And that is a patent-eligible application* of the abstract equation :-) You could potentially get a patent on that application but that would not preempt the equation itself. Somebody else could potentially get a patent on the use of that exact same equation to calculate the number of atoms to feed into an anti-matter space drive.
> There are multiple equivalent encodings to represent any mathematical operation...
And similarly there are potentially infinite applications of a mathematical operation. Patenting one application does not provide a monopoly over the mathematical operation itself. Now you may again try to conflate "algorithm" and "abstract mathematics" and "computation" again, but you cannot change the fact that the algorithm without its practical application is meaningless.
But even algorithms are too specific a word for most software patents. Consider a patent on a mobile app (valued at, say, $10 billion) that claims sending photos over a network that are auto-erased at the receiver after a time period expires. What is the algorithmic complexity of that?
> And that is a patent-eligible application* of the abstract equation
I think we've come to the heart of it here. The heat output of a particular reaction is a law of nature. Its calculation is a mathematical operation. The discovery of that mathematical formula E=mc^2 is non-obvious. It took centuries of scientific minds before Einstein. But given that law of nature and its mathematical description, the decision of how many steam turbines to build for a given energy output is preposterously obvious.
So the problem is they're granting patents on obvious applications of computations just because the computation itself is non-obvious.
Which makes it a simple rule to clarify things: a) Computations are not patentable and b) obvious applications of unpatentable computations are not patentable.
> And similarly there are potentially infinite applications of a mathematical operation. Patenting one application does not provide a monopoly over the mathematical operation itself.
The problem is they aren't issuing patents on applications, they're issuing patents on algorithms. It doesn't matter what application you use the software for because the software itself infringes the patent. The so-called application devolves to "run this algorithm on a computer."
> But even algorithms are too specific a word for most software patents. Consider a patent on a mobile app (valued at, say, $10 billion) that claims sending photos over a network that are auto-erased at the receiver after a time period expires. What is the algorithmic complexity of that?
That's about it. Obviously each function has its own rabbit hole to go down, but so do all mathematical operations, even the seemingly fundamental ones that programmers treat as intrinsic. You can make any mathematical operation arbitrarily complex; it's turtles all the way down. And each of the individual functions above exists in the prior art.
And that is a patent-eligible application* of the abstract equation :-) You could potentially get a patent on that application but that would not preempt the equation itself. Somebody else could potentially get a patent on the use of that exact same equation to calculate the number of atoms to feed into an anti-matter space drive.
> There are multiple equivalent encodings to represent any mathematical operation...
And similarly there are potentially infinite applications of a mathematical operation. Patenting one application does not provide a monopoly over the mathematical operation itself. Now you may again try to conflate "algorithm" and "abstract mathematics" and "computation" again, but you cannot change the fact that the algorithm without its practical application is meaningless.
But even algorithms are too specific a word for most software patents. Consider a patent on a mobile app (valued at, say, $10 billion) that claims sending photos over a network that are auto-erased at the receiver after a time period expires. What is the algorithmic complexity of that?