Naturally, you were expecting to attack me with Capo Ferra, with your orthogonal claim coupled to a caricature of a political argument to which I must adhere if I question you. Fitting, considering the rocky terrain... if your enemy hasn't studied his Agrippa. Which I have! Your point is orthogonal to mine, and questioning your dubious interpretation of this patent doesn't mean I support software patents at all.

And while I appreciate your transparency, we are discussing an actual software patent; we are not here to provide a soapbox to rail about software patents from.

I have no idea what you're talking about. You claimed that someone who doesn't build the "processing unit coupled with" etc. is facially non-infringing. This is false as a basic matter of patent law. I pointed out two independent reasons why what you said is false. That's as far from "orthogonal" as you can get. Furthermore, I haven't attempted to interpret this patent, dubiously or otherwise, or caricature any political arguments, and I haven't made any assertions about how you feel about software patents.

Misspelled references to 17th-century fencers, while amusing, are merely a distraction.

So, I ask again, why are you trying to derail the discussion with falsehoods and amusing distractions? What's your motivation for making rational discussion of patents more difficult? If the continuing discussion annoys you, I for one would appreciate it if you simply didn't post instead of trying to disrupt it with misinformation.

Discussing actual software patent cases is a much more reliable way of understanding the effect of software patentability on the world than attempting to reason from abstract principles and hypothetical situations, and the issues at stake here are much bigger than this particular patent. Mere railing is of course unproductive, but rational debate is essential.

Are they actual fencers? How cool is that? I was just referencing the Princess Bride. You learn something new every day.

My point is that the invention we're talking about must include all these elements. Dell computers do not infringe the patent simply because you could use them to create something that potentially infringe the patent. Obviously, Apple doesn't even build all the parts of their "invention". Why would you think I would be making that argument?

Moreover, to restate a point that you are militantly evading: you don't even know which claim(s) in this patent were found binding. It is more than possible, in fact likely, that it isn't simply the independent claim at the start of the patent but rather a combination of dependent and independent claims that were found to be meaningful.

Finally, I'm just going to keep saying this: I am not defending the patent we're talking about. I'm reacting to the guy who creates an "internal app" for his company and believes he is now infringing this patent because it regexes phone numbers.

> I was just referencing the Princess Bride.

I see; that makes more sense.

> My point is that the invention we're talking about must include all these elements. Dell computers do not infringe the patent simply because you could use them to create something that potentially infringe the patent.

Yes, of course; that's the "staple article of commerce" doctrine. But we're not discussing whether Dell computers themselves infringe the patent, but whether an infringing system built with purpose-built processors would still be infringing if you used off-the-shelf computers from Dell instead of purpose-built processors.

The answer is that it would. Buying some of the elements of the claim off the shelf is not a defense against infringement, and even if it were, it would be irrelevant when you're being charged with importing or selling rather than making an infringing article.

(It's possible that under the machine-or-transformation doctrine, a process might be unpatentable, and patents on it might be invalid, if it could be implemented by software on a general-purpose computer, because a general-purpose computer is not a "particular machine". Unfortunately In re Bilski and Bilski v. Kappos have not resolved this question, but only left it muddier than before.)

> Obviously, Apple doesn't even build all the parts of their "invention". Why would you think I would be making that argument?

Because you said:

> did you also build "a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory for controlling the execution of the program routines."? No? Then you aren't even nominally infringing the broadest independent claim of the patent.

The key word here is "build". The person you were responding to had said:

> I just recently implemented this exact same functionality for one of my company's internal apps.

It's patently obvious that he was combining his program routines ("internal apps") with a processing unit coupled to the input device, the output device, and the memory for controlling the execution of the program routines. You brought up the fact that he probably didn't build the processing unit, claiming that he couldn't be infringing if he didn't build it. But the presumed fact that he didn't build it is irrelevant.

In another thread, you wrote:

> I'm strongly inclined to believe that no, your infringing product needs to embody a purpose-built device.

These assertions of yours are false and have no foundation in patent law. However, I retract my earlier claim that you already knew that.

> Moreover, to restate a point that you are militantly evading: you don't even know which claim(s) in this patent were found binding.

I wasn't evading it; you just hadn't stated it. Now that you've stated it, it's trivial to demonstrate that it is false. The comment at the root of this thread links to Florian Müller's blog post at http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/these-tables-show-ho..., which shows exactly which claims Apple is asserting against HTC, and which ones the ITC judge found that HTC is infringing: claims 1, 8, 15, and 19 of the '647 patent, and claims 1, 2, 24, and 29 of the '263 patent.

> I am not defending the patent we're talking about. I'm reacting to the guy who creates an "internal app" for his company and believes he is now infringing this patent because it regexes phone numbers.

Rather than just reacting to him by posting the smokescreen of nonsense and bullshit that you did, it would be more useful to collaborate with him by honestly and accurately explaining the actual patent law and accurately analyzing what would be necessary for his "internal app" to infringe it. Whether or not he is manufacturing his own processors is irrelevant to that.

It's not patently obvious to me that his internal app matches claim 1 of the patent; if it was, I would have commented on it. It is not an infringement of this patent to sell software that regexes phone numbers. Do you believe otherwise?

I wasn't arguing that it did or didn't infringe the claim, because I hadn't read the claim thoroughly yet; I was arguing that running it on a purpose-built processor was irrelevant to whether it infringed the claim.

However, yes, I believe otherwise, if you're selling the software to US customers. (The "internal app" guy isn't selling the patented invention, but he is making and using it.)

It is an infringement of this patent to sell software that regexes phone numbers (in a "server") and makes them into clickable links to take some action, if you're selling it to US customers.

Installing the software on a computer and running it necessarily produces an infringing system, according to Apple's assertion, which the ITC judge has upheld. The staple article of commerce doctrine does not protect the sale of articles "which are only adapted to be used in a patented combination".

Microsoft v. AT&T would seem to protect you if you're exporting the software rather than selling it to consumers within the US; "The master disk or electronic transmission Microsoft sends from the United States is never installed on any of the foreign-made computers in question. Instead, copies made abroad are used for installation." However, it would be very surprising indeed if courts construed that to protect sellers of software for use inside the US, in particular because Microsoft was still paying AT&T revenues for US copies of Windows in that case.

First, you spent a lot of words arguing with me before reading the patent. Don't do that.

Second, you've misread the patent. The "server" needs to be in the same machine as the input and output device. The patent description defines the terms used in the claims language (you will easily find a basis for that assertion in patent law if you look); here, the server is a subroutine coupled to the system via an application programming interface.

Further, I believe if you take the time to poke around, you'll find software extracting patterns from text in the prior art references. Claims cannot be interpreted to substantially duplicate the descriptions (not simply the claims) of cited prior art.

Finally, your logic doesn't work. In your worldview, if I sell frobnitz flanges, and Apple invents a phone that uses frobnitz flanges to legibly display the otherwise invisible color blurple, and then files a blurple-display patent referencing frobnitz flanges, I can no longer sell frobnitz flanges. Any elementary description of "how to read patent claims" will show this logic to be false. The infringer must violate all the elements of the claim.

(Late edit: I mean to say, the direct infringer).

Your objection to me not having read the patent would hold more water if you could show something I was mistaken about as a result.

I'll take your word on the definition of "server". I'm not sure why you think I misread the patent, though. If I thought the "server" had to be on a different machine, I'd be claiming Android didn't infringe.

You are correct about claim construal, but no narrower construal suggests itself to me for this claim. So perhaps you are mistaken and there is no such cited prior art, or perhaps the examiner should have stricken this claim, or perhaps there is a narrower construal that isn't obvious to me.

You are mistaken about my worldview. My worldview comes from patent law. In your example, if people have been buying frobnitz flanges before Apple's new invention, they are clearly adapted to some other use than displaying blurple. So, in my worldview, they are a "staple article of commerce", a term I have used several times in this discussion and which you would do well to look up, so their sale is non-infringing. However, a piece of software whose installation and use on a computer necessarily infringes the patent is not suitable for substantial noninfringing use (unless perhaps you can argue that its use to paper your wall or as an illustration in a discussion about software patents is substantial), so selling it separately is clearly just an attempt to infringe the patent in a sneaky way. (Presuming, of course, that the patent is valid at all.)

This is not some hare-brained theory I just thought up on the spur of the moment. You'll find it explained in any patent law textbook, in quite a number of online introductions to patent law, and in §271 (c) of the Patent Code. You are welcome to attempt to explain to Congress and the Supreme Court that their logic doesn't work because it forbids the sale of frobnitz flanges or whatever, but don't blame it on my worldview.

Is that a pun?