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.
Comments
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.