|
Authored by: nick_battle on Saturday, February 02 2013 @ 11:43 AM EST |
But doesn't it depend what the description/example of the algorithm in the
patent is trying to do?
If I write a bubble sort patent, and include an example written in C, and I want
to claim infringement by someone else who has written their code in Perl, I am
left with the "informal" problem of proving that the Perl is the same
as the C (or worse, the same as the English description).
If I had specified the sort algorithm formally, then it would be possible to
prove formally that the Perl was an infringing implementation of the specified
algorithm (or not!). I might include a C implementation in the patent as an
*example* of course, and there I would say a working example is obviously a lot
better.
So I would say if you want an informal example in a patent, for clarity (or to
copy directly), then a program is best; if you want to specify precisely what
the algorithm is that you are patenting in order to identify copies without a
messy legal battle about the mapping between programming languages, then a
formal specification is best as this captures what you are patenting - the
logic, not the code.
Or am I missing something? :)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|