I'm looking over the transcript. A few thoughts:
Mr. Phillips response to Justice Breyer's inquiry about how this patent is not simply the concept of "solvency" implemented on a computer (computer says stop before account is overdrawn):
MR. PHILLIPS: And -- and look, there's no -- I'll be the first one to to confess that trying to use language to describe these things is not all that easy. But the way I think you can meaningfully look at this is to say that this is not simply something that was a fundamental truth, this is not something that simply says use a computer. It's not simply something that says maintain solvency. It -- it operates in a much more specific and concrete environment where you're dealing with a problem that's been in existence since the 1970s, a solution in the 1990s, that CLS itself acknowledges needed a solution and came forward with their own solution that looks a lot like ours.
It's hard to describe in words? Wow. That's what you have to say when standing before the Supreme Court? Who cares how long the problem existed? He goes on later:
Your abacus is great if you happen to be waiting for the pyramids to be finished or waiting for the gold to move in and out, but it doesn't help with you an abacus if you're dealing with literally thousands of transactions simultaneously going on in different countries at different points in time.
Okay, so a networked computer allows you to do more of it faster. Who'd thunk it?
He does later tell the Justices to refer to a flow chart. Well, if you can make a flow chart, how hard would it be to implement an algorithm? Heh, it turns out that Charles Duan, an attorney at Public Knowledge, took a look at one claim of one of the patents in question:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014 ... nt-trolls/The Alice patents are covered in complicated-sounding language about computers, but critics like Duan see the complex language as little more than smoke and mirrors. The bloated nature of the patents is cleverly addressed in the amicus brief filed by Public Knowledge and the Application Developers Alliance, written by Duan, which distills the "very simple, basic idea" that Alice hid "beneath a veneer of technical language." Duan took the most broadly accepted claim in Alice's batch of patents, claim 26 of US Patent No. 7,725,375, and wrote a computer program that satisfies all the instructions of the 200-word claim. It is seven lines long:
Code: Select all
10 LET account1 = 200.00
20 LET account3 = 300.00
30 INPUT "Value to exchange for transaction"; exchange
40 IF account1 < exchange THEN PRINT "Inadequate value" : STOP
50 account1 = account1 - exchange
60 account3 = account3 + exchange
70 PRINT "Instruction to 1st institution: adjust 2nd account by "; - exchange
200 words to describe that? I put the question before you in my first post; Why should you care about this? If Mr. Duan's example doesn't clarify the answer I don't know what will.
I'm looking over the transcript. A few thoughts:
Mr. Phillips response to Justice Breyer's inquiry about how this patent is not simply the concept of "solvency" implemented on a computer (computer says stop before account is overdrawn):
[quote]MR. PHILLIPS: And -- and look, there's no -- I'll be the first one to to confess that trying to use language to describe these things is not all that easy. But the way I think you can meaningfully look at this is to say that this is not simply something that was a fundamental truth, this is not something that simply says use a computer. It's not simply something that says maintain solvency. It -- it operates in a much more specific and concrete environment where you're dealing with a problem that's been in existence since the 1970s, a solution in the 1990s, that CLS itself acknowledges needed a solution and came forward with their own solution that looks a lot like ours.[/quote]
It's hard to describe in words? Wow. That's what you have to say when standing before the Supreme Court? Who cares how long the problem existed? He goes on later:
[quote]Your abacus is great if you happen to be waiting for the pyramids to be finished or waiting for the gold to move in and out, but it doesn't help with you an abacus if you're dealing with literally thousands of transactions simultaneously going on in different countries at different points in time.[/quote]
Okay, so a networked computer allows you to do more of it faster. Who'd thunk it?
He does later tell the Justices to refer to a flow chart. Well, if you can make a flow chart, how hard would it be to implement an algorithm? Heh, it turns out that Charles Duan, an attorney at Public Knowledge, took a look at one claim of one of the patents in question:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/03/how-far-will-the-supreme-court-go-to-stop-patent-trolls/
[quote]The Alice patents are covered in complicated-sounding language about computers, but critics like Duan see the complex language as little more than smoke and mirrors. The bloated nature of the patents is cleverly addressed in the amicus brief filed by Public Knowledge and the Application Developers Alliance, written by Duan, which distills the "very simple, basic idea" that Alice hid "beneath a veneer of technical language." Duan took the most broadly accepted claim in Alice's batch of patents, claim 26 of US Patent No. 7,725,375, and wrote a computer program that satisfies all the instructions of the 200-word claim. It is seven lines long:[/quote]
[code] 10 LET account1 = 200.00
20 LET account3 = 300.00
30 INPUT "Value to exchange for transaction"; exchange
40 IF account1 < exchange THEN PRINT "Inadequate value" : STOP
50 account1 = account1 - exchange
60 account3 = account3 + exchange
70 PRINT "Instruction to 1st institution: adjust 2nd account by "; - exchange[/code]
200 words to describe that? I put the question before you in my first post; Why should you care about this? If Mr. Duan's example doesn't clarify the answer I don't know what will.