[Patents] Re: Patents digest, Vol 1 #162 - 2 msgs

[Jean-Jacques de Jong jjdj@free.fr]

Tom Vogt wrote:
> 
> > Even software patent advocates must recognize this problem.  In fact, imho
> > the above statement from Mr Bezos is the only one in his letter that I can
> > really subscribe to and recommend as a progress.  The conclusions he draws
> > (like limiting the duration of software patents), are of course neither
> > practicable nor really justified, as you point out correctly.  The only
> > solution to the patent crisis that I see is:  take software and business
> > methods out of the patent system and, if necessary, design sui generis
> > systems for them.
> 
> I don't think that will solve the problem, not as long as lawyers are
> involved.
> 
> for example, the software patent I currently oppose (7val's Location
> Poisoning, see my website at http://www.lemuria.org/Software/unpoison)
> is being submitted for patent even though software patents are illegal
> in europe.
> the submission thus simply reads "a process for...", 

This is perfectly allowable in Europe, and has been so for years. What was not
allowable up to two recent IBM decisions was claiming "a computer program
having instructions for...", or  "a computer program product...".

> and I'm willing to
> be a years wage that it does a great job at obfuscating the fact that
> what they want to patent is a trivial piece of software that, for
> example, took me all of 9 lines of code(!) to duplicate.

The patent systems attempt to filter out the "obvious" inventions. But the
oviousness criterion is applied at the initial idea level, not at the
implementation level; i.e. it is not because an invention is easy to
implement that it was obvious to have the initial idea.

JJJ