#24 - Global Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[German.Steel]

I'm having a heck of a time trying to eliminate (C), which seems to be well-supported by the following lines from P3:

"Because the value of software lies in its form of expression, protection should be given only for particular applications - expressions of algorithms in an encoded form."

I must be going wrong somewhere but I cannot for the life of me understand how this doesn't provide strong support for (C), which states that "sequences...should not be copyrightable unless they encode a previously unused algorithm."

HELP!!!

[menkenj]

My sense is that the conditional in answer C is backwards. There are likely other reasons why C is wrong though.

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with answer C is that the author would not think the issue in that answer is relevant. Remember, the author thinks that algorithms "represent generic principles" and therefore should not be patentable. It doesn't matter if they have been used before or not! The author isn't concerned at all with the underlying algorithms, but only with the way they are used to express particular ideas. It's the expression of ideas that matter, rather than the algorithms used to express those ideas.

[Katherinthesky]

I am having trouble discounting (E), because I feel that since a literary work isn't a law of nature or a logical axiom, it can't be analogous to the encoding of algorithms.

What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance

[Robert Carroll]

Katherinthesky,

Analogy isn't necessarily transitive - A can be analogous to B and B analogous to C without A being analogous to C. So:

Laws of nature are analogous to algorithms.

The encoding of algorithms is analogous to the composition of a literary work.

But,

Laws of nature are not analogous to the composition of a literary work.

I think that's all fine - the way that one pair of things is analogous can be different from the way another pair, even a pair sharing ONE member from the original pair, is analogous. Thus, from three items, two pairs can be analogous, but not the third.

I think, though, that there is another approach to eliminating answer choice (E) here. Algorithms are analogous to laws of nature, but the encoding of algorithms is a particular application. The particular encoding of an algorithm is like creating any other copyrightable work - we even use forms of the verb "write" to talk about encoding algorithms. For instance, "He wrote an algorithm to test whether a given number is prime." So note also the difference between an algorithm and the particular coding of an algorithm - they're not the same.

Robert Carroll

[ashpine17]

I don't understand the difference between using particular algorithims and how they express ideas; I read them to be the same thing

[Robert Carroll]

ashpine17,

I don't see any difference between those two things either. A particular algorithm and the particular way in which an underlying idea is expressed are the same. What's not the same is a particular algorithm and the idea expressed.

Robert Carroll