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Comment by lmkg | Hacker News Reader

I don't see the problem with A. If you take the software, which can't be patented, and put it into hardware, you can patent the hardware. This seems perfectly reasonable to me, and it holds pretty closely to the original idea of patents: A specialized device that performs an action is an invention, but the act being performed is not an invention. I also don't think that software that emulates the hardware is not in violation of the hardware patent.

I think B is a much bigger problem. Any computer program could be performed with pencil and paper, by getting a big file folder to simulate RAM, indexing it by numbers, and performing assembly instructions by hand with post-it notes as registers. I think the major exceptions are interfacing with other components, including UI systems and networking, and anything with a real-time component.

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> Any computer program could be performed with pencil and paper, by getting a big file folder to simulate RAM, indexing it by numbers, and performing assembly instructions by hand with post-it notes as registers

Indeed. But surely if the purpose of the algorithm is something like "find whether this combination exists in a set of millions / billions of records within a tractable time" then it cannot possibly be done by hand in a tractable/practical way -- and it will fail this test?

It's still just an algo. It's still just math.

Yes but when time-sensative information relies on speedy calculations or approach then there is inherent usefulness to the invention. A competing firm may choose to solve the issue by paper in order to avoid lawsuits for stealing the patentable invention but its impractical.

So an otherwise fundamentally unpatentable algorithm could become patentable "when used in a time-sensitive application"?

Or, an otherwise fundamentally unpatentable algorithm with today's core counts could become patentable five to ten years from now when pocket computing power is measured teraflops?

Any computer program could be performed with pencil and paper

This ruling requires that doing it my hand or purely mentally be achievable as a practical matter.

It is not practical for me to draw frame by frame the contents of an AVI file by hand, even if it were theoretically possible, etc. While this ruling does leave judgment calls and grey areas, there are also a lot of cases where it can be decided very directly whether or not it is practical to do the operation by hand.

Not having looked at the avi container format why would you say it's impractical? Certainly a 'normal' sized avi would be impractical but what about a 10x10 grid of pixels? The algorithm is unchanged, why should the size of N matter?

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