[Patents] Counterexamples to John, Hartmut, Edward

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

John Tobey writes:

>
>This fallacy has been used too often in defense of software patents.
>The program and the circuit did *not* take equal amounts of
>brainpower, time, and cost.  Let me explain.
>
>The effort that goes into a software implementation like Amazon's web
>site is quite different from the construction of a factory:  It
>involves no risk, and its completion gives no benefit to society.
>Only the patent-bearing *idea* of the software deserves to be
>considered when comparing research/development costs.  As PILCH
>Hartmut has observed, the core idea seldom requires more than an
>afternoon on a train.

You explain nothing here.  Amazon's one click is a lousy example to use
to justify software patents.  Consider instead, natural language
translation, a software problem that has yet to be solved after forty
years of research.  People have invested (i.e. risked) lots of time
and money, with few useful results.  So if someone new decided to take
another crack at the problem, and spend lots of money and time, it is
no less a risky and time consuming effort than any hardware design
problem.  So stop attacking all software patents by pointing to some of
the more obvious and simple patents such as Amazon's 1-click, or my
favorite, a 1996 US software patent for nothing more than 3D pie charts.
There are many software problems as intellectually difficult and time
consuming to solve as hardware problems.  And there are many stupid
mechanical and hardware patents being issued as well - should all
mechanical and hardware patents be rejected because of the stupid ones?

>The act of "building the factory" entails risk to the factory builder
>and, when successful, benefits society by creating the knowledge that
>it can be done.

Again, overly simplistic.  Increasingly many people designing mechanical
products just spec out some design on a CAD tool, and send the CAD files
to a factory to have them built.  The only risk is the time spent on
developing the product with a CAD program, and then marketing the hardware
product.  Which to me is little different than someone using a CASE
program to develop some software, and then having to figure out how to
market it.  You guys worship the physical way too much - it clouds your
logic.  Go take a look at some of the latest mechanical CAD tools -
using them is little different than programming software - just lots of
manipulations using a computer program.  Little risk, little sweat.

                              ====================

Hartmut writes:

>Right:  an invention consists of three parts:
>       1 real world problem (involving physical objects)
>       2 model of real world (knowledge of natural forces)
>       3 algorithm      
>
>The novel part in a true invention must lie in 2.
>Part 3 can be found automatically by artificial intelligence / artificial
>life.
>
>Part 1 can be difficult to find and formulate correctly.  But monopolising
>part 1 boils down to monopolising "the idea of trapping mice".

I disagree.  The novelty part in not in part 2, because just like you
claim part 3 can be found be AI, so too can part 2 be found using AI.
I can present digital circuit problems, even simple ones, that most
humans could not solve in a reasonable amount of time.  But by defining
the basic laws of Boolean logic to a certain AI problem, I can get the
AI problem to prove that digital circuit problem is solvable, and part
of the computer generated proof is the actual digital circuit.  Given
a big enough computer to handle large LISP executions, I can do this
for any digital hardware problem that has to be solved.  

So to me, for both hardware and software, you have a human using a
variety of computer tools to help him solve a problem.  The solution is
worthy of patent protection, independent of whether or not the embodiment
is in hardware or software, or a combination of the two.


>Software patents like the IBM patent on "a way of finding faulty strings
>in a text" usually come very close to claiming a problem.  Software is
>about abstraction, and this eventually means abstracting from the solution
>to the problem.

And increasingly, this is true for hardware, both digital and mechanical,
as it is for software.  Thus increasingly, you can be for or against
patents in general, but you cannot discriminate between types of patents.
I sense that many of you here are against all patents in general.  That
is worth debating, but please make it clear that is what you really
believe in.  But however you can criticize software for being too simple,
I can criticize hardware/physical just as easily.  I suggest some of you
research the latest mechanical engineering design tools, where someone
can describe problem and the computer optimizes the physical design.

                              ====================

Edward Avis writes:

>So I could protect my program, which is an implementation in C of a
>particular sorting algorithm.  But I couldn't stop others from making
>their own inventions based on the same algorithm.  This is exactly what
>copyright on computer programs achieves.

And that is why people are increasingly abandoning copyright protection
for software - because it gives no protection, and turning to patent
protection.  If I invent a new sorting algorithm, and can't control how
others exploit it with copyright protection, I will either get a patent
or not disclose my sorting algorithm (except for those many programmers
who voluntarily disclose new algorithms for everyone to use, which is
nice but their choice).  Increasingly copyright is becoming absolutely
useless to protect software - it is not an alternative to patent
protection.  This is part of the reason for the explosion of software
patents in the US, and for the coming explosion in Europe - that people
realize that copyright protection for software is increasingly useless.
Better to fix the patent examination process, a solvable problem, that
trying to convince people to give up patents.

(And Hartmut, stop calling EPO types "evil" and other insulting phrases.
It makes it that much easier for them to ignore all of your arguments.)

>Unless you want to allow mathematics to be patentable also.  That may
>happen sooner than you think; since a computer program is equivalent to
>a mathematical proof, patentability for one would lead to patentability
>for the other.  I can just imagine all the patent lobbyists complaining
>of the inconsistency that a computer program can be patented but pure
>mathematics cannot...

And they should complain - it is inconsistent.  And not only for software.
Increasingly there are many mechanical and hardware designs that are
equivalent to mathematical proofs (if you are knowledgeable about the
latest AI mechanical CAD systems - which apparently many of you aren't).
So if you reject software patents because some of them are logically
equivalent to a mathemtical proof, then you have to reject mechanical
and hardware patents as well because some of them are logically equivalent
to a mathematical proof as well.

Which I suspect some of you want to do - not to get rid of just software
patents, but all patents.


Greg Aharonian