From Ars Technica's coverage:Justice Roberts asked about another hypothetical software case: whether you could patent the process of using a calculator to compute "the historical averages of oil consumption over a certain period and divide it by 2." Stewart responded by drawing a distinction between a calculator with "preexisting functionality" to "crunch numbers" and a computer that "will be programmed with new software" and "given functionality it didn't have before." We'll let readers judge for themselves whether this distinction makes any sense.I think this is precisely the problem with software patents, and I'm thrilled it was actually brought up.
A more complete treatment of this topic is here.
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