[Patents] natural forces

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

>Yet, the distinction between the physical and logical world, between
>mind and matter, is an eternal one, whose relevance never changed in
>human history.

Wrong.  I do not comment on mind and matter, but at least for computing,
history as written by the great mathematicians of this century, people
like Turing, Church, Post, Chaitin and others have quite convincingly
proved that the physical embodiment of an algorithm, hardware or software,
is irrelevant to understanding the nature of the algorithm - i.e., its
relevance to other algorithms (to determine novelty/obviousness in the
patent world), and its general efficiency.

What we want to encourage people to develop is new solutions to problems.
Whether or not the solution is implemented in hardware, software, optics,
DNA computers, etc. is irrevelant to its patenability - in fact, such
embodiments should not even be mentioned in independent claims, but rather
dependent claims.  The independent claims should be reserved for 
expressing the newness of the algorithm invented.

History evolves.  That our laws grew out of a mechanical past does not
mean that we are forever fixed to just allowing patents on that which
is mechanical.  The relevance of the mechanical should not be forgotten,
but not treated as gospel, especially since the patents laws as shaped
by these mechanical and electrical histories were written before the
great developments in logic and mathematics in the 20th century.  No
where is the work of Turing reflected in any patent laws.  And if these
theoretical arguments are insufficient, then one can reflect on the
implications of hardware/software codesign tools, where designers do
not even consider hardware or software while designing, leaving the
embodiment choice to the computer to figure out which should be 
turned into hardware and which into software, in multiple ways.

So I find it inconsistent with these theories and tools to treat hardware
and software differently when it comes to patenting, and strongly
believe that people against software patents are actually against both
software and hardware patents, and without too much of a leap, against
all patents in general.  I can respect that view, but not the lesser
argument of banning just software patents.

Greg Aharonian