> When you program a computer, you are not changing the computer in any way, shape, or form. It was never limited.
But that is untrue, on two levels! Firstly, at the physical level: by programming the computer you are physically changing it. You are changing the electronic charges on a multitude of molecules arranged at very specific locations in a very specific manner. This, in turn, when activated by other specifically applied charges, controls changes to yet other charges on other molecules at other very specific locations as these charges are evaluated by the laws of physics and the arrangements of various conducting materials connecting these molecules.
Secondly, at the functional level: these patterns of charges can be evaluated, by humans or other machines, to represent useful information, and hence the exact same circuit with different patterns of charges can be used as a word processor, a gaming machine, a media player, a database...
Consider the converse: without any such charges lighting up any of its circuits, the computer can do literally nothing. It is wholly limited.
I completely agree that the computer's potential utility is never limited -- except maybe by our imaginations. However, that could be said for a hunk of metal or a slab of wood too.
> By programming it, you are doing exactly what it was built to do: Be programmable.
By fashioning steel into various shapes, I'm doing exactly what steel was created to do: be malleable when very hot but very rigid at room temperatures. Yet every new shape given to steel, from rods to blades to ball bearings to I-beams to frying pans, has enabled a new use.
By combining various atoms of elements in different configurations, I'm doing exactly what they were meant to do: bond with each other. Yet every new combination could result in a brand new compound.
What something could do has no bearing on what is inventive. Inanimate things do precisely nothing until we invent a use for them. All technological development is the creative use of things doing what they are meant to do, arranged to achieve things that we want them to do.
> Enlarging the center for spatial processing in cabbies is something the brain was meant to do. ... They did nothing but exercise their normal skill in spatial reasoning, and their brain did all the actual work.
True, but their brains have become physically different from ours, optimized for spatial reasoning. You could in fact say that, with the right programming, they became special-purpose brains.
Hold on. You can't just say: Computers are implemented physically, so grounding a patent in a computer-based implementation makes it a physically-grounded patent.
If you want something physically-grounded you'd have to say: I want to implement this idea on that specific computer with these specific physical manifestations. And even if you got that patent, it would be effectively worthless. Changing what we view as trivial details of the implementation (e.g. swapping a Pentium for a Pentium Pro) would totally change the physical manifestations at the level of electrons and molecules. In other words, that would completely avoid any claims in the patent that are described at the physical level.
And the minute you retreat to considering claims at the functional level (i.e. what our collections of electrons and molecules mean) you're no longer talking about doing something physical to achieve a useful result: you're talking about combining abstract ideas with a wide range of possible physical implementations to achieve a useful result, which is something entirely different.
This is true for most physical inventions. Machines, for instance, may be claimed as a particular configuration of physical components, but the invention is not restricted to any precise composition materials used in those components unless the claims require it. Indeed, claims often don't even mention the materials being used.
For instance, you can use any comparable material or fluid to provide the necessary mechanical support or hydraulic force. Replacing, say, steel (or oil) with any other alloy (or incompressible fluid) with comparable properties will not allow you to sidestep the essence of the invention. This is analogous to switching one processor to another: it makes no difference because they are equivalent. As such, pretty much all patents (except maybe those on compounds) are abstract to some degree: they all claim a useful application with a wide range of possible physical implementations.
This is covered by the Doctrine of Equivalents, which specifically exists to prevent non-infringement through trivial workarounds. The counterbalance to this is that in examination, claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation to find as much prior art as possible. For instance, examiners are free to use equivalent elements in the prior art to read on those in the claims.
You're trying to simultaneously claim that the machine is what makes it patentable as a result of its physical operation and that the machine is an abstraction completely divorced from its physical operation. Those two things don't go together.
No, let me do a diff on your statement to highlight my meaning (diff'd words in italics) I'm claiming that:
1) ... the machine is what makes it patentable as a result of its physical operation and
2) The patent on that the machine is an abstraction largely (to the extent it concerns irrelevant specifics) divorced from its physical operation.
You see the difference now? Those two arguments reconcile because they address different things. To see what I mean, do a search on google patents for, say, "hydraulic modulator", and count how many have claims that specify the precise materials they use. Without such details, these claims are about as abstract as software claims.
The difference is that in the software case the patent claims are completely divorced from the computer's physical operation. You could be using a gravity-based computer built out of planets and stars and it would infringe all the same. Because the computer isn't required to do something, it is only required to calculate something.
Let's try this another way. You understand that it is possible to build a computer out of anything. Let's build a computer out of nothing. We want to perform a calculation without building anything whatsoever, so all we are going do is observe nature. There are any number of ways to represent a calculation. If there are three pigeons and five more arrive then you have only to observe the resulting number of pigeons to learn the sum of three and five, etc. Nature is going to do lots of calculations we don't care about the answers to, so we ignore those and only pay attention to the ones necessary according to the algorithm to be executed.
By doing this you can execute any algorithm. Doing strictly nothing but observing natural phenomena. There is no machine. Because the result you are trying to obtain is not a thing, it is a representation of information. And information can be encoded into anything and the representation is defined by the context. By changing the context -- an entirely intellectual undertaking -- you determine what information is represented by the physical state. What the machine (or the birds or the stars) do is comprehensively irrelevant, as long as things are happening you can use them to represent the execution of computer software.
> The difference is that in the software case the patent claims are completely divorced from the computer's physical operation.
I'd like you to show me a granted software patent that cannot be implemented on any computer. If you can find one, I'll show you one that should be chucked in with perpetual motion machines.
> You understand that it is possible to build a computer out of anything. Let's build a computer out of nothing. We want to perform a calculation without building anything whatsoever, so all we are going do is observe nature.
It's amazing that each of these three consecutive statements are inter-contradictory. ("build a computer out of anything" != "build a computer out of nothing"; "nothing" != "observing nature"; "build a computer out of anything" != "without building anything whatsoever".) I have no idea how to proceed.
It's amazing that each of these three consecutive statements are inter-contradictory. ("build a computer out of anything" != "build a computer out of nothing"; "nothing" != "observing nature"; "build a computer out of anything" != "without building anything whatsoever".) I have no idea how to proceed.
Oh sorry, let me clarify. I'm taking it as a given that you accept a computer can be built out of anything, i.e. that you can have electrical computers, mechanical computers, biological computers, etc. and they're all computationally equivalent and can execute all the same algorithms. The whole Church-Turing thing. My point was that you don't even have to build anything. So you can completely ignore the "build a computer out of anything" statement if you think it's contradicting anything.
And observing is not building. It seems exceedingly obvious that you can't patent squirrels gathering nuts, or leaves growing on trees, or raindrops falling from the sky, etc. But you can map desired calculations onto the occurrence of things in nature in much the same way as you map them onto electrical signals in a PC, wait until they enter the state required by a given algorithm, observe the result, and thereby execute any algorithm you can execute on a computer. The machine is a completely abstract concept. Trying to patent an algorithm because you can execute it on a computer is exactly the same thing as trying to patent a formula because you can compute it with a calculator. The calculator doesn't become a new type of machine based on which buttons you press.
> I'd like you to show me a granted software patent that cannot be implemented on any computer. If you can find one, I'll show you one that should be chucked in with perpetual motion machines.
Obviously a patent on a solution to the halting problem is fraudulent, but you have the issue reversed. It isn't that you can't use a machine to execute an algorithm, it's that you can execute an algorithm without a machine. The machine isn't a necessary component, it's just a convenient and efficient way to do it.
Without arguing this back and forth much more (I simply don't have the time to sit on hacker news all day, sadly :P):
The problem with this type of argument is that it essentially says everything is an unlimited physical process that could be patented through competent drafting, because everything always affects change at some level. Heck, even the process of observation affects things at a physical level.
Allowing things to be patented, simply because they can be described as a physical process, without anything more, is ridiculous.
This was not was anyone had in mind when they created the patent system, nor was it even allowed until recently.
That's ad absurdum. The current statute is "anything under the sun that is made by man". That is pretty broad, but even that drastically reduces what can be patented, because you'll notice the number of things that could be described by a physical process is infinite, but an infinitesimal fraction of those is made by man. An even smaller fraction of that is useful and novel. I guess it's just my opinion, but the current theory captures the intent of the patent system just fine, though the implementation can use a little tuning.
You are changing the electronic charges on a multitude of molecules arranged at very specific locations in a very specific manner.
The problem is that the physical aspects of the computer are not what infringes the patent. They exist in the prior art. A mechanical or biological computer would infringe the same as an electrical computer because the physical aspects are irrelevant to the software. You're essentially try to claim that authors should be able to patent literary works because a pen or a printing press is a physical machine that moves all manner of ink molecules around into a particular configuration.
Comments
> When you program a computer, you are not changing the computer in any way, shape, or form. It was never limited.
But that is untrue, on two levels! Firstly, at the physical level: by programming the computer you are physically changing it. You are changing the electronic charges on a multitude of molecules arranged at very specific locations in a very specific manner. This, in turn, when activated by other specifically applied charges, controls changes to yet other charges on other molecules at other very specific locations as these charges are evaluated by the laws of physics and the arrangements of various conducting materials connecting these molecules.
Secondly, at the functional level: these patterns of charges can be evaluated, by humans or other machines, to represent useful information, and hence the exact same circuit with different patterns of charges can be used as a word processor, a gaming machine, a media player, a database...
Consider the converse: without any such charges lighting up any of its circuits, the computer can do literally nothing. It is wholly limited.
I completely agree that the computer's potential utility is never limited -- except maybe by our imaginations. However, that could be said for a hunk of metal or a slab of wood too.
> By programming it, you are doing exactly what it was built to do: Be programmable.
By fashioning steel into various shapes, I'm doing exactly what steel was created to do: be malleable when very hot but very rigid at room temperatures. Yet every new shape given to steel, from rods to blades to ball bearings to I-beams to frying pans, has enabled a new use.
By combining various atoms of elements in different configurations, I'm doing exactly what they were meant to do: bond with each other. Yet every new combination could result in a brand new compound.
What something could do has no bearing on what is inventive. Inanimate things do precisely nothing until we invent a use for them. All technological development is the creative use of things doing what they are meant to do, arranged to achieve things that we want them to do.
> Enlarging the center for spatial processing in cabbies is something the brain was meant to do. ... They did nothing but exercise their normal skill in spatial reasoning, and their brain did all the actual work.
True, but their brains have become physically different from ours, optimized for spatial reasoning. You could in fact say that, with the right programming, they became special-purpose brains.
Hold on. You can't just say: Computers are implemented physically, so grounding a patent in a computer-based implementation makes it a physically-grounded patent.
If you want something physically-grounded you'd have to say: I want to implement this idea on that specific computer with these specific physical manifestations. And even if you got that patent, it would be effectively worthless. Changing what we view as trivial details of the implementation (e.g. swapping a Pentium for a Pentium Pro) would totally change the physical manifestations at the level of electrons and molecules. In other words, that would completely avoid any claims in the patent that are described at the physical level.
And the minute you retreat to considering claims at the functional level (i.e. what our collections of electrons and molecules mean) you're no longer talking about doing something physical to achieve a useful result: you're talking about combining abstract ideas with a wide range of possible physical implementations to achieve a useful result, which is something entirely different.
This is true for most physical inventions. Machines, for instance, may be claimed as a particular configuration of physical components, but the invention is not restricted to any precise composition materials used in those components unless the claims require it. Indeed, claims often don't even mention the materials being used.
For instance, you can use any comparable material or fluid to provide the necessary mechanical support or hydraulic force. Replacing, say, steel (or oil) with any other alloy (or incompressible fluid) with comparable properties will not allow you to sidestep the essence of the invention. This is analogous to switching one processor to another: it makes no difference because they are equivalent. As such, pretty much all patents (except maybe those on compounds) are abstract to some degree: they all claim a useful application with a wide range of possible physical implementations.
This is covered by the Doctrine of Equivalents, which specifically exists to prevent non-infringement through trivial workarounds. The counterbalance to this is that in examination, claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation to find as much prior art as possible. For instance, examiners are free to use equivalent elements in the prior art to read on those in the claims.
You're trying to simultaneously claim that the machine is what makes it patentable as a result of its physical operation and that the machine is an abstraction completely divorced from its physical operation. Those two things don't go together.
No, let me do a diff on your statement to highlight my meaning (diff'd words in italics) I'm claiming that:
1) ... the machine is what makes it patentable as a result of its physical operation and
2) The patent on that the machine is an abstraction largely (to the extent it concerns irrelevant specifics) divorced from its physical operation.
You see the difference now? Those two arguments reconcile because they address different things. To see what I mean, do a search on google patents for, say, "hydraulic modulator", and count how many have claims that specify the precise materials they use. Without such details, these claims are about as abstract as software claims.
The difference is that in the software case the patent claims are completely divorced from the computer's physical operation. You could be using a gravity-based computer built out of planets and stars and it would infringe all the same. Because the computer isn't required to do something, it is only required to calculate something.
Let's try this another way. You understand that it is possible to build a computer out of anything. Let's build a computer out of nothing. We want to perform a calculation without building anything whatsoever, so all we are going do is observe nature. There are any number of ways to represent a calculation. If there are three pigeons and five more arrive then you have only to observe the resulting number of pigeons to learn the sum of three and five, etc. Nature is going to do lots of calculations we don't care about the answers to, so we ignore those and only pay attention to the ones necessary according to the algorithm to be executed.
By doing this you can execute any algorithm. Doing strictly nothing but observing natural phenomena. There is no machine. Because the result you are trying to obtain is not a thing, it is a representation of information. And information can be encoded into anything and the representation is defined by the context. By changing the context -- an entirely intellectual undertaking -- you determine what information is represented by the physical state. What the machine (or the birds or the stars) do is comprehensively irrelevant, as long as things are happening you can use them to represent the execution of computer software.
> The difference is that in the software case the patent claims are completely divorced from the computer's physical operation.
I'd like you to show me a granted software patent that cannot be implemented on any computer. If you can find one, I'll show you one that should be chucked in with perpetual motion machines.
> You understand that it is possible to build a computer out of anything. Let's build a computer out of nothing. We want to perform a calculation without building anything whatsoever, so all we are going do is observe nature.
It's amazing that each of these three consecutive statements are inter-contradictory. ("build a computer out of anything" != "build a computer out of nothing"; "nothing" != "observing nature"; "build a computer out of anything" != "without building anything whatsoever".) I have no idea how to proceed.
Oh sorry, let me clarify. I'm taking it as a given that you accept a computer can be built out of anything, i.e. that you can have electrical computers, mechanical computers, biological computers, etc. and they're all computationally equivalent and can execute all the same algorithms. The whole Church-Turing thing. My point was that you don't even have to build anything. So you can completely ignore the "build a computer out of anything" statement if you think it's contradicting anything.
And observing is not building. It seems exceedingly obvious that you can't patent squirrels gathering nuts, or leaves growing on trees, or raindrops falling from the sky, etc. But you can map desired calculations onto the occurrence of things in nature in much the same way as you map them onto electrical signals in a PC, wait until they enter the state required by a given algorithm, observe the result, and thereby execute any algorithm you can execute on a computer. The machine is a completely abstract concept. Trying to patent an algorithm because you can execute it on a computer is exactly the same thing as trying to patent a formula because you can compute it with a calculator. The calculator doesn't become a new type of machine based on which buttons you press.
Obviously a patent on a solution to the halting problem is fraudulent, but you have the issue reversed. It isn't that you can't use a machine to execute an algorithm, it's that you can execute an algorithm without a machine. The machine isn't a necessary component, it's just a convenient and efficient way to do it.
Without arguing this back and forth much more (I simply don't have the time to sit on hacker news all day, sadly :P):
The problem with this type of argument is that it essentially says everything is an unlimited physical process that could be patented through competent drafting, because everything always affects change at some level. Heck, even the process of observation affects things at a physical level. Allowing things to be patented, simply because they can be described as a physical process, without anything more, is ridiculous.
This was not was anyone had in mind when they created the patent system, nor was it even allowed until recently.
That's ad absurdum. The current statute is "anything under the sun that is made by man". That is pretty broad, but even that drastically reduces what can be patented, because you'll notice the number of things that could be described by a physical process is infinite, but an infinitesimal fraction of those is made by man. An even smaller fraction of that is useful and novel. I guess it's just my opinion, but the current theory captures the intent of the patent system just fine, though the implementation can use a little tuning.
The problem is that the physical aspects of the computer are not what infringes the patent. They exist in the prior art. A mechanical or biological computer would infringe the same as an electrical computer because the physical aspects are irrelevant to the software. You're essentially try to claim that authors should be able to patent literary works because a pen or a printing press is a physical machine that moves all manner of ink molecules around into a particular configuration.