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  1. #1
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    Computational Theory and Patent Law (or, why software patents shouldn't exist)

    http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?s...91111151305785

    I'm not going to paste the article as a whole because it's pretty long, but it's a fantastic read and kind of boggles the mind as to how much tomfoolery (or at the very least, ignorance) there is in the patent process where modern technology (specifically software development) is concerned.

  2. #2
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    My participation in this thread: Patentented genes? What the fuck

    =

    I am cautious of patents.

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    I honestly don't have the time right now to read that whole thing... not sure if I ever would... but patent/copyright/etc. concepts do intrigue me.

    Forgive my ignorance but is this suggesting that you shouldn't be able to patent something because it's made up of basic public domain building blocks and that software is just an arrangement? I scoff if that's the gist.

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    It's more elementary than that, it's saying that software, being nothing more than an arrangement of mathematics that has been organized by its programmers to provide a desired output, is no more patentable than mathematics itself is. You cannot patent an idea, nor can you patent that which already exists; by its very nature, all mathematical method is intrinsically present within itself, and that which we do not have record of is simply yet to be discovered (take special note here: discovered is not the same as invented).

    Most people would probably scoff, because it sounds like you're taking away someone's right to protect their ingenuity, but that isn't the case; simply that you cannot intrinsically protect something that is, for all intents and purposes, a universal constant. What you CAN do as a developer is protect the specific work you have derived (copyright).

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    Who's to say mathematics isn't just a human invention to begin with?

  6. #6

    Quote Originally Posted by Quicklet View Post
    Who's to say mathematics isn't just a human invention to begin with?
    Uh, it clearly is.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Quicklet View Post
    Who's to say mathematics isn't just a human invention to begin with?
    Quinean philosophy mostly. Platonism basically.

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    I believe there's a collective agreement that mathematics is a language... which are seldom simply invented.

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    There is! It's a tricky issue.

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    You really have to read it to get it. It sounds crazy on the surface but it makes perfect sense. I've questioned the merits of patenting software components for a long time but couldn't really put any meat behind it; it just always struck me odd, like you were patenting concepts or ideas rather than actual 'things'.

  11. #11

    Quote Originally Posted by miokomioko View Post
    I believe there's a collective agreement that mathematics is a language... which are seldom simply invented.
    In order for it to not be a constructed language, it would have to occur naturally, people clearly constructed it in the same way they would of built esperanto, with a purpose.

    In order to be a natural language, it would have to possess all the design features of one, math clearly lacks arbitrariness and semanticity, and I would argue displacement as a side effect of those lacks.

    Math isn't even a universal concept, as cultures exist without notions of it, it is clearly an invented, purposeful, culturally transmitted skill.

  12. #12

    Did somebody up in this bitch SERIOUSLY just claim that math isn't a universal concept? Seriously? Best be trolling, dude.

  13. #13
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    I meant more that it was invented but in no means by one individual, and thus it is pretty much public domain. It has been added to, subtracted from (omg math lol), altered, and adjusted by countless people over many many years. Hence, not "simply" invented.

    I am still foggy on how software patents are entirely different from any other patent which, I understood to be ideas. If I patent my shitty Slap Chop concept, doesn't that mean the design, the concept, and the overall functions of my Slap Chop are protected and not just the actual physical form from imitation? Thus people can't even legally make cheap knock-offs even if they look different?

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    I feel like this debate has been visited already for at least 10 pages of the LHC thread.

  15. #15

    Quote Originally Posted by Blubbartron View Post
    Did somebody up in this bitch SERIOUSLY just claim that math isn't a universal concept? Seriously? Best be trolling, dude.
    Prove that it is, I dare you. Cause I can point out cultures that neither understand nor have math in the modern day, let alone across human civilization.

  16. #16
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    I think the word "universal" is being considered in a context much more loose then you are insisting.

  17. #17

    I'm aware, though I was pretty clear in the scope I was using it, which is why I called him out for being dumb.

    Also, to respond to the other thing you said...
    I meant more that it was invented but in no means by one individual, and thus it is pretty much public domain. It has been added to, subtracted from (omg math lol), altered, and adjusted by countless people over many many years. Hence, not "simply" invented.
    I don't disagree with this, though I would argue that we simply lack the point of reference for it's invention(since it's clearly before recorded history), and then like anything it was modified over time by it's users.

    I simply disagreed on the basis that languages arn't "simply invented", which you clarified.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by miokomioko View Post
    I meant more that it was invented but in no means by one individual, and thus it is pretty much public domain. It has been added to, subtracted from (omg math lol), altered, and adjusted by countless people over many many years. Hence, not "simply" invented.

    I am still foggy on how software patents are entirely different from any other patent which, I understood to be ideas. If I patent my shitty Slap Chop concept, doesn't that mean the design, the concept, and the overall functions of my Slap Chop are protected and not just the actual physical form from imitation? Thus people can't even legally make cheap knock-offs even if they look different?
    First, it's "public domain" in that it exists with no ownership attached and all are free to use it, but the term is not contextually accurate. Second, mathematics has never been altered OR adjusted; people have simply discovered patterns and then proven them as empirical truths within the system and expanded the discovered/proved list of these truths over time. These things have to be understood in order for the rest of the article to even make sense.

    As for patents, you are mistaken; on the surface, it is a registration of ideas, but the limitations on what can be patented clearly demonstrates that the scope of the patent system is meant to be for ideas which are then manifested as physical objects, the purpose being giving credit to the creator and protecting the originality of said manifestations.

    Software, on the other hand, is entirely a series of mathematical proofs, strung together in Turing machine-esque patterns so as to simplify mathematical tasks; everything you do on a computer is entirely a matter of input/output. The program does not do anything; it is simply given a series of rules, awaits input, and then provides output based on those rules. The two are not comparable as a patentable idea manifested as a physical device is strictly adherent to the fact that you do NOT require any kind of external influence for the object to behave in its defined form; it does so intrinsically. Consider a telescope, for a practical example.

    Edit: Calling mathematics a language is also pretty abusive, as languages are "created"; we know the meaning of words because we are taught such, we cannot empirically prove their definition. Mathematics, on the other hand, is 100% empirically provable.

    Edit2: As for societies that "don't have math", the lack of their usage, acknowledgment, or pursuit of it does not mean it ceases to or does not exist. People didn't give two shits about gravity before Newton, and probably not for a good while afterward; that didn't mean it wasn't there and then just magically appeared when he declared it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Darus Grey View Post
    In order for it to not be a constructed language, it would have to occur naturally, people clearly constructed it in the same way they would of built esperanto, with a purpose.

    In order to be a natural language, it would have to possess all the design features of one, math clearly lacks arbitrariness and semanticity, and I would argue displacement as a side effect of those lacks.

    Math isn't even a universal concept, as cultures exist without notions of it, it is clearly an invented, purposeful, culturally transmitted skill.
    I think he means universal as in objective or universally true. The platonist argument goes that mathematical entities have mind independent existence, or that their truth is platonic in that it isn't contingent on someone or some culture understanding or believing it's true. An analogy is chess: the rules were invented by man, but the strategies to win it always existed even before analysts discovered them.

  20. #20

    Mathematics describes the way the universe works (in cooperation with physics). Regardless of whether or not we (or a given culture in modern times) were intelligent enough to discover and understand the constants of the universe is irrelevant. It was always there, waiting for someone to find it. Using guttural soundings to represent things that always existed is not "inventing."

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