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It all depends on the precise definition of 'displaying an electronic document' | 198 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
It all depends on the precise definition of 'displaying an electronic document'
Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, October 24 2012 @ 12:53 PM EDT
I would remind you of PolR's recent piece on 'Software is Mathematics'. I use that piece as the basis for the following comments. (I know you will understand the points, anyway, because you have a good understanding of how computers do their stuff, but PolR's piece makes for a concise argument.)

Processors do not have, in their repertoire, instructions for displaying electronic documents. They can only manipulate symbols. Software can only use the instructions of the processor. Anything over and above the processor instructions are concepts in the software writer's mind and expressed in a computer language that can be translated into processor executable instructions.

An 'electronic document file' is a computer file containing symbols that can be used in the simulation of real world physical documents that have the content represented by the symbols in the file.

The following elements of the claims are, in my view, not components of the invented machine or materials manipulated by the invented machine because there are no such instructions available to execute in the computer.

  • instructions for displaying an electronic document
  • instructions for detecting a movement of an object on or near the touch screen display
  • instructions for translating the electronic document displayed on the touch screen display
  • instructions for displaying an area beyond an edge of the electronic document

    The last of these also contains the invalid term 'an edge of the electronic document'. Computer professionals do not have a meaningful term of art for edges in electronic files. The 'edges' only apply to the simulation of a real world paper document on the display.

    Even when the file is a file of symbols that can be interpreted in some way as a 'document' (e.g. a file of ASCII symbols), 'displaying the document' is displaying an illusion of a real world document by simulating pages on which are printed the glyphs represented by the ASCII symbols. The edges are not in the document file, even if margins are specified and the real world paper size is given. Those dimensions are only relevant to a real world document.

    One other point I would make, here, relates to this part of claim 19:
    instructions for displaying an area beyond an edge of the electronic document and displaying a third portion of the electronic document, wherein the third portion is smaller than the first portion, in response to the edge of the electronic document being reached while translating the electronic document in the first direction while the object is still detected on or near the touch screen display;
    If we overlook my objections, above, then this part is a functional description of what the machine does. The other parts of the claim are simulation features usually well supported by most modern operating systems and, while not being within the general skill of the art, are available to programmers as APIs.

    We now have to consider Fonar v. GE:
    As a general rule, where software constitutes part of a best mode of carrying out an invention, description of such a best mode is satisfied by a disclosure of the functions of the software.

    This is because, normally, writing code for such software is within the skill of the art, not requiring undue experimentation, once its functions have been disclosed. It is well established that what is within the skill of the art need not be disclosed to satisfy the best mode requirement as long as that mode is described.
    Is that functional description of what the combination of hardware and software does as part of the machine invention, 'within the skill of the art, not requiring undue experimentation, once its functions have been disclosed'?

    I would suggest it is not within the skill of the art because of the challenge of writing the code that simulates the behaviour is not run of the mill stuff to be done by the journeyman software writer. If that is the case, then writing the claim in purely functional terms, as we have here, does not satisfy the general rule given in Fonar.

    ---
    Regards
    Ian Al
    Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Ceçi n'est pas un Bande de Caoutchouc
    Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 24 2012 @ 03:49 PM EDT
    > using a blue glow instead of displaying an area
    > beyond the edge of the document.

    I would suppose the area beyond the edge of a document
    does not exist, thus displaying it is an illusion...

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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