From srctran@world.std.com  Mon Nov 20 20:09:28 2000
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 15:09:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com
Subject: [Patents] natural forces

>What is clear however is that any patenting of information works
>infringes basic freedoms such as the freedom of expression and
>therefore needs to be excluded ....

Which is an argument against ALL patents, not just software patents.
I "express" my new digital hardware circuit with a printed circuit
diagram just as I "express" my new software algorithm with a source
code listing, just as I "express" my new mechanical design with a
blueprint, all three of which circuit/code/blueprint, are
computer representable, computer designable, computer optimizable,
etc.  All of these expressions should have equal freedom of
expression considerations applied to them.

So any of these arguments against software patents applies as well to
electrical and mechanical patents as well - the language of the arguments
applies to all of these domains.  So I can appreciate the argument that
software is as patentable as anything else (for good or bad economic
and expressionistic effects), or that software is as unpatentable as
everything else should be unpatentable (with its economic effects), but
not these subset distinctions.  In fact, many of Hartmut's words are
generic indictments of the patent system, not specific to software.
Not that I agree with such a position, but it is one worth defending and
fighting for.  But not these artificial distinctions between hardware
and software, the physical and logical.  There is no mathematical logic
basis for such a distinction that can be used as a basis for patent law.

And for the record, "technicity" is an artificial word.  I can't find it
in any of the standard comprehensive English dictionaries, and the closest
words (like technic) have definitions that don't require the
hardware/physical to be involved.  It was a word made up to justify a
decision that has no basis in mathematical logic.  And if you guys are
goign to keep on touting/relying on these German decisions, you better
get some English translations posted real quick.

Greg




