[Patents] DeCSS, source code and software patents

[Didier Metzen didier.metzen1@libertysurf.fr]

PILCH Hartmut a écrit:

> >        What does all of this have to do with swpatents? Well my
> > impression is that patents are precisely a way of letting the
> > knowledge being disseminated, while a monopoly on *devices* is
> > allowed.
>
> This is precisely where written European patent law (EPC 52) places the
> boundary:  patent rights can not be claimed against informational objects
> but only for inventions that imply more than an informational object in
> order to be realised.
>
> This distinction is also formulated in our petition text.  By speaking
> about the "dissemination of computer programs", we imply that computer
> programs are information that is "disseminated" and not devices that are
> "distributed".
>

Computer programs = information that is "disseminated". I am surprised by this
concept.
Do you apply it to the source code, the binary... How do you consider a
firmware embedded in an appliance?

>
> The border is not source code and object code, but between information
> and matter, soft and hard, logics and physics.
>
> Unfortunately, this distinction isn't self-evident at the level of basic
> instinct, thus allowing patent lawyers to successfully feign
> dumbness.  But at least the distinction between information and
> non-information is clearer and more intuitive than that between source and
> object code.  Another reason to leave it there.
>
> -phm
>
>
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