[Patents] Hardware/software codesign

[John Tobey jtobey@john-edwin-tobey.org]

Greg Aharonian wrote:

> I have no problem questioning the patentability of software, as
> long as it is done in the context of questioning the patentability
> of all areas of technology as we enter the 21st century.  But
> there is no science and no logic in separating out software.

Software is different.  Software patents impede rather than foster the
spread of knowledge.  What more established kind of patent constitutes
de facto censorship?

Even the worthiest software patents amount to an injuction against
transmitting certain useful information.  If that's not literally
true, people must be educated so that it ceases to be the case in
practice.

A requirement to include working source code in the patents would
partially address this complaint, but not completely, because code
that works in some environments is inapplicable in others.

-John