From: "Brown, R Ken" <brownrk1@texaco.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 01:43:32 +0800
To: vin@shore.net>
Subject: RE: Rivest Patent
Message-ID: <896C7C3540C3D111AB9F00805FA78CE2013F859D@MSX11002>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Vin McLellan (or someone using his name), in an otherwise closely argued
posting,  subtly missed the point with:

[...snip...]

> I was never impressed by the absolutist argument against
> patents on math-based processes. Mr. Cordian summarized
> this POV: "The fact that the [RSA] patent couldn't be 
> successfully challenged even though its mathematical
> underpinnings were well known years prior reflects badly only
> upon the notion of mathematical patents, and hardly refutes the 
> facts in evidence." By that logic, it seems to me, a basic
> knowledge of physics could invalidate almost all patents
> for mechanical inventions.)

> [...snip...]
> 
The real point is surely  that a patent for a device invented by someone
with  a basic knowledge of physics is used to protect the *invention*
not the *knowledge*. They are not used to prevent anyone else inventing
another device using the same basic knowledge of physics. 

Even if it is perfectly just for the RSA (or any other) patent "taken as
a whole" to be used to protect  "not merely a disembodied mathematical
concept but rather a specific machine";  that *doesn''t* mean it is
neccessarily just to use the patent to protect that "disembodied
mathematical concept" when it is used in some other "specific machine".
But software patents *are* used to try to stop people employing the same
algorithms in other inventions. So, despite  the ingenuous  ruling of
the court they *are* being used to try to control "disembodied
mathematical concepts" - in other words ideas.

I have no idea if Watt had a patent on the steam governor. But I bet he
didn't try to take one out on Boyle's Law.


Ken Brown