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In article <28455@cs.yale.edu> choo-young-il@CS.Yale.Edu (young-il choo) writes:

>What exactly has Storer patented?  My understanding is that algorithms are
>not patentable, only processes.
>
>--  Young-il Choo

According to the case of Gottshalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972), algorythms
"being the mathnatical expression of [scientific truths] are not patentable."
The court based its reasoning on the fact that allowing the patenting of
a mathematical algorythm would preempt a scientific truth.

BUT, the court went out of its way in saying it was not foreclosing
on patents for computer software.

This has been regarded by legal scholars as setting as non-statutory
subject matter, for patent purposes, any mathenatical algorythm.
That leaves open the patentability of non-mathematical algorythms.

Such was the case in In Re Toma, 575 F.2d 872 (C.C.P.A. 1978), where
the court upheld a patent for a program which translated from a
source natural language ,russian, to a target natural language, english.

Elie

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