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Difference between revisions of "In re Alappat ruling by US CAFC on 29 July 1994"

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An old stereo playing a new song on a compact disc is not a new machine because the invention or discovery is merely a new song, which is nonstatutory subject matter. The “perforated rolls [of a player piano] are parts of a machine which, when duly applied and properly operated in connection with the mechanism to which they are adapted, produce musical tones in harmonious combination.” White-Smith Music Publishing Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U.S. 1, 18 (1908). Yet a player piano playing Chopin’s scales does not become a “new machine” when it spins a roll to play Brahms’ lullaby. The distinction between the piano before and after different rolls are inserted resides not in the piano’s changing quality as a “machine” but only in the changing melodies being played by the one machine. The only invention by the creator of a roll that is new because of its music is the new music. Because the patent law does not examine musical compositions to determine their relation to those that have gone before, the distinction between new and old music can never qualify for patent protection.
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<i>An old stereo playing a new song on a compact disc is not a new machine because the invention or discovery is merely a new song, which is nonstatutory subject matter. The “perforated rolls [of a player piano] are parts of a machine which, when duly applied and properly operated in connection with the mechanism to which they are adapted, produce musical tones in harmonious combination.” White-Smith Music Publishing Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U.S. 1, 18 (1908). Yet a player piano playing Chopin’s scales does not become a “new machine” when it spins a roll to play Brahms’ lullaby. The distinction between the piano before and after different rolls are inserted resides not in the piano’s changing quality as a “machine” but only in the changing melodies being played by the one machine. The only invention by the creator of a roll that is new because of its music is the new music. Because the patent law does not examine musical compositions to determine their relation to those that have gone before, the distinction between new and old music can never qualify for patent protection.</i>
 
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Revision as of 05:59, 23 June 2010

In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1543 is a 1994 of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Alappat applied for a patent, at the USPTO, on a particular method used in a particular kind of electronic instrument. The patent examiner rejected the application, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) of the USPTO then found in favour of the application and the case then went to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is known as In re Alappat. The Federal Court reversed the decision of the BPAI, denying the patent.

(Alappat is often misspelt Allapat or Alapatt.)

Excerpts

As cited by SAP in their amicus brief for the 2008 in re Bilski case:

[i]t is estimated that 85-90% of the world's technology is disclosed only in patent documents.
(Newman, J., concurring)

Of course, using this quote when discussing software is disingenuous given the massive, complete, and freely reusable information disclosed by free software such as GNU/Linux, and given that many authorities have said of software patents that the disclosure is useless.

Regarding limitations on the patentability of mathematical subject matter:

[The Court] never intended to create an overly broad, fourth category of [mathematical] subject matter excluded from 101. Rather, at the core of the Court's analysis . . . lies an attempt by the Court to explain a rather straightforward concept, namely, that certain types of mathematical subject matter, standing alone, represent nothing more than abstract ideas until reduced to some type of practical application, and thus that subject matter is not, in and of itself, entitled to patent protection.

And, unfortunately:

We have held that such programming creates a new machine, because a general purpose computer in effect becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software

Piano players with new music

Justice Newman's concurring opinion contains this succinct analogy:

An old stereo playing a new song on a compact disc is not a new machine because the invention or discovery is merely a new song, which is nonstatutory subject matter. The “perforated rolls [of a player piano] are parts of a machine which, when duly applied and properly operated in connection with the mechanism to which they are adapted, produce musical tones in harmonious combination.” White-Smith Music Publishing Co. v. Apollo Co., 209 U.S. 1, 18 (1908). Yet a player piano playing Chopin’s scales does not become a “new machine” when it spins a roll to play Brahms’ lullaby. The distinction between the piano before and after different rolls are inserted resides not in the piano’s changing quality as a “machine” but only in the changing melodies being played by the one machine. The only invention by the creator of a roll that is new because of its music is the new music. Because the patent law does not examine musical compositions to determine their relation to those that have gone before, the distinction between new and old music can never qualify for patent protection.

Related pages on ESP Wiki

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