[Patents] Economic assessment

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

very well:

  Software is any description of data, objects or processes, on any
support.

  ... and please do not tell me that a car is its own description.


On Sat, Nov 25, 2000 at 06:24:34PM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> >Greg has systematically declined to justify why there should be
> >software patents.
> 
> Nonsense.  I have repeatedly stated that I believe that that it is
> difficult to impossible to statutorily defined "software" to then
> be able to deny patents on such things.  That has been the gradually
> evolving position of the US courts (the final arbiters of such things
> here in the US) - if you can't define it, you can't ban it (which is
> why they are allowing business method patents).  When it comes to
> patent law, I dislike the uses of the words "hardware" and "software",
> and prefer "computing" or "automata" patents, where the functionality
> (and its novelty and nonobviousness) is the only thing that matters,
> and its expression (hardware, software, optics, etc.) is a marketing
> decision.
> 
> So when 52c says you can't patent "computer programs" or "software",
> I fully support eliminating that language because the phrases have
> never been well-defined in the logical and mathematical senses (which
> then makes it legal for EPO to issue all of the "software" patents
> it wants to).
> 
> People on this list might want to try to come up with a definition of
> "software" that can actually be used to debate these issues in Europe.
> Most of the American definitions of the terms encompass non-"software"
> concepts such as digital hardware circuit diagrams and other electrical
> and mechanical systems.
> 
> Heck, if I was ruler of the world, I would insist that patent laws all
> be rewritten in terms of predicate logic, just to make sure that all
> terms and rules are well-defined and consistent.  Current patent laws
> on both sides of the Atlantic are neither completely well-defined nor
> completely consistent.
> 
> Greg
> 
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