Re: [use case] Web Payments CG Use Cases 1.0 integrated into wiki

RE: "The larger concern is having something in the use cases that has some
sort of business process patent around it"

The June 2014 decision of the US Supreme Court in the Alice Corp v CLS Bank
case has significantly weakened the enforceability of such process patents.
Recently I prepared the script for an instructional video to explain the
specifics of that decision. This episode is being animated and produced by
University of Southern Queensland, and should be published in early
February. Here's a relevant excerpt from that script (all of which is
licensed CC-BY 4.0):

***

The US Supreme Court stated three things in its decision on this case:

First, they clarified that information, such as accounting rules for
transactions, stands as a set of abstract ideas.

Expressing abstract ideas in a structured language, such as that of a
computer program, does not change their abstractness. At least as far back
as ancient Greek physics and metaphysics, tangible substance has been
distinguished fundamentally from abstract essence.

Second, the court concluded that making a general-purpose electronic device
operate according to rules expressed in a structured language, such as that
of a computer program, is not to be considered as turning those abstract
rules into a part of the physical
device. Installing an instruction file into a general-purpose electronic
device shall be deemed in law to exist as two separate things under the
law: a file with some information, and a generic device. To give an
analogy, when a story is published in a book, the law maintains different
sets of rules for the story and for the book. When you buy a “story book”,
you own the book, not the story.

Third, the court observed that the simple idea of putting an intermediary
between a buyer and a seller in a transaction is nothing but a fundamental
economic practice long prevalent in our system of commerce. It's hardly an
original idea.

Citation: Potvin, J. (Forthcoming 2015). FLOW Video Series: Episode 2:
"Expression of an Abstract Idea + Tangible Device = What?". Script of video
prepared by The Opman Company as part of the Free/Libre/Open World (FLOW)
Syllabus, under the Management Education Working Group of the Open Source
Initiative (OSI). http://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Projects/flow-syllabus

***

For more on that precent-setting case, see:
http://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Projects/flow-syllabus#HRealWorldPatentCourtCases

I trust this is useful.

-- 
Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
jpotvin@opman.ca
Mobile: 819-593-5983


On Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 2:55 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
wrote:

> On 11/30/2014 02:38 PM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
> > For clarification, copyright addresses the expression of an idea,
> > not at all an idea itself. In the hypothectical scenario you raise,
> > all that would be required would be to accurately paraphrase the
> > earlier version of the text, to say exactly the same thing, or to
> > keep the text as-is, but put quotation marks around it and provide
> > attribution to the orginal source.
>
> Yep, exactly. Although, copyright is the smaller concern. The larger
> concern is having something in the use cases that has some sort of
> business process patent around it. Again, the likelihood of there being
> a problem is vanishingly small, and even if there were, there are
> multiple ways of addressing those sorts of issues via W3C Process.
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: The Marathonic Dawn of Web Payments
> http://manu.sporny.org/2014/dawn-of-web-payments/
>