Friday, January 27, 2017

You have proven nothing, I haz "alternative facts"

One anti-inventor gadfly writes with respect to patent "eligibility" and the "information" arts:

Nobody has “proven” anything ……… smart people are all over the map on this clearly political question.

This gadfly appears to believe that everyone can have their own “alternative facts” in their privately owned “alternative universes” and that's OK because such is politics as usual and politics trumps reality.

However,
FACT: US patent law is encoded in Article 1, section 8, clause 8 of the US Constitution and in Title 35 of the US Code (e.g. 35 USC 100, 101, 102, 103 and 112 being the most important sections with respect to definitions and examination of patent applications in the USPTO)

FACT: 35 USC 101 is a statute passed by the US Congress. It states, “Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title [meaning 35 USC].”

FACT: The US Constitution provides for separation of powers and vests the legislative power exclusively in the hands of Congress, not in the Supreme Court.

What was being discussed in the associated blog was the grabbing of illegitimate power by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), by the lower federal courts (CAFC and DCs) and by the US Patent Office (USPTO) to write their own laws, the so-called Alice/Mayo framework laws that transform a solid MRI “machine” into an abstraction.

What was being discussed was that they (SCOTUS and minions thereof) have also taken over the fundamentals of science by conjuring up these so-called “fundamental building blocks of ingenuity.

Yes in one sense this is politics because it involves the grabbing of power. But it is also law in that it raises the question of the Constitutionality of this power grab.

And it is also a question of how “smart” these people are because they are destroying the American patent system, tearing down the fabric of America itself (obliterating separation of powers) and they are too full of themselves to understand that this is what they are doing. Forgive them (not) for they know not what they do.

1 comment:

Inventor Son of An Inventor said...

Spot on analysis. Looking at that "other" blog, it is apparent that there, sentiment usually substitutes (for those so besotted) for substance and facts. It is possible to view the world through such heavily colored lenses that all other colors are obscured. This is a good analogy for the overly zealous antagonism shown towards inventors there; as well as the apparent blind obsession that only software matters in the world of technology.