> "So which is it? Physical embodiment = not abstract."
No, the point is that there effectively is no "physical embodiment" requirement. Adding magic words like "computing device" or "system and method" to a patent application has no real effect, because ALL software is run on a "computing device" or a "system". This does nothing to narrow the scope of a patent, or to tie it to any distinct physical implementation. The ONLY distinct entity in such a patent is the algorithm.
This will become immediately clear to you if you read any number of software or business method patents. You seem to have created your own alternate reality here, where software patents are necessarily like mechanical patents. They are not.
> "I was talking about interference machines that use the wave properties of light to do computation without the use of digital logic."
Fine, whatever. Any patent that covers your thingamajig in its physical manifestation will have to be a proper mechanical patent, complete with design drawings. As a separate matter, the computation performed by the machine can be expressed algorithmically, and that algorithm is what could be covered by a software patent, completely apart from whatever machine implements it. That patent can then be asserted against any other use of that algorithm regardless of the physical system that uses it.
> "The software patent does not somehow magically fence off an area of abstract thought. What it fences off is a particularly convenient and valuable area of concrete machinery."
No, again, that would be a mechanical patent. Have you really not ever read a software patent? Go look one up; maybe start with one of the patents on LZW, or maybe amazon's 1-click patent.
No, the point is that there effectively is no "physical embodiment" requirement. Adding magic words like "computing device" or "system and method" to a patent application has no real effect, because ALL software is run on a "computing device" or a "system". This does nothing to narrow the scope of a patent, or to tie it to any distinct physical implementation. The ONLY distinct entity in such a patent is the algorithm.
This will become immediately clear to you if you read any number of software or business method patents. You seem to have created your own alternate reality here, where software patents are necessarily like mechanical patents. They are not.
> "I was talking about interference machines that use the wave properties of light to do computation without the use of digital logic."
Fine, whatever. Any patent that covers your thingamajig in its physical manifestation will have to be a proper mechanical patent, complete with design drawings. As a separate matter, the computation performed by the machine can be expressed algorithmically, and that algorithm is what could be covered by a software patent, completely apart from whatever machine implements it. That patent can then be asserted against any other use of that algorithm regardless of the physical system that uses it.
> "The software patent does not somehow magically fence off an area of abstract thought. What it fences off is a particularly convenient and valuable area of concrete machinery."
No, again, that would be a mechanical patent. Have you really not ever read a software patent? Go look one up; maybe start with one of the patents on LZW, or maybe amazon's 1-click patent.