Comment Re:Defending software patents (Score 1) 92
A detailed description of a process in a textbook is also enough for any skilled programmer. For Alice and Bilski you can find the steps to perform the process in any finance book. Pseudocode and flow charts don't teach anything when the process is well known. Chances are finance books have charts in them as well.
Sure, and completely stipulated. The "do something well known and described in finance books" and "on a computer" stuff shouldn't be patentable... Rather, it's new processes (that are nonetheless, done on a computer):
If your talking about a brand new process then your not talking about a software patent. Your patenting a new business method.
What if it was a brand new process or business method, never been done before, on a computer. Like, say, calculating the value of some strange multidimensional factorial required to teleport yourself twenty feet to the left and six hours into the future? Certainly new, but let's assume it can be done with a TI-83. Should that be patentable?