[spacemanmatt]

Codecs, as expressions of abstract ideas (mathematics, primarily), SHOULD be ineligible for patent. Nothing physical about anything necessarily involved in the implementation of a codec is novel these days, except the algorithms, and they're patently (badump-bump) ineligible.

But judges and PTO examiners have been getting it wrong so long they don't even know what's right anymore. But the letter of the law is quite clear and the SCOTUS is starting to come down harder on the side of the law, especially since rulings like Bilski.

[Karunamon]

I'm torn on this. Let's say you cook up a codec that allows for unheard-of levels of fidelity at unheard-of small file sizes. (Think PiedPiper levels of awesome).

Generally, I'm against software patents due to their easily abused nature (to the point where I think sacrificing all software patents would be a net benefit), but I find it very hard to argue that the person who came up with that codec shouldn't be able to patent their invention. Yes, it's math at the end of the day, but it's still novel math. Putting existing things together in actually novel ways should be patentable.

[spacemanmatt]

I'm against software patents for the same reason I'm against patents on things that are mathematics. Note, I've said "are" and not "like." Calling a mathematical formula, concept, or algorithm something else (e.g. "codec" or "my life's work" or "Fraunhoffer's intellectual property" does not make it more than math, and most certainly cannot serve to reify the abstract subject matter. Nowhere in the rules of eligibility is novelty contemplated as an exception to exclusions of abstract concepts and phenomena of nature.

Novel math is still abstract, and as such, strictly ineligible. Software is the same, in that it is purely abstract. It will take time for the courts to catch up to reality, but they have trended in that direction.

Whether I agree or not that, as you say, "...novel ways should be patentable." they are, by the letter of the enacting law, ineligible.

[Karunamon]

You're talking about the law, I'm talking about the principle that underpins the law and what the law should be as a result. These are two separate topics.

[spacemanmatt]

I am also saying I agree strongly with the law's straight-forward stipulation that abstract material is ineligible. There's no justification for letting someone patent things just because they went to a lot of trouble to find or create something obscure, if it is entirely imaginary (abstract) or part of nature.

[spacemanmatt]

How would you allow for novelty without opening the door to patenting a novel new application of integer math or gravity?