> If a sequence of conventional mathematical operations isn't patentable, then no software should enjoy patent protection.
I agree with the general idea of this piece, and I don't believe that software be patentable (or at least, software should be protected in a very narrow range of cases), but this argument doesn't hold up for me. For a person implementing a complex payroll system or a complicated user interface, the universal underlying mathematics are meaningless. Of all the time spent developing software, algorithm development is a tiny portion, much of which occurs in non-commercial environments anyway. It's comparable to the difference between the laws of physics and mechanical devices that operate as a consequence of those laws.
Yes, the decision in question even mentioned this. The Court acknowledges that in some fundamental sense all machines are just mathematics + physics. But for the purposes of patent law, the fact that all inventions are nothing more than discoveries of special cases of physics and mathematics, is not the relevant level of analysis. Rather, patent law presupposes that some novel combinations of such principles are "inventions", and the question is which ones.
All software is algorithms, and the UI system can easily be tripped up by a patent on payroll systems precisely because of the universal underlying mathematics.
Comments
I agree with the general idea of this piece, and I don't believe that software be patentable (or at least, software should be protected in a very narrow range of cases), but this argument doesn't hold up for me. For a person implementing a complex payroll system or a complicated user interface, the universal underlying mathematics are meaningless. Of all the time spent developing software, algorithm development is a tiny portion, much of which occurs in non-commercial environments anyway. It's comparable to the difference between the laws of physics and mechanical devices that operate as a consequence of those laws.
Yes, the decision in question even mentioned this. The Court acknowledges that in some fundamental sense all machines are just mathematics + physics. But for the purposes of patent law, the fact that all inventions are nothing more than discoveries of special cases of physics and mathematics, is not the relevant level of analysis. Rather, patent law presupposes that some novel combinations of such principles are "inventions", and the question is which ones.
All software is algorithms, and the UI system can easily be tripped up by a patent on payroll systems precisely because of the universal underlying mathematics.