By Dennis Crouch
The printed matter doctrine probably arises less than it should as its contours are likely integral to an understanding of the patentability of software related inventions. Like the abstract idea test the doctrine barring the patentability of certain “printed matter” is nonstatutory and judicially created.
In the recent DeStefano case, the Federal Circuit vacated a PTAB anticipation decision that was based upon the printed matter doctrine — holding that the Board erred in its understanding of the test.
Distefano claims a user-directed method of designing an electronic document.[1] The PTAB found that all of the elements of the claim were anticipated by a prior art reference except for the claimed requirement of “selecting a first element from a database including web assets authored by third party authors and web assets provided to the user interface from outside the user interface by the user.” Rather than finding that element in the prior art, the Board ruled that it should be given no patentable weight under the printed matter doctrine.
The printed matter doctrine has a long history and generally stands for the principle that no patentable weight should be given to the content of information recorded in a substrate.[2] leading case in the area continues to be 1931 Russell decision.[3] In Russell, the CCPA ruled that a “mere arrangement of printed matter on a sheet or sheets of paper, in book form or otherwise, does not constitute any new and useful art.”
The Federal Circuit has ruled on several printed matter cases — holding that the content labels providing dosage instructions, instructions for performing tests, and numbers printed on a wristband were all printed matter.[4] on the other side, the Federal Circuit ruled in Lowry that data structures themselves should not be considered printed matter if they include “information regarding physical interrelationships within a memory.”[5]
To be clear, the question of whether or not a claim element is printed matter represents just the first step in the process. Once an element is determined to be printed matter the court must take the next step of determining whether or not it should be given patentable weight. Regarding the second step, the court writes here that the “common thread amongst all of these cases is that printed matter must be matter claimed for what it communicates.” Thus, information content can be given patentable weight if it “has a functional or structural relation to the substrate.”
Coming back to DiStefano’s case, the appellate panel here ruled that the claimed “selecting a first element” step failed the threshold question and was not itself a claim directed toward printed matter. The court writes:
Although the selected web assets can and likely do communicate some information, the content of the information is not claimed. And where the information came from, its “origin,” is not part of the informational content at all. Nothing in the claim calls for origin identification to be inserted into the content of the web asset.
Thus the case was vacated and remanded back to the patent office for another go-round. I’ll note here that this is the second time the Federal Circuit has reached a decision in this case. In its 2014 unpublished decision the Federal Circuit also rejected the board’s attempt at an anticipation rejection-that time finding that the rejection was an “new ground of rejection” that required a remand.[6]
The claim itself appears fairly simple and straightforward, and one that is, in my guesstimate, likely directed to an idea already known.[7] Of course, so far the patent office has been unable to find the right references and unfortunately had to really stretch the law in this one.
On remand, it will be interesting to see whether the patent office follows its usual procedure of allowing a case after a successful appeal by the applicant, or will a new search and new rejection be submitted?
My understanding is that Mr. DiStefano continues to own the patent via his Patent Trust LLC. Patents in his portfolio include US Patent Numbers 6,331,400, 6,771,291, 7,353,199, 7,996,259, 8,335,713, 8,412,570, 8,417,567, 8,423,399, 8,442,860, 8,589,222, 8,650,076, 8,768,760, 8,781,890 and 8,996,398.[8]
= = = = =
[1] US patent Application No. 10/868,312, claim number 24.
[2] See 1 Chisum on Patents section 1.02.
[3] In re Russell, 48 F.2d 668, 669 (CCPA 1931)(indexing the names in directories and dictionaries).
[4] AstraZeneca LP v. Apotex, Inc., 633 F.3d 1042, 1048 (Fed. Cir. 2010); King Pharm., Inc. v. Eon Labs, Inc., 616 F.3d 1267, 1279 (Fed. Cir. 2010); In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1337–38 (Fed. Cir. 2004); and In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381, 1385 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
[5] In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
[6] In re DiStefano, 562 F. App’x 984, 984 (Fed. Cir. 2014).
[7] The text of the claim is as follows:
A method of designing, by a user in a user interface having first and second display regions each capable of displaying a plurality of element, an electronic document, comprising:
selecting a first element from a database including web assets authored by third party authors and web assets provided to the user interface or outside the user interface by the user;
displaying the first element in the second display region;
interactively displaying the electronic document in the first display region;
modifying the first element displayed in the second display region upon receiving a first command to modify the first element in the second display region; and
displaying the modified first element in the first display region, wherein the modified first element forms at least part of the electronic document.
[8] Thomas L DeStefano III, LinkedIn biography available at https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-l-distefano-iii-a538811.
mechanical logic
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Almost as laugh-w0rthy as calling Charles Shulz a “cartoon engineer” and using that term to shunt the comics page in the patent system.
But we know that the software patent lovers will make any argument, no matter how silly. After all, when you got nothin’, might as well just keep tossing those Hail Marys. And they’re very serious people. They know how to debug stuff! It’s sooper dooper hard.
Since Malcolm thinks that he can “expand on this all day” – his “Just to expand on one point (and remember: I could do this all day long — anybody with half a brain can do it all day long once they appreciate that ”let’s just nip the nine years and running blight in the bud and “expand” from my comment (reprinted herein) to see why the typical anti-software patent rants are a F A I L from the start.
If one approaches the situation with a mind willing to understand and realizes that IP laws are set up to protect various aspects of man’s efforts, and one is willing to understand that an effort of man may have multiple aspects, one can easily see that the efforts of man may garner different types of protection under the various different types of IP laws.
Just as Malcolm exhorts the use of “copyright,” such places software to be more than his other stances of “this is just ‘logic’,’ or “this is just math.” Anybody with half a brain knows that you cannot copyright math or logic.
Let’s also remember that software is not created as a story. Yes, it does have elements or portions that are reminiscent of stories, but also remember that software is manufactured for utilitarian purposes, while stories do not meet this aspect of the Useful Arts.
If one is inte11ectually honest – and isn’t that a true measure of what is blight and what is not? – then it becomes VERY clear who is posting nonsense and who wants the just protections afforded by the laws we already have in place – ALL of the laws for ALL of the different aspects of man’s manufactures. There is no need – and no place – for the types of obfuscations between the different IP realms, and between the Useful Arts and the non-Useful Arts. You either Belieb in the systems that afford protection or you do not.
My own post from below (repeated here for convenience):
Malcolm’s lack of understanding continues…
“Actually seems like they should just copyright the software.”
Reminder (short and declarative like):
Copyright : expression
Patent : utility
The wonderful thing about software (which is not math, not logic, not stories) is that software had aspects of both expression and utility.
anon, In defense of Malcolm, I think he would distinguish between copyright which protects expression, patents which protect utility, and intellectual property protection of any kind that protects information.
There might be a severe constitutionality issue with respect to protection of information. Name that constitutional provision.
Don’t need to Ned – as that way is into the weeds of obfuscation.
Information is just NOT being “protected” as Malcolm pretends.
And note (yet again), that my request for dialogue on point is met with the roar of silence from the anti’s…..
To wit: NO answers for any of the many critical points on the table.
Software is an article of manufacture like a hammer or fishing pole. It is made by people, stored on disks, bought, leased and sold. It can be stolen. It has some odd features since the cost of design is 99.999 percent of the cost while the cost of manufacture is the cost of making a copy of a digital file, but think everyone would agree that software certainly looks like an article of manufacture. In the old days it was executable files running on your computer and now it is a executable(-ish) web page downloaded and run by your web browser.
When claims are written about other articles of manufacture they reference, in general, the manufactured article. (i.e. Wright brothers: “[a wing with]… lateral marginal portions capable of movement to different positions…” or Morse: “…the straight port-rule, the circular -port-rule, the two signal-levers..”)
Software patents never discuss in detail the manufactured article, the literal arrangement of the bytes on the disk. How is it possible to have a claim to a manufactured article which never describes in any detail the manufactured article i.e. the bytes?
This raises the suspicion that software patents are getting an unfair advantage over non-software patents somehow.
You misunderstand the legal requirement pertaining to that which a Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art mandates.
To put it another way a software PHOSITA is able to create software simply from a knowing what the function of the software is because everything else is within their knowledge. There is no need to mention the bytes because they are well within the capability of the PHOSITA.
As a software PHOSITA myself, I have to say this is completely true.
But now every software invention sounds like an abstract idea (do this function) plus a PHOSITA.
Which confirms my suspision, software claims do get an unfair advantage: they get to claim abstract ideas as articles of manufacture because software PHOSITAs are so darn smart.
In pieces (filter)
Not only would the “bytes” be not needed – they would diminish the clarity of the claim.
Greatly.
I pointed this out to Malcolm during one of his “objective physical structure” rants, that ALL software claims could be written in multi-hundred page claims detailing the “objective physical structure” of an equivalent claim.
“I pointed this out to Malcolm during one of his “objective physical structure” rants, that ALL software claims could be written in multi-hundred page claims detailing the “objective physical structure” of an equivalent claim.”
And then we could fairly and justly administer the application of 102 and 103. Without that, 102 and 103 cannot properly function. They function only as a farce.
“And then we could fairly and justly”
And then nothing of the sort, 6 – as you completely MISSED the point of my pointing out Malcolm’s fallacy:
Such claims would run hundreds of pages and be completely UN intelligible to ANY human.
There is a reason why In The Art is a part of PHOSITA.
The farce here is yours (and Malcolm’s).
“Such claims would run hundreds of pages and be completely UN intelligible to ANY human.”
Quite alright brosef, that’s not a problem, that’s a feature. First we can probably start having computers write such claims, then we can use compooters to run the search, and have a perfect search, every time (at least for anticipation, and a good search for obviousness), once we have a good database of prior art structures built up. And, we can just use a compooter to tell if the infringer’s code is infringing.
6,
You are not following the reasoning being used by Malcolm in his canard of “all objective physical structure.”
Further, that you think that your job can be one replaced by a “compooter” is eminently funny – but I doubt that you understand why.
Finally, you rather miss the entire point about how claims ARE read from the viewpoint of PHOSITA.
You do realize of course that “code” is not what is patented, right?
IF one understands patent law, one can see right through the C R P “sniff, it’s a-a-a-abstract” nonsense.
Your susp1c10n is unwarranted as EVERY art unit obtains the same TYPE of advantage with its own PHOSITA.
A fair question. Right or wrong, here’s my personal answer.
The intended audience of a claim is the artisan skilled in the relevant art. A patent claim is a communication between technical artisans. And about software, isn’t programming largely about managing complexity. Can someone program billions of individual logic gates? Not practically. So we have all of these tools to help programmers formally express their intentions at a high level. High level code in a rich language gets translated into a less rich and less complex language or representation, and so on, down to machine instructions in the “language” of the processor, which even then are turned into even simpler operations performed by logic gates using stored individual bits. Enough people use the same tools to perform this kind of process. Artisans work in code, share their developments in code, exchange code, publish code, and so on, and most are able to speak those same “languages” and understand each others’ meanings and what any particular code will actually do when it drives some hardware.
Now just take a small step further back. Not all programmers use and know the same languages, so they use jargon, pseudocode, and plain English (or other human language) to communicate about how to make these complex programmable machines do things. This is all a claim is.
If done properly, it’s no different than chemistry jargon, or electrical engineering “language”, or mechanical description, etc. A patent claim is a communication from artisan inventor(s) to other artisans. Look at your examples. Does one claim “N molar of atoms having a proton and neutron nucleus and a single electron orbiting the nucleus”, or “hydrogen”? “Hydrogen” only describes something by convention; it’s just a symbol that happens to be widely agreed as represents something more than a word. Does one claim a “wing”, or does one claim a structure in terms of camber depth and offset, angle of attack, material, physical dimensions, and other details? The level of description should be appropriate for the level at which invention occurs. If an invention is about a particular wing profile, then details about camber be appropriate. If an invention is about a new folding-wing design, then maybe not.
A “software” claim is no different. An average programmer in the relevant art should be able to read and understand a claim, and in my experience, well-crafted claims are clear and understandable to most programmers. Most will know what a “compiler” is, or a hash table, or an n-gram, or a push-down automaton, or a queue, or an index, and so on. Most programmers will generally agree to the meaning of something like: “determining if data in memory A has a Hamming distance from memory B of less than 1/4 the size of the data in memory A”. Software patents have been written, examined, and successfully enforced often enough to prove that they can be practical and useful legal constructs (although I agree in principle with the way Alice has clamped down on sloppy, informal, over-broad, and obtuse claiming).
Every field of science and technology has fundamental building blocks and terminology for same. Computer science is no different. The problem with computer science, however, is that programming is by nature designed to let thoughts be easily translated into machine-understandable code. This can lead to pitfalls like writing claims in terms of the problem that the software is modelling and solving, rather than in terms of the things that machines do.
/., The Federal Circuit recently held that software was not an article of manufacture and just recently the Supreme Court denied certiorari.
Are you going to modify your opinions just a tad on your argument based upon this development in the law?
Ned you are way behind the times as I distinguished that case when it first came out and it simply does not hold what you and others are trying to make it hold.
Think: the difference between software and the thought of software.
Could one of those “M’s” stand for “mooch”, as in, happy to receive the benefit of software innovations but too Scroogish to give the inventor his justly earned reward? Notice how he never directly answers the fair and reasonable arguments Slashdot mentions below?
And here is what he says: “What excludes software from protection is that it’s logic for processing information, which isn’t eligible for patent protection whether it’s “on a computer” or “on a piece of paper” or “in your head.” There’s nothing at all “special” about instructions for computers. There never was.”
Because it’s “logic”! So, a mousetrap with mechanical logic to distinguish between a mouse and a cat is unpatentable because, “logic”. An assay that includes a decision-making step isn’t patentable because, hey, “logic!” Maybe people who can’t employ logic might not oughtn’t to be talking about what is or isn’t “Logic”.
And “information” is no different. What is “information”? However you want characterize it, it is _always_ something physical. Information isn’t any different than heat, or speed, or mass, etc. It’s a characteristic of matter that can be quantified, measured, manipulated, transferred from some matter to other matter, etc. In fact, there are whole areas of science evolving around information theory and information flow. For instance, information theory is being used to derive and test hypotheses of abiogenesis, various astrophysical phenomena, chemical thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and many others. Information is just another human way of understanding and modeling state and behavior of matter and the universe in general. There is no “information” that is disembodied from physical matter (even photons have relativistic mass). All matter contains “information”. The complex reconfigurable machines that perform logic and manipulate matter and energy in a way controlled by the human mind should no more be unpatentable than should chemical inventions be unpatentable merely because human brains are themselves chemicals and chemical reactions.
So characterizing something as having “logic” and “information” – as MM does – is completely irrelevant to whether that thing should be patentable. DNA can be engineered to implement logic. Many kinds of physical systems exist that can fairly be said to involve logic and information.
So what makes software any different? Nothing. An information-processing machine is still a physical machine, and it does physical things in the physical world. Fortunately, most of the world sees the logic in this and sees the wisdom in encouraging people to create new software, which is why, despite the monotonous drone of certain ideologues, properly qualified software has been, and always will be, “ownable” by the humans who thankfully employ their creativity and imagination to bring it into existence.
“earned reward?”
Entitlement*
“Entitlement?”
Quid Pro Quo*
You did see the “properly qualified”, right? So what makes a patent that satisfies the statutory requirements an “entitlement”?
HOPB,
That’s 6’s “delightful spin” on 35 USC 102, and the use therein of the word “entitled”
He thinks himself “clever” by using just that word and drawing a parallel to the OTHER use of that word in hand-out type programs.
Can you say Arse-Tr011?
MM is mostly correct on logic and information in claims. Logic and information by themselves are abstract. Information is a description of the physical world. When it is stored on a computer it can be manipulated with logic (software). When software manipulates information which is a description of the physical world it is not manipulating the world, it is manipulating an abstraction of the world which makes it an ‘abstract idea’.
However “A claim that recites an abstract
idea must include “additional features” to ensure “that the
[claim] is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize
the [abstract idea].”
Reciting logic and information in your claim means that you will need ‘additional features’ to avoid monopolizing the abstract ideas in your logic and information.
Malcolm is extensively NOT correct for the most simple of reasons:
Software is not logic.
Software is not information.
Software is not math.
Software is not “stories.”
ALL claims of ANY worth are more than just exacting picture claims and “suffer (as you would have it) from what you are calling “being abstract.”
That is what claims are. That is what they are meant to do: cover the invention.
I think you are saying that software is an article of manufacture like a hammer or fishing pole. It is made by people, stored on disks, bought, leased and sold. It can be stolen. It has some odd features since the cost of design is 99.999 percent of the cost while the cost of manufacture is the cost of making a copy of a digital file, but think everyone would agree that software certainly looks like an article of manufacture.
Almost every new piece of software does something new which has not been done before with software. Whether it is Facebook adding a sad emoji or Verizon providing speech to text for voice mails there is always something new being done by a new piece of software.
Many (on this board) have said that that is enough to get past 101: A new article of manufacture which does something never done before by a machine. And further this was Congress’ intent in 101: Stop judges from seeking for ‘the flash of invention’ in a claim. If it is new and useful then let it in and then see if it is non-obvious, not anticipated etc.
This led (until Alice) to a number of problems which no one (but Malcolm of course) anticipated. One solution is to say that novel logic and information wrapped in an article of manufacture are unpatentable.
You are confusing Malcolm’s “seeing” with his tired anti-patent rot.
You are also forgetting the basic axiom that software is equivalent to hardware and equivalent to firmware.
Hierarchy, how does software make the machine new?
Ned,
Do I have a new “machine” if I reconfigure three resistors from being in series into three resistors in parallel?
Did I have a new machine in the In re Nazomi case?
Do I have a new machine in the Grand Hall Experiment?
What do you think the patent doctrine of inherency tells you when you add a machine component called software?
Or Ned, from below:
Or even worse, Night Writer, that the patent doctrine of inherency somehow does not apply and that capabilities claimed SOMEHOW are “already in there” for machines with the exact same structure, thereby equating the machine component known as software to be something “magical” and not even present.
When directly faced with the logical fallacy of this – either directly, or through the Grand Hall experiment, or with a case law example, all of sudden the dialogue disappears and out come the drive-by monologues.
anon, if the machine has a component, the component is part of the machine. Software by definition is not part of the machine.
Absolutely wrong Ned.
Just because a part can be taken out of the machine, does NOT make it any less a component. In a (limited) analogy, are you telling me that car tires on a shelf. not yet sold or installed are not patent protectable because there is no immediate utility to the tires?
That in essence becomes your argument.
Once again, you are trying (way too hard) to slip in your own ultra vires “conditions” of some type of “permanent attachment.” for components. Such is not – and NEVER HAS BEEN – a part of patent law.
There is NO place for that in the law for you to hang your “hat” on.
Further, you avoid ALL of the items that I have put in front of you:
– the inherency doctrine (and the necessary conclusion from your view that software must be some type of magic)
– case law (In re Nazomi)
– Grand Hall experiment
– configured as a change and creation of new (the three resistors experiment).
You simply leave WAY too big of a logical gap with your desired end state.
The problem, anon, is that you never agree that the software is part of the machine.
Which, it is not, of course. It is software.
Software.
Ned,
You could not be more wrong on this.
There is no such thing as software that is NOT MEANT TO BE a machine component.
No such thing.
Show me a person who thinks otherwise and I will show you a person who does not understand what software is.
Software is manually loaded by a human being and selectively executed. It is not part of the machine.
Tell me anyone who disagrees that the whole point of software is that it not be part of the machine. That is why, for Christ’s sake programmed computers were invented in the first place.
Whether OR NOT there is “manual loading” and whether OR NOT there is “selective execution” has NOTHING to do – w h a t s o e v e r – with whether something is a component or not.
Where do you get such C R P to think that such somehow makes it not a component?
Ease of difference does NOT make it NOT a component, it just makes it a component of a different type: based on ease.
No wonder you NEVER answer ANY of the items on the table of discussion: you have no idea what you are talking about.
Now we get to anon, is the bow improved by the arrow?
Your non sequitur is a flawed analogy and meaningless to the FACT that software is equivalent to hardware – and equivalent to firmware and the FACT that all of these “wares” are components.
to wit: In re Nazomi
to wit: The Grand Hall experiment
to wit: the configuration is new – as in the three resistors in series versus the three resistors in parallel
to wit: the inherency doctrine of patent law and the necessary conclusion from your view that all improvements to the machine must somehow, magically be “already in there.”
to wit: your continued lack of inte11ectual honesty in not noting that FIRST the machine must be changed and configured with the software in order to THEN use the software.
You simply must accept the baseline axiom that software is equivalent to hardware and is equivalent to firmware.
That is a fact that is required for any inte11ectually honest discussion to proceed.
“The problem, anon, is that you never agree that the software is part of the machine.”
Your problem Ned – often explained in very easy to understand, simple, declarative sentences, is that you SKIP the part in which a machine FIRST must be changed with adding the software component, and you merely want to “use” the software “on**” the machine, without that first step.
**as if “by magic” the machine can reach outside of itself to “use” the software.
This was your F A I L way back when in the Grand Hall experiment.
This was your F A I L in the discussion of the In re Nazomi case.
This is your F A I L in that you have never even considered the inherency doctrine of patent law, and attempted to explain how a machine can have a capability without being changed.
You really just cannot have the “logic” of “use-as-a-second-step-and-ignore-the-change-to-get-there.”
This even goes back to being your F A I L in the Alappat case.
While Malcolm merely states that there is a “strong” statutory tie (and then turns and leans on – and requests judicial action to once again CHANGE the law, as opposed to any sense of coming from the direct words of Congress in the actual statute) AND Prof. Crouch leads into the article here with (and I quote): “Like the abstract idea test the doctrine barring the patentability of certain ‘printed matter’ is nonstatutory and judicially created.” [See also my very easy to follow, stated in short declarative sentences Set Theory explanation]…
The elephant in the room is why the doctrine exists in the first place.
Why take that first step? (and we do not even get to the second step as to that first step being withdrawn with the exception)
So, let me be so bold as to repost here on top a call to investigate THE pinnacle underlying fundamental philosophy for that first step and invite research/discussion on that piece of foundation:
It is simply understood in patent law that a Person Having Ordinary Skill In The Art does not – and cannot – infringe with ANYTHING that is just “in the mind.” [and let’s stress the SOLE nature here of “in the mind” and of course, this link to the Act of 1952, and the so-coined term of Vast Middle Ground that so often accompanies the typical attempts at obfuscation]
If this distinction were to be HONESTLY appreciated, the long, more than fifty year “war against patenting software,” would be over.
I invite (again) Prof. Crouch to post a story by himself or another professor on the true meaning of the mental steps doctrine [or even the esteemed Mr. Boundy or Patent Leather].
It is this selfsame doctrine – twisted through anthropomorphication and attempted to be applied to those things OUTSIDE of the mind – that is the MAIN philosophical thrust of the anti-software patent movement.
Shine a bright light on this and you will see just how much dissembling is going on by those who do not want to permit protection to the single largest type (and the type MOST accessible to those without big bucks) of innovation in the world today.
anon, the printed matter doctrine originated in Hotel Security. That case held that the following claim was non invalid because the printed matter was non statutory and the slips with markings old.. There is no “judicial exception.”
1. …. a sheet provided with separate spaces, having suitable headings, substantially as described, said headings being designatory of the several waiters to whom the several spaces on the sheet are indlvldually appropriated, in conjunction with separate slips, each so marked as to indicate the waiter using it, whereby the selling price of all the articles sold may be entered in duplicate, once upon the slip of the waiter making the sale, and once upon his allotted space upon the main sheet, substantially as
and for the purpose specified.
Except there is a big difference between a person doing something and a machine doing something. The reduction that you lot continue to attempt is ridiculous. Get that this stuff is hard. Get that judging inventions after the fact is not effective. Get that the quantum of advancement is typically very small, but leads to great things.
Get that machines are processing information that takes time, energy, and space. Just such nonsense from you lot.
And the mixing up of what people do with what machines do is just intellectually dishonest and completely ignores the character of inventions for machines. These are machines that are processing information. It is hard. Real hard. I know MM claims that even making machines that can drive is easy. If that were true, then why doesn’t he make one and make $10+ billion dollars. We all know why. Just unbelievably ridiculous nonsense from judicial activists.
Driverless car software requires 10’s of millions of dollars to develop. While developing it there will be 100’s of new inventions (in algorithm form) to solve the unique problems of driverless cars. In your words ‘It is hard’.
It would make some sense that each new algorithm would go in a new separate patent. You did hard work and so you can get a patent.
However there is a ‘top level’ algorithm which drives all the others:
Collect input from sensors
Combine input from sensors with a rules database
Determine car acceleration and direction based on sensors and rules send matching signals to steering, gas and brakes.
This algorithm was not hard work, I wrote it just now.
Was this algorithm every patentable in your view? Even in the past when there was no idea of a driverless car since basically this algorithm is the idea of a driverless car?
If no this, then what level of detail is needed in an algorithm in a claim to match up to the ‘hard’ work you mentioned above?
Slashdot: (1) What you are describing is something that we patent attorneys spent time discussing and often being tested on in law school. (2) The answer in all patent law goes to the elements of the claims and 102/103/112. If you go beyond these then you have moved into the realm of politics and not law. (I.e., Alice is politics.) (3) The answer to your question is then apply 102/103/112 at different times and the answer might be a yes at some point in the past, but obviously now it should fail under 103. The example we used in law school was a claim similar to your to a car with a motor. Maybe a claim to a basic car (e.g, two axels with a motor coupled to one of the axels) was enough structure right when 112 could be satisfied.
Slashdot Reader: the unique problems of driverless cars
What are those exactly?
This problem, for example, could well have a new and nonobvious software solution algorithm, discoverable only after some hard work. Why not allow a claim for it?
Problem #1 Skid assessment:
Develop a software module which will detect which state the car is in among the following 4 skid states:
Not skidding
About to skid
Started skidding
Skidding
You module will have access to the following sensor information:
Car direction
Car speed
Car pitch, pitch velocity and pitch acceleration
Car yaw, yaw velocity and yaw acceleration
Car roll, roll velocity and roll acceleration
Road direction
Road surface coefficient of friction
Tire type and coefficient of friction
Car weight
Wind speed
Wind direction
Wind force (calculated for you by module wf-001)
4 wheel angles relative to car
4 wheel angular velocity
4 wheel tire pressures
4 tread hub rotation response (ie how long does it take the force accelerating the axle to transfer to the tread. If the tires were rigid, it would be instantaneous but tires are rubber)
Calculation to be implemented to complete in under .3 milliseconds on a standard ARM processor, including memory allocation and cleanup.
Calculation to be implemented to complete in under .3 milliseconds on a standard ARM processor, including memory allocation and cleanup.
LOL! Functional much?
Spare me the nonsense, SD.
That’s not the claim MM, thats the outline of what needs to be invented.
“That’s not the claim MM, thats the outline of what needs to be invented.”
Good to tell MM that, but then inevitably some as s hat comes in to claim it.
Les: thats the outline of what needs to be invented.
Whew! It’s a good nobody ever files on those “outlines” of what the computer is supposed to do. The PTO might mistakenly grant them!
btw 6,
In your link is the following comment:
“What could possibly go wrong? Total surveilllance, for one thing.
Will the driverless car contain nonfree software?
It is likely to report location information to its developer.
Will the driverless car use a server for some job (any job at all)?
If so, it will have to remain in contact with the server.
If it does that using a cell phone, the phone company will record its location at all times.
Massive surveillance is incompatible with democracy so for democracy’s sake we must ensure that driverless cars are not a system of massive surveillance.
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
Internet Hall-of-Famer”
[internal links removed]
SD: Why not allow a claim for it?
Why not hand out 20 years of “exclusive rights” for each of the ten zillion other “here’s a source/type of data related to driving, process it” claims that you and I and anyone else with half a brain can spew out all day long?
What could possibly go wrong? It’s not like you’d have a bunch of grifting b0ttom-feeders rushing to the patent office to get rich off the robot car fad or anything, at the same time the PTO has no clue about how to examine the patents and the CAFC has its head collectively buried up its behind. Nope. That could never happen.
Has someone written the claim yet about the robot that comes out of the car to move the obstacle that someone put in the path of the driverless car? That would seem like an important one.
Oh my gosh! I could just gave up another opportunity to make a million bucks off a broken patent system. Maybe I should take a few classes at B0tt0m Feeder University before I lose another opportunity.
“get rich off the robot car fad ”
It likely won’t be a fad for long. It’ll be mandatory. Cars are like the no. 1 most dangerous thing people have access to today. There are people that worry constantly about gun control, but practically never about “car possession control”.
6: It likely won’t be a fad for long. It’ll be mandatory.
What will be mandatory? Driverless cars? Dream on, friend.
There are people that worry constantly about gun control, but practically never about “car possession control”.
Wow. Where in the world do people come up with absurd nonsense like this? Driving is one of the most heavily regulated activities that most people ever participate in. People lose their licenses to drive every day, probably by the thousands. Why? Because other people have worried about “car possession control” since the first cars showed up on their street.
Hi MM,
To clarify: The above is the description of some specific software development work which could be part of the work to develop a driverless car. Work, work work nothing to do with patents yet.
Now, while doing this work (over the course of many weeks) the team invents a brand new clever formula which reduces the time and memory needed to perform the calculations. The formula is specific to the field of skidding and is a great improvement (as far as time and memory and accuracy) over the current art.
In general, can the team claim its new software invention somehow? This was actual hard work and when the team publishes the formula in a claim the world will benefit from the shared knowledge.
This seems like a quintessential use for patents: publication in exchange for temporary monopoly.
You forgot to mention all the children that will be saved, Slashdot!
But I remembered and I began to weep thinking about how terrible it would be for society if we didn’t hand out a 20 year monopoly on this sooper dooper mathematical formula which is totally different from all the other mathematical formulas that were ever written and which the PTO knows sooooo much about.
Yes, I wept for about 0.4 milliseconds and then I remembered that it was just a completely made up story that you pulled out of your behind. Got another one?
This seems like a quintessential use for patents
Actually seems like they should just copyright the software.
And oh yes: definitely they should expect the Nobel prize because, hey, this was an awesome advance that deserves so much more than the piddly profits one gets from selling cars that work sooooooo much better than your competitors cars.
The formula is specific to the field of skidding
Sure it is.
LOL
Brosef you be soooo wrong on this one. A fad, lol. They already have a $1,000 suite of equipment that’s said to be a huge safety upgrade. And that’s not even all the way automated. The nanny state will never let people engage in such dangerous activity once the equipment becomes standard. Sorry bro, that’s nanny state for ya. And even if the nanny state did want to let you, the auto makers won’t be pumping out the old unsafe models but at like a trickle, just like today.
link to spectrum.ieee.org
Malcolm’s lack of understanding continues…
“Actually seems like they should just copyright the software.”
Reminder (short and declarative like):
Copyright : expression
Patent : utility
The wonderful thing about software (which is not math, not logic, not stories) is that software had aspects of both expression and utility.
Just to expand on one point (and remember: I could do this all day long — anybody with half a brain can do it all day long once they appreciate that — surprise! — information can be used to determine stuff whoopee!!!):
4 tread hub rotation response (ie how long does it take the force accelerating the axle to transfer to the tread. If the tires were rigid, it would be instantaneous but tires are rubber)
But what kind of rubber? Take that into account. Who made it? Where was it made? Where were the raw materials sourced? How do the properties of that particular tire change over time? How old is the tire? How far has it been driven? Has it ever skidded? What temperatures has the tire been exposed to and when? What is the “safety record” of the company who installed the tire? What is the “safety record” of the employee at the company who installed the tire? What is the “safety record” of the company who made the wrench used to tighten the lugs on the tire? Who made the lugs? What’s their “safety record”?
Now let’s call this data by some fancy structural-sounding term. Hmm, let’s see. How about “tire response parameter assets” (TRPAs)? Nobody’s ever described “tire response parameter assets” before so clearly it’s a new innovation. What are the differences between this and the prior art? We’ll figure that out in trial.
Great system.
Don’t like it?
Talk to your congressman.
And by the way, SD, “detecting whether you are skidding” or “what kind of skid you are in” is certainly not a problem “unique to a driverless car.”