[Patents] software as such

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

Greg reiterates:
 
> And I will object once again that anything expressed in software achieves
> as much as a technical effect as anything achieved in hardware, because
> the two are formally equivalent mathematically, and practically
> equivalent in light of hardware/software codesign tools.

I have explained several times why these codesign tools do not shed any
light on the question.

Anything that can be designed on them is calculation based on an known
model of the real world and therefore not a technical invention in the
European sense.

> EPO's frustration and the US courts's frustration in trying to come up
> with language to fix old-wrong concepts about algorithms, will end up
> being dealt with by the EC/EPO the same way the US courts have dealt
> with it - to just get rid of the prohibitive language about ill-defined
> terms such as methods, apparatuses, algorithms, software.

There was no frustration, but just never ending attempts by proprietarists
like you to muddle well functioning basic concepts by reiteration.
 
> Heck, just reading these latest discussions on this list would be enough
> of a reason for the EC/EPO to get rid of the 52a to avoid the headaches
> that their discussions will cause if they try to play philosophy with
> the law.

There are no unclear questions and no headaches. There are however people
to whom the questioning of their ideology gives such a headache that they
find the suffering on millions of people relatively acceptable in
comparison.
 
> I have developed both useful and crafty digital circuits and computer
> software.  Both took equal amounts of brainpower to develop, and
> similar amounts of time and cost of equipment needed.  I see know
> reason why my inventiveness with the circuits should be rewardable
> with a patent, but not my inventiveness with the software.  It is a
> losing argument to make.

Both are protected by copyright, business secrets and other means.
Both are (probably) in the logical sphere and thus unpatentable according
to European law.
Or are your circuits built on new empirical knowledge?

-phm