🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Sep2.022713.24921@midway.uchicago.edu> I wrote:

    An algorithm is a mathematical object, like a number, or a vector space,
    or a theorem, or a proof.  An algorithm should be no more patentable than
    any of these other mathematical objects.
 
    What should not be allowed is any charge of patent infringement based on
    purely mathematical isomorphism.  One should have to copy some code or some
    circuitry.  Something more than the mathematics should be involved.

In article <KAP1.91Sep1235719@icarus.spc.uchicago.edu>
kap1@icarus.spc.uchicago.edu (Dietrich Kappe) replies:

> Is a "software" patent held on a specific algorithm, or on the partial
> recursive function that that algorithm defines?

This question is perhaps answerable for less than one million dollars in
legal fees, but I doubt it.

A layman's reading of the law would seem to say that algorithm patents
are not permitted.  But the Patent and Trademark Office disagrees.  So
do many patent lawyers.

Charles Geyer
Department of Statistics
University of Chicago
geyer@galton.uchicago.edu