I think the right way to characterize entropy is as descriptive.

I think a part of the problem with describing what is an “idea” is that the term “idea” has specific meaning in patent speak. I would not call entropy an idea in the way that it is used in the patent world. An idea, or “mere idea” is a “wouldn’t it be great if” moment. An idea is different from conception in that when there is a conception there is an idea meeting the knowledge how to bring the idea through to fruition. For example, time travel would be an idea. An actual reduction to practice would be an H.G. Wells time machine. The conception would be the knowledge how to bridge the gap between the idea and the reduction to practice. Conception is the point when you know what you have in a concrete enough way for us to know you will get to the reduction to practice.

This may all seem like a mountain out of a mole hill, but what happens in the patentability debates is people start with the point “you cannot patent an idea,” which is 100% correct. Then they define “idea” however they like to fit to their understanding and conclude “see, X shouldn’t be patented and you agree with me.” Not so fast! Just because an idea cannot be patented doesn’t mean that software shouldn’t be patented, for example. Software is not an idea. It is the manifestation of an idea in a practical application.

This being the case, we need to keep “laws of nature” separate from “ideas” and “mathematical equations.” Entropy would likely be legally considered to be a law of nature because it is descriptive of a characteristic. It might also be considered a mathematical equation by some judges, but the fact that the equation is descriptive suggest to me it is not math. We use math to measure and understand a particularly phenomena.

-Gene

OK, we can agree to differ – so what about entropy?

Gravity is not an idea, and it is pure folly to suggest that it is an idea. Gravity is a scientific truth, and you can play all the word/philosophy games you choose with your physics buddies and that will never change, which is why I continue to remain unconvinced.

-Gene

Some dictionaries will tell you that “gravity” IS the “force of gravity”, but I think you’d find few physicists who would agree with that. Even so, what is a “force”? What is a “field” by which a force is transmitted? They are concepts or ideas that have a relationship with and facilitate our understanding of the reality that we observe.

You can observe an apple falling to the ground. You can postulate a force that attracts the apple to the ground. You can conduct experiments, measuring weights or masses and distances and times, and on the basis thereof you can write a formula that is consistent with all of your measurements and observations. And in the end you can call the force that you have postulated “gravity” or say that it is caused by something that you choose to call “gravity”. To the extent that “gravity” “exists”, it exists by definition, by virtue only of the conception of the idea of gravity as a descriptor of what you have observed and measured.

Personally, I think it’s fair to say that “gravity” is a concept or idea by which we seek to understand certain aspects of the observable behaviour of the physical universe.

And if you’re still not convinced that “gravity” is an idea, what about “entropy”. Is it different? How?

Any expression of any law of nature is an abstract idea. That expression is “true” to whatever extent it is or remains consistent with observed reality. Any patent claim pertaining to a newly formulated law of nature must define a thing or process that somehow depends on the existence of that newly formulated law, that is useful in a practical sense, and that is enabled across its full scope by the related disclosure of the law and of its practically useful applications.

Gravitational forces had been usefully applied for millennia before the laws of gravity were formulated. The formulation of those laws surely enabled the forces of gravity to be exploited for practically useful purposes in countless new ways – some obvious, some not. You could argue that the mere formulation of the laws “enabled” their obvious applications. You couldn’t argue that it “enabled” their non-obvious applications. Would you argue that a person who newly formulated a law of nature should be granted exclusive rights to all OBVIOUS practically useful applications of that formulation? Would you argue that a person who newly formulated a law of nature should be granted exclusive rights to all NON-OBVIOUS practically useful applications of that formulation?

A newly formulated law of nature is not practically useful in and of itself, and therefore should not be patent-eligible subject matter. Non-obvious practically useful applications of a newly formulated law of nature should be patentable, to the extent that they are enabled by the patent specification.

Should obvious practically useful applications of a newly formulated law of nature be patentable by the “inventor” of the newly formulated law of nature?

There’s no “correct” answer to that question. It is purely and simply a policy decision. If the statute does not answer it unequivocally, the statute should be amended to do so.

On knowing the dancer from the dance: the dancer is the continuant, the dance that he does is the occurent, and they are distinct entities, although the dance is ontologically dependent upon the dancer. All occurents are ontologically dependant upon a continuant, and not vice versa. This is how we can distinguish these sorts of entities.

A continuant lasts over a span of time, and the occurent is “the lasting, sitting, dissovling, etc. of the [statue, rock, table, etc.]” but this is distinct from the continuant upon which the occurent depends.

best,
David

As a dyed-in-the-wool realist myself, if you’re of the anti-realist/post-modernist bent, it’s likely we won’t ever agree. Two small points: I never limited myself to models, not sure where you got that. Also, my conclusion was that laws of nature are abstract entities, which I suppose we could call “Ideals” in the Platonic sense, and this is why they ought not be patentable. The courts make errors conflating these things with “ideas” per se.

Mathematical “models” are clearly not patentable,, insasmuch as they are equivalences discovered in nature. New algorithms might be patentable, since they are generally not equivalences, but rather procedures created by man. The pythagorean theorem always existed in nature, and was merely discovered by man. This is the point of Plato’s demonstration, which I repeat often with logic students. No one could invent a different relationship between the sides of a right triangle.

I see no reason to “balance” the antirealism point of view, given that it’s wrong. Sorry, I’m no post-modernist. I believe that things exist apart from our minds.

As a lawyer myself, I know that courts make errors frequently, confusing language, and inexact definitions. But they shouldn’t, and law ought to reflect the real world as much as possible.

Interesting points, and like Gene, I appreciate the debate to help sharpen my points.

best,
David

Indulgence granted, and well played, or nice dance, as the case may be.

-Gene

“An example of such a discovery [of a scientific principle] was Newton’s formulation of the law of universal gravitation, relating the force of attraction between two bodies, F, to their masses, m and m’, and the square of the distance, d, between their centers, according to the equation F=mm’/d^2. But this relationship always existed — even before Newton announced his celebrated law. Such ‘mere’ recognition of a theretofore existing phenomenon or relationship carries with it no rights to exclude others from its enjoyment. . . . Patentable subject matter must be new (novel), not merely heretofore unknown. There is a very compelling reason for this rule. The reason is founded upon the proposition that, in granting patent rights, the public must not be deprived of any rights that it theretofore freely enjoyed.”

P. Rosenberg, Patent Law Fundamentals, § 4, p. 13 (1975).”

It is true they used 101 to deliver the deathblow, but their rational follows 102/103.

Alas David, I am guilty of greasing the floor that you and Gene are waltzing upon.

This indeed appears to be a matter of semantics and metaphysics. Please indulge this additional and admittedly lengthy post. “it’s critical to get a handle on terminology and essences, and the courts have done a poor job of it too…” – We can dance the metaphysical ontology some more, if you wish, but perhaps you should realize that the dance floor is named Law, not Science, so when you criticize for mistaken terminology and bring your science terminology into the law arena it is you who may be wearing clown shoes on the dance floor.

“Gravity is a law of nature, the law of Gravitation is the expression of an idea — a model explaining that law of nature. Relativity is a law of nature. Einstein’s depiction of relativity is a model explaining the law of nature. Automobiles are artifacts, created only by the intention of human beings, conceived entirely by minds, and not pre-existing in nature.”

If you mean to say that “inventables” are not raw materials that can be found in nature and must be either raw materials made by man or nature’s raw materials transformed into something that is not found in nature, then we may agree. If you leave it at ‘models’, then you run into the philosophical dilemma that a model, no matter how closely approximating to nature it may be, is NOT nature. You pointed to the link http://www.experiment-resources.com/truth-and-theory.html , which has a link to another article about realism and antirealism – you might say that my view on this runs closer to the antirealism school – it’s funny that I used the example of “Specifically as the Newtonian Law of Gravity does not hold true for certain scales of size, the theory itself is not nature and is not already a part of nature.” prior to reading your link which uses the exact same example.

“Ideas only exist in minds, and they are not prone to IP protection, only their expressions are, and only when conceived of by human beings and not already a part of nature (thus the new, non-obvious, and useful requirements of patent).”

Your dilemma that I was trying to subtlety point out is that this logic of your initial post is not complete. Models of gravity and relativity by Newton and Einstein are expressions, conceived of by human beings, and CANNOT be a part of nature. They are merely models approximating nature. As your linked article, and articles linked to that article, explains, these models are NOT nature. So to use your initial logic as stated: not nature, conceived of by human beings and expressions of ideas – hmmm, sounds like these are prone to IP protection

“Mathematical formulas which express equivalences in nature are models depicting laws of nature. Those laws of nature pre-exist minds, and the mathematical formulas depicting those laws of nature are not inventions but rather attempts to explain fundamental truths of nature…”

“Newtonian laws and the laws of relativity are also not inventions of minds…”

“inventions” of minds may be too confusing given the use of the word invention, if you like, try “creation” of minds. Or do you think that Newton and Einstein deserve no credit for formulating the expressions that bear their names (OK, outside of the contention that Newton stole the idea from Hooke).

Taking the antirealism school of thought, or even the realism school of thought, or even your own words, the models are ATTEMPTED DEPICTIONS. The models themselves are NOT nature. While it may be true that the actual natural laws may pre-exist minds (I know some existentialist philosophers who would debate that point), the mathematical formulations themselves do not pre-exist minds and simply CANNOT pre-exist minds as they are indeed the products of minds.

“Now, these truths of nature are distinct from the methods by which we can discover truths of nature, which may be patentable because they may involve new technologies, algorithms, processes, etc. that help us to conduct empirical studies of nature. “

It can be posited that truths of nature are distinct from methods, but that the models and the math created by man are not distinct from “methods”, that the models and the math ARE themselves methods and tools created by man to help conduct studies of nature. Here is the logic that trips you – you acquiesce to the patentability of methods without realizing that the mathematical models are themselves methods. In this manner you still say No, but your logic still says Yes. Mind you, I am NOT saying these are patentable, and I should correct my earlier statement about you saying that they are patentable. Your initial logic indicated “prone to IP protection” which may not be the same as “patentable”.

“Devising models that depict natural laws are matters of discovery, not invention. The theory is an analogue to the natural law, if it’s a good theory, in which case it is a depiction of something that already exists, and thus not new.”

ah, now you add that it must be a ‘good’ theory. But what about disproven theories and paradigm shifts? How do you balance the antirealism point of view?

Further, regarding the supposedly confused ontology and your link to http://whoownsyou-drkoepsell.blogspot.com/2009/05/some-basic-ontology-of-ideas-artifacts.html , you set some definitions absent from your initial post:
“Artifacts: These are a form of expression, specifically objects that endure — what we might call continuants.
Other expressions: Occurents, like a dance, a speech (if not recorded), and other expressions of ideas that do not last after the event.
So far, the law of intellectual property has only been applied to a particular kind of continuant, …”

Now, we could debate your definitions from law, science or philosophical angles and get into a discussion of artifacts versus occurents (occur over a span of time ) and the nature of time – as time is relative and artifacts also occur over a span of time. We could also debate your division between “patentable idea’ and “found in nature” as an arbitrary (and false) distinction – take for example, the idea of flight: there are things in nature that fly and yet the expression of flight is definitely patentable. By the way, occurents such as performing arts may also be prone to IP protection, so you may need to redefine your distinctions to take that into account as the law of intellectual property reaches there too. We could continue to debate on these and other semantics, but I think you may get the point about which dance floor you are two-stepping on.

Finally, stepping off the dance floor and away from the semantics, I agree with Gene when he states “I don’t think that is the case at all. While laws of nature are hardly new, it has nothing to do with the fact that they are not new. Laws of nature have been determined to be unpatentable under section 101, which does not relate to “newness.” as well as when Gene states “Invention starts with a discover and what is protected is application, not the discovery itself.”

Thank you for your indulgence. And the dance.

I enjoy the discussion. Maybe we can continue it when you post on abstract ideas and conceptions.

best,
David