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.
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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.