The problem is that "software" and "mathematical algorithm" are two terms for the same thing.
The Knuth quotation in the article, used in support of this position, actually seems to invalidate it in my view. "Algorithms are exactly as basic to programmers as words are to writers." The key being words. The value in a piece of literature has little to do with the individual words it's made from, just as a piece of software is clearly vastly more than the sum of its algorithmic parts.
Footnote: I mean this for multiple dimensions of 'value', not simply some measure of economic worth. Information processing and transformation ability, for one.
Here's a question (not sure if it is really relevant to software patents or not): Could a writer patent a novel grammatical form? If you were to invent something like this (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/englis...), or perhaps more complex, could that be patented?
The value in a piece of literature has little to do with the individual words it's made from
Literature would be hobbled if one couldn't use certain words without fear of litigation or rent seekers suing them.
software is clearly vastly more than the sum of its algorithmic parts.
But it's all algorithmic parts, and the whole is no less an algorithm because its parts are.
Algorithm + Algorithm = Algorithm
If you want to rely on literature as your software analogy--that the composition of words/algorithms, the expression should be protected--then you're arguing not for patent protection but copyright protection, which we already have, and ridiculously is far better than what writers get. Because we don't have to share the human readable part the source code, just the compiled products. At least with patents one was supposed to disclose something of value.
Comments
The Knuth quotation in the article, used in support of this position, actually seems to invalidate it in my view. "Algorithms are exactly as basic to programmers as words are to writers." The key being words. The value in a piece of literature has little to do with the individual words it's made from, just as a piece of software is clearly vastly more than the sum of its algorithmic parts.
Footnote: I mean this for multiple dimensions of 'value', not simply some measure of economic worth. Information processing and transformation ability, for one.
Here's a question (not sure if it is really relevant to software patents or not): Could a writer patent a novel grammatical form? If you were to invent something like this (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/englis...), or perhaps more complex, could that be patented?
Literature would be hobbled if one couldn't use certain words without fear of litigation or rent seekers suing them.
But it's all algorithmic parts, and the whole is no less an algorithm because its parts are.
Algorithm + Algorithm = Algorithm
If you want to rely on literature as your software analogy--that the composition of words/algorithms, the expression should be protected--then you're arguing not for patent protection but copyright protection, which we already have, and ridiculously is far better than what writers get. Because we don't have to share the human readable part the source code, just the compiled products. At least with patents one was supposed to disclose something of value.