jig
join:2001-01-05
Hacienda Heights, CA
 ·Verizon west (ex G..
| reply to raisch
Re: Anyone else think patents are given too freely?
said by raisch  :It is very important to appreciate that patents only describe processes and not any specific realization or instantiation of them. In other words, it is not possible to patent a "thing", only the information required to make a thing or to cause a thing to happen. that's misleading. one of the prerequisites of patenting something is that you have to provide a reasonable real "thing" in which to embody the claims. for instance, you can't patent a mathematical algorithm, but you can capture the algorithm in a patent on the use of the algorithm in a defined process. but the use of the algorithm is tied to that "thing" that uses it in the way described in the patent. if someone else can use the algorithm to control or as a part of some other unrelated "thing" (though this is usually covered by a broadly written patent), then they can use it without paying a royalty.
that's not written very well, but the point is that the process has to be embodied in a realizable "thing" (has to be able to be built), and that "thing" has to be described in the patent, and the description of the "thing" limits (though not much in some cases) the market of the various claims in the patent.
--
A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law. -Ben Franklin |
raisch
Premium
join:2006-11-30
West Newton, MA
| Of course that's right but it's important to consider that the patent doesn't protect the thing; the thing is simply proof that the process described in the process can be realized, which is why it's damned difficult to patent any process related to perpetual motion.
And not to quibble but you wrote:"for instance, you can't patent a mathematical algorithm" I believe RSA would be very surprised to hear that. 
/rr |
