Wouldn't that make it essentially a mathematical patent, which is not allowed? Or at best a software patent, which is a gray area? Patenting an equivalence class of logical operations, without specificity about their implementation, is on a lot shakier footing than patenting a hardware invention, at least in U.S. patent law. It does lead to wider potential applicability, but at the risk of weaker foundations.

that's not the church turing thesis then.

I guess you could also try to use the Church-Turing teorem in a claim that no instruction level patent are enforceable, since they are all equivalent...

But this is logic bordering to philosophy, which isn't exactly what the courts love to argue about. They look at intents and damages.

My guess is that a simple 'I sell X using my patents, they also sell X but are not paying" is vastly more likely to succeed. "But, but, Church-Turing" will just piss them off.

You're right that it expands upon the C-T thesis a bit, so my use of the word "literally" was incorrect. It does depend on the C-T thesis though, because it relies on a definition of "processor" that references it. You'd still need to explain it to a judge.

What do you mean when you say "expands upon"? Either all computers are equivalent or you aren't invoking C-T.