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Xref: sserve comp.org.eff.talk:9203 misc.int-property:547 comp.unix.bsd:5818 Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!stanford.edu!agate!ucbvax!virtualnews.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@nyu.edu (D. J. Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors. Message-ID: <5204.Sep2920.32.3192@virtualnews.nyu.edu> Date: 29 Sep 92 20:32:31 GMT References: <1992Sep25.185314.8872@gvl.unisys.com> <1992Sep26.161204.24573@rwwa.COM> <a=+p43j.mcgregor@netcom.com> Organization: IR Lines: 38 Scott says that opposition to patents on mental processes---including mental processes applied in an inessential way to physical objects--- implies opposition to physical process patents. This is a rehash of his old argument from comp.patents. As before Scott ignores the crucial word ``inessential.'' It is essential that, to cure rubber, you actually take a physical piece of rubber and do something to it. You can't complete the rubber-curing process without physical action. It is not essential that, to apply the LZW algorithm, you actually take a physical disk and compress the bits on it. The fact that LZW applies to data on disks, on paper, on tapes, in memory, and in your head, should make it clear that the physical application of LZW to bits on disk is not essential to the process. In article <a=+p43j.mcgregor@netcom.com> mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor) writes: > Now real physical effects are happening: digital signals on a control > line in a modem are changing, magnetic polarities in disks are > changing, phosphorescent displays are changing all according to > certain processes. The United States Supreme Court calls such effects ``insignificant'' and, rightly, ignores them in determining whether a process is patentable. If you can't patent LZW-in-your-head, then you also can't patent LZW-writing-to-disk. The ``writing to disk'' part is just too trivial. Put differently: If you could make a mathematical algorithm patentable simply by adding ``and then we write the result to a storage device'' to it, then any novice patent lawyer could turn any mathematical algorithm into something patentable. This would defeat the entire purpose of prohibiting such patents. I'm treading on solid legal ground here. Read what the courts have said about patenting the Pythagorean theorem; it's exactly what I say above. ---Dan