So, mathematical theorems should be patentable? But US patent law specifically disallows that. So you would say that our law is flawed and must be expanded?

Stooping low is commenting on things you have no expertise or knowledge on. Stooping low is not realizing that you are pushing socialist propaganda. Your facts are wrong, you don't understand claims, you don't understand patent law, you don't even have a coherent definition of an invention. So yeah I am frustrated. At best you are what Marx calls a useful idiot.

No it is what people say when they don't understand railroads, but think they can dictate how they run.

Right, but you are happy to support moochers, you are happy to support socialist schemes. Your lack of understanding of property rights is outrageous. Patents are property rights and you are supporting moochers who are happy to steal the effort of inventors.

Zen, can you read? Every invention is a combination of existing elements. Your lack of expertise in patents shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. According to you only only black magic is patentable.

db: We obviously disagree with the decision of the case of Alice and CLS, but you've taken it far beyond that with personal attacks on me claiming socialist propaganda. Sorry to see you stoop that low, but that's enough of this conversation.

db: I readily accept and admit that I'm not a patent attorney nor do I understand all the intricacies of patent law nor would I ever desire to. I'm not aware of any 'socialist lies' or desire on my part to 'destroy property rights', but I'll certainly admit that I have a strong antipathy to moochers that attempt to gain market advantages utilizing government coercion, particularly as applied in this instant case.

db: Alice simply took pre-existing information (numbers and identifiers) from a previously untapped source, information that was no different than that already being inputted to thousands, if not millions of computers - calculated pluses and minuses against a running balance, and outputted settlement instructions for payments (numbers and identifiers) at the end of each day to financial actors which was exactly the same already being performed, again by thousands of computers.

Sorry, but I still fail to see what was clearly new. I can see and agree that Alice improved the integrity and efficiency of the daily settlement outcome. But if you could, please explain how that was different to any other financial accounting function gaining the improved integrity and efficiency of computerization already existing and being implemented throughout businesses and financial operations.

I heard much the same when I published my one patent. Your corporate patent attorney was pretty accurate in my case.

Chemical engineering process design always has multiple answers that are fairly close when it comes to how one defines optimal. Often the differences come down to the cost of transporting raw materials and/or products to/from the plant site. There will be a history once has to consider, but independent designs that are sufficiently superior in one or more of several criteria do often get implemented. It's almost a Roark vs. Keating thing.

Zen, you are not qualified to read the claims of a patent. You do not understand patent law, but despite your ignorance you can state as a fact that it was not an invention. Something you also have failed to define.

The fact is that Alice created a system for settling transactions that saved people billions of dollars a year, had never been done before, and which did not keep CLS from creating a computerized escrow arrangement. We don't disagree about the facts, you don't know the facts. But again you are willing to pontificate and spread socialist lies to destroy property rights.

Zen, No it is not. You clearly do not understand property rights and patents. As such your opinion about patents has absolutely no weight. But thanks for spreading socialist propaganda.

Property rights are based on creation It is the law recognizing the metaphysical fact of creation and who is the creator. Patents are clearly property rights.

A patent, by definition is a monopoly, delineated by sovereign granted title and rights, although one that is limited in time. It's purpose is to encourage the work of inventors while also recognizing the private and natural property rights of the inventor in order to provide an incentive to release the 'new' technology or process for gains to be made throughout the public, subject to recompense to the holder of the patent. I fully understand property rights within both the natural rights of the enlightenment and the concepts of Objectivism. If there's something more to understand about property rights that you feel that I don't understand, please elucidate.

Alice simply tapped into existing information flow, stored and manipulated that information in a computer, then processed that information acting as a third party intermediary to the transaction, and released payment instructions to financial actors. Although the patent application attempted to describe the abstract as a new and not pre-existing process in words not mentioning an escrow arrangement, the facts of what was described in the patent application were nothing more than an escrow arrangement. The idea of applying a computer to complex and large data processing in otherwise common and well known accounting practices was not new, in fact was common throughout business and science. There was no new algorithm created nor described in the patent application.

All I could determine from the application and the court's description of it's findings was that Alice was a common and pre-existing business model using common and pre-existing technology and common and pre-existing step sequence (algorithm) applied to a specific set of financial transactions.

Rather than competing in business relying on better performance, better integrity, better customer relationships, or better costs - Alice attempted to gain business advantage from the coercive force of the government under color of inventive property rights. That to me equals moocher.

Although we might disagree in our understanding of a specific set of facts and the outcome of a law suit, please don't utilize ad hominem attacks such as I don't understand property rights, patents, technology or other such. Maybe pointing out issues or items I might have missed or mis-understood in the application or the court decision might have more of an impact on me.

They existed, they were not discovered and they we not protected by the law.

When I went to school I learned how to analyze in depth, but nothing about design. My opinion is that design is more about learning the history of an area of technology as analysis.

There are many stories similar to that, db. My dissertation advisor really impressed on us the importance of knowing the literature. For a little while, I put in the time getting to know the literature before realizing just how wise my advisor was. It was time well spent.

When did RIGHTS become optional? What a bunch of nonsense. You ignore the whole context. Power here was to differentiate whether it was Congress' responsibility, or the Executive, or the Judicial branches responsibility. If you were not so biased this would have been obvious to you, but you are so determined to support your anti-patent BS that no amount of logic and evidence will penetrate your position.

Alice was clearly new. Meaning no one had created this combination. It had an objective result and therefore it was an invention.

That is great. I had an engineer from a defense company tell me he knew a case from the 80s where they spent at least $10 million and then he found out years later through patents that someone had already gone down this path including the problems they ran into and could have saved millions if they just had done a patent search.

Who said anything about preambles? And when did "Congress shall have the power" become "Congress must"?

Not all the founding fathers endorsed patents as natural rights. Benjamin Franklin, one of America's most prolific inventors, refused to patent his inventions on principle: http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/autobi...

Thomas Jefferson did not subscribe to the theory of patents as natural rights either: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.n... and http://www.theamericanconservative.com/j...