The Pope and the SCOTUS

After lecturing the US Congress on the realities of Climate Science, Pope Francis made a secret stop over at the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) for a frank in chambers talk.

(Translated from Italian, perhaps:)

POPE: My brethren (and sisters) of the robe.
Far for me to criticize your actions.
The Church has her own long record of shame, including what we did to Galileo.
And you no doubt have regrets over treatment of fellow men of color.
All children of God. All part of a shared and shrinking globe.

It is with this in mind, the shrinking globe and how even small actions here can create catastrophe there, that I beseech you to end this walk of shame you have embarked on with regard to "science" "natural" phenomenon and laws "of nature".
Shame by one member of the robed brotherhood is shame to us all.

I read recently some of your encyclicals on science and its fundamental building blocks.
Secret as it may be brothers, I have background in science.
I know science.
And you my brethren are no scientists.

So please stop.
Don't embarrass us any further.

Your own Constitution, your narrative of Divinely inspired creation, speaks of promoting the general welfare, of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts ... and therefore dear brethren, when you walk in the opposite path, start speaking in tongues about science and its "fundamental building blocks", about plucking leaves from trees in place of synthesizing organic molecules that hither-fore had not been produced by Nature alone without any intervention whatsoever by man, it detracts from us all. It cheapens the word. It brings our infallibility into question.

Teaching Technologists Some Discipline

It seems that some unruly technologists
In the Life Science and
Computer-related technology areas
have found the audacity
to patent their inventions!

Can you imagine?
What has this horse and buggy whip world come to!

We need "discipline" here.
Lucky for us, those strict constructionists over at the Supreme Court have constructed their own set of laws that teach the scientists the truth about the fundamental building blocks of "science".

Amicus Briefs in Support of Sequenom's Petition for Rehearing En Banc: Bioindustry Association

Look here.
"Science", the true kind,
is built with three (3) kinds
of "fundamental" building blocks.

These three "fundamental" building blocks are:
(1) "Abstract" as opposed to other kinds of ideas;
(2) Laws "of Nature" as passed down to us from Mother herself; and
(3) "Natural" as opposed to other kinds of "phenomenon".

Why is that so?
Because Clarence and his cohort of other science-guy clowns
have proclaimed so, over and over again
from the unassailable heights of
their Mount Olympus hide away.

Let us count the many times that
Clarence and club have disciplined us
about the "fundamentals".

(1) Parker v. Flook --"`A principle, in the abstract, is a fundamental truth; an original cause; a motive; these cannot be patented, as no one can claim in either of them an exclusive right.' Le Roy v. Tatham, 14 How. 156, 175 [1853]. Phenomena of nature, though just discovered, mental processes, and abstract intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are the basic tools of scientific and technological work." 409 U.S., at 67 [1978].
(2) Gottschalk v. Benson ---
(3) ...

In other words "modern" science is no different than that understood of it back in 1853 when Le Roy v. Tatham was decided. Once some ancient wise ones pontificate to the rest of the world from the unassailable heights of
their Mount Olympus hide away how true "science" works, then that's it. The starried eyes hath decisis it.

Bombastic Blonderheads (Thinking Things Through)

In his opus to posterity
Clarence the Justice Clown
(aka Justice Thomas **)
writes:

"... the concern that drives this exclusionary principle [is] one of pre-emption. ...

Laws of nature,
natural phenomena,
and abstract ideas
are the basic tools of scientific and technological work. ... [M]onopolization of those tools through the grant of a patent might tend to impede innovation more than it would tend to promote it, thereby thwarting the primary object of the patent laws--see U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 8 (Congress "shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts [stop quote here before real stuff about "inventors" shows up]". We have repeatedly emphasized this ... concern that patent law not inhibit further discovery by improperly tying up the future use of these building blocks of human ingenuity."

See Alice in BlonderLand
aka
ALICE CORPORATION PTY. LTD. v. CLS BANK INTERNATIONAL et al. 134 S.Ct. 2347 (2014)

When the black robed confab convenes up in high and mighty DC, we are all expected to genuflect in awe and admiration of all their Mount Olympus proclamations.

But what really does Clarence the Clown's poetic prose say?
Let's think for ourselves.
(.., a rarely utilized activity)

"Laws of nature
... and abstract ideas"
Isn't that just a fancy, Mount Olympus two-for-one bargain way of saying "thinking"?

After all, these so-called abstract idea thingies seem to pop up when we put on our Clarence thinking caps, sit in the corner and drool over matters deep and confounding.

And those "Law of Nature" things are they not the result of Mother ah-Natural coming down from Mt. Olympus with clay tablets clutched to her bosom and revealing to us "her" laws?
No.
They are just a fancy way of saying that we barely-haired apes think we are thinking right about how the universe is put together.

Often we get it wrong.
E= m * c^2 ?
Are we sure about this m=mass thing?
Is that how the universe really works?
(Where is the Dark Matter Mr. Einstein? And what of the missing Dark Energy?)
(And about that money stuff, does it really make the world go round?)

Historically speaking, we upright walking apes used to think that just thinking about the Universe was good enough. Maybe Clarence and friends are intellectually still stuck back there in the Dark Ages. For example, for the longest of times no one bothered to dissect a human body and see what was really going on. They just made up stuff about bad humours, bloodletting and leeches on the basis of "mere thinking" --the stuff that Clarence and crowd believe constitutes the basic building blocks of "science" and human "genius" (aka ingenuity).

My castle is not my castle because it impedes a "public right"

Claiming ownership of a castle
means you block a public right
and according to one side in
MCM Portfolio v. Hewlett-Packard
any claim that interferes with a "public right"
can be stripped away without a jury trial

My castle is your castle.
... Because a loose canon agency panel said so.

Welcome to the PTAB
Board of IP Inquisitions.
Whose castle do you wanna
us to a breaka down?

Faith based defense of patents

With apparent good intentions,
one conservative analysis group tells us:

Protect America By Preserving Patent System

Because:
"No country with centralized control, which destroys incentives for innovation or which denies rewards for individual achievement, can endure. Reagan understood that the way to preserve our freedoms was to play for a win, first with economic strength and then with military might."

And because:
"The ability to secure and protect patents allows innovators the tools they need to deliver groundbreaking innovations that change the way we live and strengthen our standing in the world. It is vital that we continue to protect a patent system that has served our nation extraordinarily well since our founding. In fact, we must never forget that the only “right” actually conferred in the body of the U.S. Constitution is the “exclusive Right … of Authors and Inventors … to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” "

The problem with self-contradicting fairy tales is that sooner or later someone spots their attempts at subterfuge. ...

Federal enforcement of patents is centralized government.

Article 1, section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution does not create a right but rather lists an enumerated power of the Congress (not of SCOTUS)

150th Anniversary, Alice in Kool Aid Land

Oh me, oh my!
They're just in time it seems.
The deep divers into
the rabbit hole
of the patent
abstractionating ilk.

To celebrate The 150th year
of Alice in Wonderland

Some had warned that
Alice v. CLS
would be the mouse that
swallows in entirety
the whole of patentability.

Silly girl
Thought you that
detecting noncellular
fetal DNA in maternal
blood was new and useful
reality?

No. It's fantasy
and abstract
until this fat cat
says otherwise.