Canada Courts, Patent Office Warns Against Trying To Patent Mathematics 215
davecb writes "The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has recently published two notices for patent examiners relating to patent interpretation, and in particular computer-related/business method type patents saying: 'for example, what appears on its face to be a claim for an "art" or a "process" may, on a proper construction, be a claim for a mathematical formula and therefore not patentable subject matter.'"
Re:Matter of time (Score:5, Interesting)
It's the other way round. Mathematics is just an abstract representation of the real world. No amount of physics, maths or theories of "everything" will cure cancer or invent the next IPhone. Patents are about (or at least should be about) the inventive step - i.e. the coming together of several elements to create something new.
Re:Cool! All we have to do is create code to math. (Score:5, Interesting)
printf("Hello World!\n");
Convince me where the math is in that.
Prove that it is not math. Start by showing that it is not represented by 1s and 0s at the hardware level. Then prove that it is not all NAND gates that do the manipulating and that all the hardware operations are not mathematical. Bonus: Prove that add, subtract, divide, multiply, mov are not mathematical functions.
Re:Cool! All we have to do is create code to math. (Score:5, Interesting)
Good, they shouldn't be.
Many things patentable, shouldn't be, many things unpatentable shouldn't be, but are.
Patents should expire 4 years after acceptance to promote innovation. If you haven't dug gold out of it in 4 years, it's time to shit or get off the pot. There's a world out there who can innovate. What have you done for us today?