RSA and DH should not have been patentable. They are mathematical constructions. They're more beneficial when implemented in software, run on a general purpose machine, and applied to data that needs to be encrypted or signed, but they're math nevertheless.
Same with this patent. It's a patent on a process, only given form through software (which is itself math). The patent references communications ports, digital memory, output units, media players. (Claim 1). The idea is that by combining physical parts with programming, they've developed a claim on a machine in the classical sense that is patentable.
There's simply a divide between people who think this sort of reasoning and patent is perfectly reasonable, and people who don't (most of HN).
It doesn't matter how clever any of the other individual claims are. They're specifying an abstract procedure and not a thing. And the software implementation of such procedures is math. That's not supposed to be patentable.
Same with this patent. It's a patent on a process, only given form through software (which is itself math). The patent references communications ports, digital memory, output units, media players. (Claim 1). The idea is that by combining physical parts with programming, they've developed a claim on a machine in the classical sense that is patentable.
There's simply a divide between people who think this sort of reasoning and patent is perfectly reasonable, and people who don't (most of HN).
It doesn't matter how clever any of the other individual claims are. They're specifying an abstract procedure and not a thing. And the software implementation of such procedures is math. That's not supposed to be patentable.