We used to argue that inventions should be patentable, but abstract ideas around inventions are not deserving of patents. If I was interested in your supposed ASIC design, and in a position to be awarded a patent, I would argue that by taking the algorithm and realizing it into a chip fab (or by doing the requisite homework to bring it to a chip fab, if I didn't have the requisite billion dollars to actually market the chips) I had done sufficient work to be worthy of a patent.
As a good person (who doesn't want his patent thrown out when it goes to court), I would not try to submit an incomplete design and I would make sure that my filing included all of the necessary information to put the design into future generations' hands. (But not the billion dollars, of course!) Who's to say it involves no additional creative effort? I remember Computer Organization and Architecture classes as a Computer Scientist that were meant to teach me the left hand of the equation while making me aware of the tetris game that exists on the right hand side, but not bogging us down (since we were computer scientists and not electrical engineers.)
So out of self interest, maybe I should wish to be able to patent the algorithms. I know and I was raised better than that. Our pyramid schemes start and end with our brothers (and sisters) who majored in electrical engineering! Software is meant to be free, and hardware has innate marginal cost as a necessity of physics.
Remember it can be up to the patent examiner in an abstract sense with no rhyme or reason on whether or not to grant a patent, and many of the folks I hear would rather see "boots on the ground." In other words, without the billion dollars to put the fab into works: no patent for us, so no victory.
As a good person (who doesn't want his patent thrown out when it goes to court), I would not try to submit an incomplete design and I would make sure that my filing included all of the necessary information to put the design into future generations' hands. (But not the billion dollars, of course!) Who's to say it involves no additional creative effort? I remember Computer Organization and Architecture classes as a Computer Scientist that were meant to teach me the left hand of the equation while making me aware of the tetris game that exists on the right hand side, but not bogging us down (since we were computer scientists and not electrical engineers.)
So out of self interest, maybe I should wish to be able to patent the algorithms. I know and I was raised better than that. Our pyramid schemes start and end with our brothers (and sisters) who majored in electrical engineering! Software is meant to be free, and hardware has innate marginal cost as a necessity of physics.
Remember it can be up to the patent examiner in an abstract sense with no rhyme or reason on whether or not to grant a patent, and many of the folks I hear would rather see "boots on the ground." In other words, without the billion dollars to put the fab into works: no patent for us, so no victory.