Return of the "I know IT when I see IT" meme

It's back.
The "I know IT when I see IT" meme.
See What Will SCOTUS ‘See’ and Know, in Alice?

(See also the earlier dated, Go Ask Alice )

The Other Trap Door Drops Open: SCOTUS v. Software Patents

On December 6, 2013 (yet another day that may live in infamy), the US Supreme Court announced that it will hear "Alice". In other words: The Other Trap Door Drops Open: SCOTUS v. Software Patents

The sole question presented on Writ for Cert is this:
QUESTION PRESENTED
Whether claims to computer-implemented inventions —including claims to systems and machines, processes, and items of manufacture— are directed to patent-eligible subject matter within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 101 as interpreted by this Court?

Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International

Interestingly, the Petitioner is Alice Corp., the owner of the software patent in question. The 5-5 tie at the Federal Circuit left Alice in the limbo state of not having overturned the lower court ruling that all of its claims are patent "ineligible". Alice itself has nothing more to lose by posing the above question to SCOTUS. But what if SCOTUS says no? What if they say ALL computer-implemented invention—including claims are ineligible? It's a game of Russian Roulette where all our heads are lined up in row next to that of the trigger man's.

More recent blog results on Alice + patents

(still under construction ...)

ABC News calls it the Death of Software Patents

KILL, kill them all --good riddance software patents

Chisum calls Alice a disgrace.

Gallows Latch Door Drop Act For Independent Inventors passes

On December 5, 2013 (a day that may live in infamy), the US House of Representatives passed the Gallows LAtch Door Drop Act For Independent Inventors (GLAD DAFii) -otherwise mislabeled by them as the H.R. 3309: Goodlatte Innovation Act of 2013.

Them who love to hate patents cheered it on as a New Wave of "Innovative" Progress

Arizona Paper Questions "Innovation"[-no more] Act

(still under construction ...)

More YouTubes re Patents and Goodlatte

Recent Blogs mentioning H.R. 3309

Link to Patently-O take on Goodlatte's bill

The Innovation Act is a comprehensive bill aimed at neutralizing patent trolls.

Congress is weakening patents and threatening to kill the innovation economy

More recent blogging re HR 3309

Rise of the Chimerical PHOSITA

In this post-modern patent world,
our judicial truth seekers have cobbled together a new creature.

Behold Super-PHOSITA
(the alien cyber-robotized super humanoid who came to this planet in order to pretend to be a meek and mild artisan having "ordinary" skill in his/her specialized field of routine endeavor, but who underneath it all is actually ... Shhh. Don't tell. It's a secret.).

Super-PHOSITA is all knowing and all powerful.

Super-PHOSITA is at the same time meek, mild and ordinary.

Super-PHOSITA spends his/her time engaged in the "routine" activities of his/her "art".


Super-PHOSITA simultaneously spends his/her time ruminating about ALL publications, analogous or in his/her field and ALL possible combinations of these publications in constant look out for recognition of those permutations which are "obvious" and those few which are not.

See, 2013-10-30 12-1611 PATO RANDALL MFG. v. REA [OPINION] Precedential

"In KSR, the Supreme Court criticized a rigid approach to determining obviousness based on the disclosures of individual prior-art references, with little recourse to the knowledge, creativity, and common sense that an ordinarily skilled artisan would have brought to bear when considering combinations or modifications. KSR, 550 U.S. at 415-22. Rejecting a blinkered focus on individual documents, the Court required an analysis that reads the prior art in context, taking account of “demands known to the design community,” “the background knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art,” and “the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.” Id. at 418. This “expansive and flexible approach,” id. at 415, is consistent with our own pre-KSR decisions acknowledging that the inquiry “not only permits, but requires, consideration of common knowledge and common sense.”"

"Once it is established that a prevalent, perhaps even predominant, method of stowing a bulkhead panel was to raise it to the ceiling, it is hard [[for us post-modern judges to now ]] .. see why one of skill in the art would not have thought to modify Aquino to include this feature— doing so would allow the designer to achieve the other advantages of the Aquino assembly while using a stowage strategy that was very familiar in the industry."

If I don't Know "IT" When I see "IT", then Abstract must "IT" be

Most everyone has heard of the US Supreme Court Judge who proudly admitted that he could not define a certain something but nonetheless, he knew "IT" when he saw "IT".

Now comes a new generation of jurisprudential savants
with a similar line about Information Technologies ("IT"):
'If I don't Know "IT" When I see "IT", then Abstract must "IT" be'

First let's peek at the "IT" patent they refer to:
U.S. 7,013,284 ("Component based interface to handle tasks during claim processing ")

Figure 2A of that patent shows a "client" and a "server".
The server hosts a "database".

Here is a small block taken out of the long and complex text of the specification. As can be seen, a "database" involves "records" and "searches" and result retrival issues:

Large Result Set
When retrieving records from a database, if the search criteria is too broad, the amount of data required to be retrieved from the database and passed across the network will affect user perceived performance. Windows requesting such data will be slow to paint and searches will be slow. The ... By designing the controllers that present the database queries intelligently, the queries that are presented to the database server do not return a result set that is large enough to affect user perceived performance. ... The scrolling retrieval of a large result set is the incremental retrieval of a result subset repeated as many times as the user requests or until the entire result set is obtained. Results are retrieved by the Bounded Query Approach where the first record is determined by a where clause with calculated values.

Here is what the majority understands in the subject case of ACCENTURE GLOBAL SERVICES v. GUIDEWIRE SOFTWARE

Accenture only points to system claim 1’s inclusion of an insurance claim folder, a task library database, a server component, and a task engine in attempting to show that the system claim is meaningfully different from the ’284 patent’s method claims. However, these software components are all present in the method claims, albeit without a specific reference to those components by name. ... The insurance transaction database of method claim 8 also stores insurance claims in a structured environment and decomposes them into different levels. Thus, the claim folder only provides insignificant activity that does not meaningfully differentiate the system claim from the method claim. ... the task library database is simply a formalized collection of the rules that are present and applied to the insurance transaction information in method claim 8.

Simple is as simple talks.
(Particularly when one sits on the "bench")

The majority doesn't even know how to point to the correct figure (2A):

Further, although the patent’s Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the invention, one that includes computer hardware, the schematic’s hardware is merely composed of generic computer components that would be present in any general purpose computer.

And finally, the coupe de grace:

Indeed, in this case “[t]he system claims are [akin] to stating the abstract idea [of the method claim] . . . and adding the words: ‘apply it’ on a computer.” CLS Bank, 717 F.3d at 1291 (plurality opinion) (citing Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294). Because the system claim and method claim contain only “minor differences in terminology ... they rise or fall together.

Hunting for FOXSEs under Troll Tale Bridge

Once Upon a Time ...

a FOXSE
was asked to
write a business plan
on cleaning out the hen house.

The FOXSE (What is a FOXSE?)
proposed to eliminate the hens
and to pile on more and deeper Sh8 (PhD)
in order to hide the fact that the
real producers (the hens) were gone.

All the King's men
and all the full of Sh8 rears of horses
loved the "innovative" new idea.

If you shovel enough of the stuff
it will bury the truth.
(That the real producers are gone and
the facility is now 100% filled with PhD stuff.)

(What is a "FOXSE"?)
A FOXSE is a Full Of Xtra-Sh8 Entity
One that likes to make up Tall Troll Tales
instead of dealing with truth ...

One truth is that many a FOXSE don't
even know what a "patent" is.
(Click "More" for details)

Room for Whom More on Maroon Island?

A big tent
sits atop
Maroon Island.

It is not
only the
"econo-
mists" who
spell it with
just one "O".

Consider the legal scholar
to the right, or more
precisely, his position paper
on abolishing software patents.

He writes:
"[For] pharmaceutical and biotech companies, ... patents are clearly necessary to encourage innovation,... [The] exclusion [of "software patents"] from the patent system would [yes,] discourage some software innovations, but the saving from litigation costs over disputed patent rights would more than compensate the economy for that cost. Moreover, some software innovations would be encouraged because the inability to patent software will eliminate uncertainty over whether someone else with a similar patent will sue and do battle [with the copyists]in the courts."

Compensate "THE ECONOMY"?
What about the inventor?

Eliminate "UNCERTAINTY"?
What venture doesn't have uncertainty?

Eliminate LAWSUITS?
Maybe first we wipe out all the "judges" (and then the lawyers ala Shakespeare)?

Posner's (mis)understanding of what the patent system is about? Click more (below).

Marooned --On Science Illiteracy Island

It's tempting to take the "O" out
of "maroon" when talking about
them who are scientifically illiterate.
Often, the marooned don't know
they are missing an "O".

Consider the "cure cancer"
theory of the economist
to the right (at 4:50/16:28)






(If you don't want to watch, he says basically that increased size of the free marketplace (to the "Global" scale) is what incentivizes all manner of scientific advance: in medicine, in computers, in energy, etc. The mind just boggles.)

Failed Economists Seek Inventor Scape Goat

With ...

the sustainability
of their "dismal science"
in serious doubt, ...

the ever inventive
theorists of "econumbnics"
have embarked on a witch and troll hunt.

And at last they have found their scape goat ...
the software inventor.

Who better is there to blame for the collapse of Western Industrial Civilization then the ones who keep the complexity going with their bits and bytes?

The objective number crushers have even come up with an emotion packed pack of lies to support their Inquisition. There are no patents in the food industry? Seriously?
Give us all a popcorn-popping Ron Popeil break! This is what you call objective rationalism? Ayn Rand roasts and rotates in her graveyard rotisserie over this kind of fantasy fiction. Some of these so-called econo-numb-nuts pull convenient, but unsupportable "facts" out of their dismal derrieres.

Real Science? Get that junk out of our courts sir!

"I have been a professor of organic chemistry for nine years ... I cannot accept a Supreme Court decision that trivializes chemistry and elevates [misunderstood] biological ”information” over [the real science of] chemical structure in patent law, and that usurps the role of Congress and creates a new class of patent-ineligible subject matter by judicial fiat."

So writes one scientist in his
Chemist's View of the Supreme Court's Gene Patent Decision

(Pictured above is Galileo's Recant)

Framing Inventors out of Innovation's Box

"Innovation" is an anonymizing, impersonal "thing".

There is no human inventor behind or inside the closed box that frames the "Innovation" concept.

...
...
...
...
...
...
...
The "inventor" is not left as invisible or even marginalized outside the box, but rather vaporized (vay-pooh-rized) as if he or she never existed.
Indeed no person breathes, bleeds, sweats and strains within the totally-automated factory that we think of as being modern "innovation" per se.

Consider for example this article:
Why The Patent System Is Not Fit

How often does the word "inventor" appear?
Answer: none.
Why?

Embracing the Mental Midget's Metaphors (or How I Learned to Love the Idiocracy)

Scientists tell us
our brains work
with metaphors.

So it is no small wonder that
the US Supreme Court g(r)asped for
metaphoric help when trying to grapple
with the micro-bio-chemistry monster that
confronted them in AMP v. Myriad

Pray tell us,
is it more like strolling through the Garden of Eden and plucking a leaf off the Tree of Knowledge?
Or are we standing in the machine shop and whittling down the trunk until only cellulose in the form of a baseball bat remains?

Which rings more poetically true in the biochemistry quiz that vexes us?

Surely the gods will inform us of the correct answer by meme of the harmonically resonating spheres if only we carefully circle competing narratives and listen for the vibrations of the truer truth.
Ours is not to truly understand but rather to appear as if song-speaking from Olympian quarters.

This has always been the Herculean task of a Supreme.

Appearance is perception.
Perception is Truth.
We know an ultimate truth when we hear it.
The mortals beneath can bank on our sound logic.

If you are not in tune with the split metaphor way of thinking of English major Supremes, here is how the divide in AMP v. Myriad came into being:

The molecular composition known as "cDNA" appears to have been synthetically milled on the lathe of the life scientists and hence it is machine-shop "eligible".

However, the molecular composition known as "BRCAx" appears to have been naturally and simply plucked from Nature's Tree of Life and thus it is not a product of machine shop synthesis but rather a natural drop out from Mother Nature's loins, hence "ineligible".

Footnotes
(1) Transcript of Oral Hearings 4-15-2014
(2) The European view (not an Idiocracy?)
(3) Blood, Sweat & Isolataion? --too bad
(4) Debbie Does Disease Tech
(5) The Curious Concurrence of Justice Antonin Scalia
(6) The "Hercules Unchained" Metaphor
(7) If you patent a molecule, you sir are a "troll"
(8) Patent Docs looks back at Myriad Reactions
(9) More ... here, here, here, here, here,
(10) Recent blog posts ...

One Nation, Under Rule of Isolated Politico-Arbiters, With Idiocracy and Mediocrity for All

AMP v. Myriad Genetics (click here for Wiki page including SCOTUS decision)


In the movie, "Idiocracy", actor Luke Wilson plays the role of an Average-IQ Joe ("Joe Bauers") who is transported into a future where every American is so dumb (or brain washed by political dogma) that Joe turns out to be the smartest man in America.
How dumb are they all?

So dumb that they don't know to irrigate their crops with "isolated" (pure) water.

They all believe, due to repeated brain washing, that a drink called "Brawndo" (a spin on Gatorade) has to be used for everything (including feeding their crops) because ...

because "it's got electrolytes".

They have no clue what these electrolytes are and why they are "good". This taken on pure faith.

On June 13th 2013, America sunk deeper toward its inevitable collission with an "Idiocracy" future thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court decision on patenting of "genes".

At least one of the Justices (Scalia) admits he has no idea what an "isolated gene" is; but in his being one of the "Supremes", one of the isolated deities who rule America, he must agree that the thing he fails to understand is nonetheless not patent "eligible". Scalia wrote (in concurrence):

"[Admittedly, I don't grasp the] fine details of molecular biology. [Even though] I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief [it] suffices for me to affirm [their idiocracies], having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical [...IDENTICAL...] to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; ..."

Welcome to Idiocracy USA --we got electoral college "lytes"

At least a few sites get it on how "sketchy" the Supremes are in their science:
(1) The Supreme Court’s Sketchy Science
(2) Supreme Court bungles the science in DNA patent decision
(3) Supreme Court Gets ... Science Wrong
(4) Errors in Supreme Court Decision
(5) On "Junk Science" --Wiki
(6) The art of the metaphor (See also Metaphor & Policy in Patent Landmines-stan)

Down the Parrot Hole with CLS and Alice

In law school, students are taught to parrot
the words of "AUTHORITATIVE" sources. The blue pill.
Pith hath no zenith higher
than Blue Book perfect citation to precedential and on point squawking.

Parroting the verbiage of a drunkard who
is discovered foaming at the end of a strip mall alley
buys you no bonus points.
But ah, to quote the learned words
of a Judge Learned Hand,
that be a thing of jurisprudential beauty.

For what doth it gaineth
a legal scholar
to have original thought ...

when quotation from authoritative mouth piece
does so much better (for one's career)?

And so it is that we find ourselves
beating back against the waves
of a judicial Idiocracy emerging out of patent law decisions
such as that of CLS versus Alice

Here, each judge parrots
the gibberish of a previous judge,
and the latter repeats from yet another predecessor,
and so on ad infinitim until the nonsense
rises into the form of a living, breathing monster.

Ultimately, corporations become "people".

Machines become mere "abstractions".

Reality becomes just a draftsman's illusion.
And jurisprudential delusion substitutes in for reality.

On Software Patents and Soft Think Judges, Humpty Dumpty Comments

Howdy !

My name is Humpty Dumpty

Come sit a spell with me.

Yes, up here on the wall.
Fresh air.
Sunshine.

You know, it's an odd thing.

When the sun enlightens me,
my thoughts get slightly poached
and then scrambled beyond comprehension.
Do bright things do that for you too?
Consider my deep blue thoughts
on the issue of "Software Patents".


I've always said that
I am the master of my thoughts.
My thoughts are not masters over me.
And therefore, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."
Federal Judges operate under the same principle.
They exert command over reality, not the other way around.
The bright sunlight meanings that they project onto words illuminate us all!

Consider as example, this "brilliant" statement:
"When a claim recites patent-ineligible subject matter it is invalid under 35 U.S.C. §101"
EXAMPLE 1: What is claimed is: A support means for a judge's dairy aire
comprising:
(1) two arm rests;
(2) one buttocks cushioning means;
(3) three flimsy legs to tilt upon; and
(4) a cranial rest means upon which to prop one's heavy headed thoughts.

This claim recites the numbers, 1, 2 and 3; all ineligible.
Ergo, EXAMPLE 1 fails under 35 U.S.C. §101.
One merely needs to seek out the right words within a claim and put a leash around them so as to become their master and not let the other words (the "insignificant" words) clutter one's thoughts.

Let's see how gettin' rid of them "insignificant" words works in another similar situation.
Don't run away
and leave me a sittin' on this wall all alone,
tottering on the edge of excitement.
Hang on.
This next part will be a truly White Rabbit experience for you.
 (Click more to see the next example)

And one pill makes you 10 feet small --Go Ask Alice (v. CLS)

During a tour of the set of the popular TV show "Big Bang Theory",

a tired Judge Pauline Newman collapses into

the chair of one of their props, the H.G. Wells Time Machine.
Her eyes barely start to close when the time wheel behind her spins into motion.
Faster and faster. Crazy fast.

The music begins to blast.

With no warning, it all transforms into an image of a spinning compass needle, "directing" its aim to all manner of targets, real and abstract.

Then it deforms once more, into to a top view of a Wizard of Oz tornado.
The witch on broomstick begins her hideous screech.

With a thunk,

Perilous Pauline finds herself
dead dropped into the Land of the Mental Munchkins

"We represent the anti-software patents league,"
they began in sing song syncopation, ...
"... the anti-software patents league, ... the anti-software patents league, ...

The mayor steps forward.
"Welcome to the County of Go Ask Alice,"
he proclaims

"Here in Go Ask Alice County, all is not as it seems.
A machine is not a machine, a process is not a process.
They are mere words; "tools" if you must.
Tools in an abstract twisty worded world.
Fundamentals of a fundamentally defunded mentality.

We hold these truths to be self evident:
Claims should not be coextensive with a natural law, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea

They should be violative of "science"
and of all mode of rational ideation!
Only "nonabstract" ideas (no such thing) are allowed.
Heads you lose. Tails means patent haters win.

Don't believe me?
Go ask Alice (v. CLS)