http://www.patents4software.com/2012/03/are-software-patents-really-impossible-to-index-or-is-no-one-trying/

This is a fantastic post, and I think it perfectly captures why many software developers (including me) have passionate views on the subject. The analogy we often draw is toward writing a novel: if the features of novels (plot twists, narrative structures, whatever) were eligible for patent protection, there’d be vehement objections from novelists. They would argue, correctly, that it’s outrageous to expect someone to conduct a patent search before sitting down to write a novel.

Exactly the same point applies to software developers. We think we ought to have the freedom to create and distribute original software without asking anyone’s permission. Software patents, in principle at least, demand that we conduct a patent search every time we start a new software project. And that feels like–and is–a serious limitation on our freedom.

http://holmansbiotechipblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/computer-implemented-method-for-guiding.html

I believe the Fed Cir answered your question in WMS Gaming:

“In a means-plus-function claim in which the disclosed structure is a computer, or microprocessor, programmed to carry out an algorithm, the disclosed structure is not the general purpose computer, but rather the special purpose computer programmed to perform the disclosed algorithm.”

That is, the Fed Cir held that in a software context, “structure” means “algorithm.”

Perhaps your real question is a slightly different one: how *much* structure (read: algorithm) is required to comply with 112P6 when the claimed function is implemented in software. Put another way, what level of detail is required in describing the algorithm?

I don’t think that the Fed Cir has given us an answer to that question yet — which is surprising, since WMS Gaming is now 12 years old.

It seems to me that if somebody has a really great idea, and it allows others to make money off of it, then the inventors ought to be compensated.

Bilski may be a Death Star, but in this case, Hulu et al clearly profited from Ultramercial’s idea – and blowing up this patent was exactly the kind of henious act that gets the Jedi on your ass.

Thanks for the clarifying notes.

Of course, you cannot possibly be reading this comment because my keyboard is an “abstraction”, its electrical coupling to that there ‘Internets’ is an “abstraction”, and the electrons that are induced into motion so as to cause my keystrokes to appear symbolically on your computer screen, those too are “abstractions”.

Thank goodness we live in the 12th Century.
(Anyone who thinks it’s the 21st Century is confused. Their digits must have been alchemically transposed.)