The physical component means paying attention every week to the exercise and nutrition that contribute to good health.

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"When you lose some component of your physical self, you also lose some of your emotional self, " DellaCroce says.

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The makers have pushed much of their intellectual property away to the first tier of component suppliers, which have taken physical assets along with the necessary skills.

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The Supreme Court did uphold a patent on a software-controlled rubber-curing machine in 1981, but its ruling emphasized that this was because the patent covered a physical machine that happened to have a software component, rather than claiming a software technique by itself.

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