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From: doc@cxsea.UUCP (Documentation )
Newsgroups: net.crypt,net.legal
Subject: Re: Re: RSA cryptographic algorithm patented?
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Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 19:34:12 EDT
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Posted: Fri Aug 30 19:34:12 1985
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> > I'm no lawyer, but from my reading of general articles on patent law,
> > an algorithm is one of the things that specifically CAN'T be patented.
> 
> I just recently found a book at the Caltech bookstore called "Software Law,
> a Primer", and bought it.  It was quite fascinating.
> 
> One of the sample cases given was some sort of control system for a chemical
> plant that used a specific equation to control something or other.  This was
> patentable.  The patent does not cover all uses of that equation - just the
> use of it control that specific part of a chemical plant doing what that
> specific chemical plant was doing ( I don't have the book with me, so I am
> being a bit vague here.  Sorry ).
> 
> Although an algorithm can't be patented ( I think ), using a specific
> algorithm to accomplish a specific task can.  This is probably what
> will make the RSA system patentable.
> 
> DISCALIMER:  I am not a lawyer, or even a particularly well read non-lawyer
> when it comes to this sort of thing. 
> 

This is one of those odd-ball legal areas that causes more trouble than it
has any right to. About 15 years ago, someone sought to patent a simple
program for converting binary numbers to decimal ones. The Supreme Court
eventually decided that this was not patentable, because the program used
iterations of a simple formula to do the conversion. The court concluded
that this "algorithm", like most mathematics, is a law of nature, which is
clearly non-patentable.

The problem has been that people tend to confuse the court's use of the word
"algorithm" with the software developer's use of the word "algorithm", which
are in fact different. You might consider a re-entrant C function to be an
"algorithm", but what does that have to do with a mathematical formula? I
suppose you could create a mathematical model of the function, but you could
also model anything else mathematically, such as a chemical process or a
mechanical device, both of which are normally patentable. But the "program
is an algorithm is a mathematical formula" idea just wouldn't go away. So
the courts and the patent office  were stuck for awhile with this notion of
"program" as synonymous with "law of nature", and said "no patent".

Well, since then, things have changed. The courts have ben convinced that
software is not a simple law of nature, anymore than any other mechanical,
electrical or chemical contrivance is. The Patent Office has routinely
accepted software patent applications since 1982, which presumably cover all
kinds of program "algorithms".

So, yes, you can patent a software algorithm, so long as it is something
more than a simple formula or equation, assuming it meets the statutory
requirements for patentability (non-obviousness, novel, etc.)