Comment 5 words: "on a computer" doesn't matter. hurt|help (Score 2) 92
Along with the longer articles mentioned, here's a one sentence summary of the ruling:
Adding the words "on a computer" doesn't change the patentability of a supposed invention.
In Alice, someone basically tried to patent "do escrow on a computer". The court ruled that "do escrow" isn't new or patentable, and adding the words "on a computer" doesn't change anything.
Some in the Slashdot crowd may be tempted to, through wishful thinking, add meaning that the court rejected. The court did NOT rule that having that you can't patent anything that can be done on a computer. They ruled that:
(not patentable) + (on a computer) = (not patentable)
The wording of the opinion also suggests that probably:
(patentable) + (on a computer) = (patentable)
In other words:
X + (on a computer) = X
They said that whether or not it's done on a computer doesn't change the patentability, if the computer part is standard, normal computing processes on a generic computer.
That implies that a new invention which uses a computer in a new, different, and useful way may very well be patentable. So for example it leaves the door open to the idea that a method of doing calculus on the GPU instead of the CPU might have been patentable a few years ago - that was a new, inventive way of using the computer, different from how computers had been used before. Alice talks specifically about "wholly generic computer implementation" as not adding anything to the application.