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Xref: sserve comp.org.eff.talk:9204 misc.int-property:548 comp.unix.bsd:5819 Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!stanford.edu!agate!ucbvax!virtualnews.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@nyu.edu (D. J. Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors. Message-ID: <5329.Sep2920.40.4292@virtualnews.nyu.edu> Date: 29 Sep 92 20:40:42 GMT References: <1992Sep28.202521.28752@rwwa.COM> <29784.Sep2900.39.5392@virtualnews.nyu.edu> <1992Sep29.161440.415@rwwa.COM> Organization: IR Lines: 21 In article <1992Sep29.161440.415@rwwa.COM> witr@rwwa.com writes: > Taking RSA, if their patent (which I havn't read) attempts to claim > division of large prime numbers, or something like that, I'd agree, but > if it claims a ``machine that encrypts data'' using such an algoritym > then it seems like you are back in the Diamond v. Diehr area. Diamond v. Diehr has nothing to do with this. In Diamond v. Diehr there was an actual physical process---curing rubber---and the fact that a computer was used to control part of the process was, according to the Supreme Court, irrelevant. Now, are you saying that all the case law against patents on mathematical algorithms is useless? That any lawyer can replace ``Pythagorean theorem'' by ``Machine using pythagorean theorem'' and hence make the theorem patentable? You know, there are court cases saying specifically that you're not allowed to patent a process simply by patenting all machines using the process. Somehow I wonder why the courts would ban patents on ``laws of nature'' if you could still patent ``machine using laws of nature''! ---Dan