From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4885 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Toby Bartels Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: patenting colimits? Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 14:11:55 -0700 Message-ID: Reply-To: Toby Bartels NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1243294531 27505 80.91.229.12 (25 May 2009 23:35:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 23:35:31 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Tue May 26 01:35:24 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1M8jhR-0005NE-OS for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Tue, 26 May 2009 01:35:21 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1M8jEW-0005aO-TN for categories-list@mta.ca; Mon, 25 May 2009 20:05:28 -0300 Content-Disposition: inline Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4885 Archived-At: Ronnie Brown wrote: >Larry Lambe passed on the following url to me for comment and I thought it would be of interest to others on the category theory list, with more expertise than I. I have not had time to study it, but on the face of it, it seems like patenting mathematics, and to be deplored intensely. Am I wrong? >http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6964037.html >[...] It is certainly to be deplored, but I'm not sure that it's anything new. "A computer-implemented method and system for" performing calculations is a common patent; there are even patents on straight-up algorithms. The U.S. patent office is far too ignorant to judge whether the idea "would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains" (35 U.S.C. 103), which would make the invention unpatentable. Certainly much of what is in the patent application is obvious, but perhaps not all of it; were these diagrams of diagrams a new idea?, or was applying them to computer system specifications a new idea?. If so, it's too bad if they're published here instead of in a journal. But actually, that doesn't seem to be what the patent is about; it spends more time explaining how to calculate colimits of graphs and repeating the rather obvious 3-option user menu. There is an interesting theorem about extensions of diagrams; I trust that it was published in one of the cited journal articles. As (at least) one of the listed inventors is a reader of the list, we might hear the other side; I'd be interested. --Toby [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]