Letter to the Patent Office From Professor Donald Knuth (1994)

As Knuth implies, this is a fool's errand, and this is the reason why courts should not award any patents protecting an algorithm at all.

As a thought exercise, is "A website that advertises a series of random beers from a known collection of user preferred beers" mathematical?

No? Then, is a random shuffling algorithm mathematical based on a vector of inputs mathematical? No? How about the following code?

void sort(int *arr, int len) for (int i = 0; i < len; ++i) { r = rand % len; swap(arr + i, arr + r); }

Not mathematical? Then what about a function "s" described as s(x) = f(g(h(x))), where x is a vector, h multiplies the vector by the identity matrix, and g multiplies its input against the set of all possible matrices such that all elements are 1 or 0 and there can be at most 1 non-zero element for a given row and column, and f chooses a random input from its set and returns its multiplication against a vector of 1s?

These are, at their core, all algorithms, and they are all mathematical. The courts have already established that the "Internet of things" is not patentable, which is why the first example transfers to the second. This is admittedly a poor example, but for a better understanding read Knuth's "Fundamental Algorithms."

Bill Gates in the early 90's [1]. Pretty similar line of thought, no? Unfortunately, now Bill Gates is a defender of Intellectual Ventures [2] and Microsoft extracts billions of dollars every year from open source software by asserting "infringement" on such software patents that should've never been granted, and doing the very thing that Gates was condemning when Microsoft wasn't in the abuser's position.

[1] - http://www.networkworld.com/article/2230877/microsoft-subnet...

[2] - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/bill-gates-still-...

> To a computer scientist, this makes no sense, because every algorithm is as mathematical as anything could be.

But there is no reason for definitions in the law to mirror precisely the definitions of computer science. After all, a patentable drug formula is, to a chemist, just a description of a chemical system under the laws of chemistry. A patentable mechanical invention is, to a physicist, just a description of a physical system under the laws of physics.

The law very often makes distinctions between things that cannot be distinguished by their fundamental nature, on the basis of external policy reasons. The difference between murder and self-defense cannot be described by fundamental differences in the physical mechanics of the two actions. Now, that is not to say that software should be patentable, but rather that "all algorithms are math" is an irrelevant reason for making software not patentable. It's an interesting philosophical and theoretical point (not to mention, obviously true), but has no relation to the purposes of patent law.

I do have one remark, Knuth refers to algorithms as fundamental building blocks, but as every programmer knows - we like to abstract upon abstractions making solutions higher level, so when does something stop being a building block and where does something start to be a patentable product.

The two major ways you can be out-marketed are a) adding your product as a feature to a much larger, already successful product, and b) spending more money on marketing, adoption, and general product/market fit. (There is the possibility that you just get lucky on virality, like what happened with Flappy Birds, but that's extremely unlikely).

"The little guy" is helped tremendously by patents, because he now has tremendous leverage against against a company that does one of these two things with his idea. They are forced to license the invention.

This, in turn, falls apart when the invention is "obvious" or in some way "inevitable". This hurts both the big guy and the little guy - although arguably, it hurts the little guy even more than the possibility of theft, since the little guy is not spending his days reading patents.

I don't understand this. How would patents have prevented him thinking about it ? I don't understand this logic.

I totally agree that software patents are abusive and most of the time not useful to society, but why say it would prevent people from inventing stuff ?

Even if someone steals your invention, if it's a real breakthrough it will be used, don't you think ?

* emigration? No. U.S.A still has smart minds immigrating

* stifle innovation? No. Innovation still happens, progress is being made

* mathematical/non-mathematical and numerical/non-numerical distinction - Not clearly elaborated

* Limp analogy to to previous edicts (designating PI as 3 and Earth as flat) are category errors

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We now see that the end result of the current patent set up is that it allows those with questionable morals and/or deep pockets to extract rent from the stuff of thought rather than land or housing as was the traditional way.

Is this right or wrong? Only if rent-seeking is right or wrong. The patent system is working exactly as it should be.

Note: I actually think that some algorithms which are of significant invention/discovery could/should be patented (I mean, why not?) but what happens is that many many many stupid algorithms get patented and also large corporations can defend turf by sewing patents in virtual land that they have traversed. Because the systems surrounding patents is equally broken, patents are broken. The original idea to reward inventors for ideas is still valid. We throw the baby out with the bath-water if we do not acknowledge this.

What say you? :)