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Anyone designing computers that mimic the way the human brain links ideas
will now have to pay Hugh Harlan of California for the privilege. US patent law
now allows patenting of schemes, rather than physical inventions, and Harlan has
won a patent on computers that “think” like people (US 6031537). His patent
covers processes whose operation can be described by flow charts that link
chunks of related information representing close and distant thoughts. Harlan’s
company, The Brain, is now filing a world patent (WO 0057257) in the hope that
patent laws elsewhere will soon loosen up.