The office can be an interesting place. We tend to get into a number of interesting arguments during the week --politics, law, etc. After spending 3 days reading case law and writing an office action response, Brett read it, hated it, and wanted to argue.
I'm fine with that.
A nice heated loud discussion ensued for about 30 minutes, which really didn't resolve. He had some points to make, and so did I. I think the result is that it's not clear to me that my argument was correct or not correct. I think there are elements which are reasonable and some elements which are not.
Off course Brett thinks it's all complete bullshit, but I disagree. I made some changes he insisted on and filed it anyway.
After that Brett went out and started arguing with Dan about politics. That didn't really go anywhere productive either. I think he told Dan to go get back on the short bus, because his position was naive.
At issues is what constitutes a statutory machine under 35 USC 101? An invention must be statutory under 101..that is, it must fall into a category of a machine, a manufacture, a composition, or a process. So what is a machine? That part is not exactly clear. Obviously if you have a mechanical system with parts, you've got a machine. You can probably argue that a machine is a processing system comprising a processor, memory, and storage, operable to...do some activity.
What about this:
A document transformation system, the system comprising:
a document receiver, operable to receive a document;
a document creator, operable to transform the document by a...b...c..; and
a document printer, operable to print the transformed document.
This is less clear. Now lets say you write an application, and discuss these elements without reciting any physical implementation. No processor, no software, no hardware at all. Is it statutory? If the Examiner argues that it fails to be a 101 statutory machine, what is your argument?
