Red Hat Files Amicus Brief In Bilski Patent Case 219
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Red Hat has filed a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court in regards to the In Re Bilski case, which has become incredibly important due to the possibility that it could redefine the scope of patentable subject matter in a way that affects software patents. In the brief, Red Hat argues that software should not be considered patentable subject matter because it causes economic harm due to patents being granted with vague subject matter, which makes it impossible to say that a given piece of software doesn't arguably infringe upon someone's patent. They also point out Knuth's famous quote that you can't differentiate between 'numeric' and 'non-numeric' algorithms, because numbers are no different from other kinds of precise information." Read below for the submitter's thoughts on an earlier amicus brief filed in the Bilski case by Professor Lee Hollaar.
It's a pity, though, that they don't seem to directly address Professor Lee Hollaar's brief that gave a hand-waving excuse about the Curry-Howard correspondence being merely 'cosmetic' (whatever that means), even though you can turn ZFC into a program (ZFC being the axiomatic framework in which almost all math is done) and you can turn programs into math in order to verify them. Of course, this is the guy who called the successor function 'essentially nonsense', presumably because he doesn't think that mathematicians can differentiate between assignment and equality the way computer scientists can.
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:5, Insightful)
But real world development is much more like seatbelt manufacturing than number crunching. Systems must be developed, not algorithms. In fact, algorithms, for the most part, are already done. It's the combination of these disparate parts into a cohesive whole that is the cornerstone of CS in today's industry.
That sounds more like software engineering than CS to me.
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:3, Insightful)
The value of a novel idea is in the idea itself. Whether this is something that can be built into a physical object or can only be programmed into electronic memory gates, the idea is what is important. With the idea, it is possible to recreate the actual implementation many times over.
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:5, Insightful)
It is using mathematics to derive algorithms that solve our problems.
I really don't see where math has "left" CS. As far as I'm concerned, the interesting aspects of CS are the ones that are still really just "doing math using computers".
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:5, Insightful)
So, basically, you're saying "welcome to the era of patented recipes"? I'm going to start patenting any unusual combination of ingredients that I haven't already seen on iron chef and just wait...
There's a reason that there are separate laws covering copyrights, patents, trade secrets and trademarks. It's because the "milieu" *does* matter.
Is math discovered or created? (Score:3, Insightful)
Intuitively we think of patents as applying to designs which man creates, but not to designs which man discovers. That system grants engineers compensation for their work of designing and provides them an incentive to design. So you can patent a telephone but not a fish. That "discovered or created" dichotomy works until you get to math because we do not know if math is discovered or created. Is mathematics a natural phenomenon which exists and is discovered by man or is it a thing which man creates? To summarize the summary, if it is the former, and programs are math, then programs should be un-patentable.
Though a philosophically entertaining line of analysis, perhaps a better approach to evaluating software patents would be purely to consider their social utility: How much good software is created at what price with or without software patents; Does the sum social burden of patent trolls, the cost of litigation, and restrictions on using proprietary algorithms outweigh the value of additional software created a result of the patent incentive?
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:4, Insightful)
You confuse CS with software development. Software development is better suited to a business college, though it is taking a long time for that shift to occur.
CS, at least at a decent school, is a true science and engineering discipline. A typical programmer is not a scientist or engineer in the same way as the steel worker isn't a structural engineer.
The problem really is the marketplace has been slow to realize that most applications can be developed without a single computer scientist involved. However if your application is dependent upon the reliability of a unique algorithm it might make sense to consult with a CS to ensure that the algorithm is implemented correctly in software and doesn't spit out 100,000 when it should display 65,535.
Fields like robotics, electronics, aerospace, etc, is where CS's should be working, where there isn't a library free or commercial to call upon and where the ability to communicate with real engineers as a peer is a must. I have known real Computer Scientists, and I have known over trained programmers.
What CS's really need to do is stop going to work as business software programmers... I don't see many structural engineers actually welding steel, many chemists pumping gas, or many electrical engineers wiring houses. A CS degree needs to mean something... and writing code for a living when you have a CS degree only perpetuates the myth that a CS degree is required to write software.
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:5, Insightful)
In some ways, CS is still tied to mathematics. It is quantifiable and therein lies its only true link to mathematics. The development and study of algorithms is what CS is all about, and to the extent that mathematics can be used to measure these things it is useful.
Please. Actual Computer Science is absolutely still math and all about math. And Software Engineering is still math in the sense that all programs are literally -- no analogy needed -- symbolic representations of math. Not "something that can be described by math", like the motion of a clock's pendulum. They are math in the same way that "a^2 = b^2 + c ^2" is math.
And just because programmers often take an ad-hoc practical engineering approach to coming up with the right mathematical equations to do the job they want, doesn't change the fact that you're not doing anything more than coming up with a suitable symbolic description of math.
Some programmers don't appreciate this even as they do it. Not appreciating the fundamental nature of what you're doing doesn't make it go away.
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is math discovered or created? (Score:3, Insightful)
But you can patent genes. Discovered, not created.
Is it bullshit? Yes, but it has legal precedent.
Well what many people find to be so vile about gene patents is precisely what you say, that genes are discovered not created, that they violate the "discovered not created" rule. So I would say that still, there is a "discovered not created" rule for patent eligibility and gene patents are a notorious exception to that rule, rather than saying that the existence of gene patents proves that there is no such rule.
Re:Knuth Misses the Point (Score:3, Insightful)
The distinction is not between mathematical and non-mathematical algorithms, but rather between an algorithm in the abstract and an algorithm as applied to a real world problem. An algorithm, in and of itself, lacks the utility required for patentability. Once applied to solve a problem, however, the invention is no longer the algorithm per se but rather its useful application, which should be patentable.
So you are saying that the "Use of a sort algorithm in the display of user selectable menu items" should be patentable, but sorting algorithms themselves should not be?
The problem with that is that a new sorting algorithm would be novel. The application of that algorithm: not so much. Because you'll end up with "Use of bubble sort algorithm in the display of user selectable menu items", "Use of quick sort algorithm in the display of user selectable menu items", "Use of merge sort algorithm in the display of user selectable menu items". Software patents will remain as stupid as they already are.
Software engineering is the application of algorithms to solve real world problems. It is not "invention". Software engineers are inventors in the same way that architects are inventors: they aren't. Algorithms themselves are the invention, just as the products that an architect may incorporate into his buildings are the inventions. But algorithms are not and should not be patentable.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Knuth Misses the Point (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah I see. So the Pythagorean Theorem shouldn't be patentable, but using the Pythagorean Theorem to figure out how long to make the hypotenuse of a triangle with given sides you're constructing or how long the hypotenuse of an extant triangle with known side lengths is, should be.
Re:I think (Score:3, Insightful)
Hooking the same laptop up to a regular (non-digital) monitor later proved it worked fine when not connected to a digital projector.
For this reason alone I won't purchase any more Microsoft products.
And yes, the company should have tried it before. The guy whose daughter did it arranged for the video equipment last-minute, and he was very close to the family and as a result was having trouble maintaining his composure. I wasn't familiar with the problem, and in my state of mind I couldn't fix the issue. What's done is done -- imagine 100 people gathered around a laptop screen 5-6 at a time, trying to hear the tinny speakers instead of using the PA system.
Yes, that's one of many reasons I *hate* Microsoft.
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:2, Insightful)
A 20 year monopoly for finding out how to do something that most credible experts in the field think cannot be done? Why not?
Right.. that's fine. Except most software patents nowadays don't pass that test - they are more or less rubber-stamped.
Re:I think (Score:1, Insightful)
What exactly are the restrictions on what you can put into your body disallowing you from doing? Now before you say anything about not being able to do this or that to your body, you must remember that without those restrictions you wouldn't be able to do anything with your body at all.
Yeah... no. Just because you say "you must remember" doesn't make what follows true.
Go back home RIAA/MPAA shill.
Re:All patents are math (Score:4, Insightful)
Any argument loose enough to classify algorithms as mathematics
LOL. Algorithms are a subset of mathematics, no "argument" is necessary.
And the difference between software and all other patentable subject matter is that while other subject matter can be described by math, software literally describes math. That's what software is: Just another symbolic language for describing math, that happens to be conducive to being read by a machine.
Software is math in exactly the same way that "a^2 = b^2 + c^2".
A stone flying through the air can be described by the math for a parabola. Language that symbolically represents that mathematical relationship is math, whether it's machine-readable or not.