it's less patentable.
US Supreme Court looks at patents again
Lawyers are arguing that an invention implemented with a computer is less patentable than an invention not implemented with a computer.
I don't think they were arguing this. The discussion looked more like: is this "invention" just an abstract (and unpatentable) idea simply running on a computer, or is there anything extra?