[Patents] European arguing for patenting pure math formulas

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> As an antidote Aharonians pseudo-scientific posturing, what follows
> are the abstract, and one paragraph from the conclusion, of a journal
> article from a European philosopher that pure mathematical algorithms
> should be patentable, a proposal more ambitious than many made here in
> America.  It is good to see that some Europeans sticking to pure logic
> and semantics, strictly avoiding economic reasoning.

A few years ago Prof TAMAI Tetsuo of Tokyo University argued that either
should all mathematical abstraction be directly patentable, or software
should not be patentable.  What patent offices are currently doing is a
kind of halfway solution, indirectly claiming abstract logical principles
and pretending to be aiming only at a concrete physical realisation.

>From what I read below here it is not clear whether Paul B. Laat from
Groningen said anything else than Tamai.  The abstract does not suggest
that B. Laat is an economist who investigates the economics of patenting
abstract inventions.  You call him a philosopher.  As such, his concern is
mainly consistency. And, yes, it is inconsistent to patent logical
problems in relation to a physical apparatus.  The physical apparatus is
irrelevant to these problems.

When Laat says that mathematics of course belongs to the useful arts, then
I wonder what kind of things do not.  Certainly artistic schemes such as
musical composition techniques, rhetorical devices or argumentation
strategies are useful and can be formulated in mathematical terms.  The
only remaining question is then under what circumstances the patents,
which are generally available for anything, should be enforced.
According to Laat they should not be enforced against experiments or
research.  In other words they should not be enforced against people like
Laat.  Very nice to know that at least Mr. Laat himself prefers to live in
a patent-free sphere.  But isn't Laat also performing useful work that has
a commercial value, especially in a society where everything is patented?

By allowing unlimited patentability, the focus is shifted to another
question: the question of patent enforcability.  Let's say I have a patent
on the line of reasoning I exposed above.  Should I now be allowed to
exclude everybody else from using this reasoning?  Also from quoting it in
an attempt to refute it?  Or only from using it for an "industrial
application"?  Is a Disney film with a courtroom debate in which this
reasoning is used an "industrial application"?  Is the patent lawyers work
"industrial" ?  The software author's work ?

This will lead into so many arbitrary rules and inconsistencies that you
get right back to the suggestion that there needs to be a material
embodiment, produced by an industrial apparatus, and that an informational
embodiment is not acceptable, because information is equivalent in
replication speed and communicative properties to thought itself.

Demanding a mathematical proof is quite a good idea.  I'd do it the other
way around:  a patent on an invention in the realm of applied natural
science is valid until the day when someone has mathematically reduced it
to prior knowledge.

>                                       ====
>
>     Patenting mathemtical algorithms: What's the harm?  A thought
>         experiment in algebra
>     International Review of Law and Economics, v20 (2000), 187-204
>     Paul B. de Laat
>     Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
>
>     Abstract
>         The patenting of software-related inventions is on the
>     increase, especially in the United States.  Mathematical formulas
>     and algorithms, though, are still sacrosanct.  Only under special
>     conditions may algorithms qualify as statutory matter: if they
>     are not solely a mathematical exercise, but if they are somehow
>     linked with physical reality.  In this article, the best results
>     are obtained if formulas and algorithms are only protected in
>     combination with a proof that supports them.  This argument is
>     developed by conducting a thought experiment.  After describing
>     the development of algebra from the 16th century up to the 20th
>     century (in particular, the solution of the cubic equation), the
>     likely effects on the development of mathematics as a science
>     are analyzed in the context of postulating a patent regime that
>     would actually have been in force protecting mathematical inventions.
>
>     Conclusion
>         What lessons can be drawn from this thought experiment?  If
>     the results are any guide to present-day developments, they would
>     argue for a BLANKET ACCEPTANCE of mathematical formula and
>     algorithms as statutory matter for patent applications.  Let us
>     finally acknowledge that mathematics belongs not only to the
>     'liberal arts' but also the 'useful arts'.  Let us abolish the
>     'pure-number condition'; even if it is all mathematical abstraction,
>     this is acceptable.  There is no need to specify links with
>     'physical elements' or 'process steps', with 'pre-computer' or
>     'post-computer process activity'.  Even if nothing of the sort is
>     specified, the claim is acceptable.  Let us not bother that the
>     claim 'wholly preempts' the use of the algorithm; let all possible
>     commercial applications effectively become protectable.  It should
>     be stressed that noncommercial, in particular academic, use is to
>     remain possible (experimental use exception).  Actually, it is
>     the development of both (pure) science and (applied) technology
>     that the system is designed to foster.  Such unconditional acceptance,
>     however, should be carefully formulated as to what is protected
>     and what is not.  While the protection of formulas tout court is
>     acceptal in societal terms, the best results seem to be obtained
>     when algorithms and formulas are only patentable in combination
>     with a supporting proof.  That arrangements keeps avenues open for
>     inventive mathematicians to develop alternative methods of proof.
>
>                                       ====
>
> Greg Aharonian
>
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