[Patents] Report on software patents.

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

Hartmut writes:

>At least if the process is to be program controlled, it must use
>natural forces to cause a matter transformation not predictable
>by computational means.  The result of sorting is computable.

Which bans large numbers of mechanical, chemical, biological, and
electrical patents as well.

Look with a supercomputer and a superSPICE (a computer program for
circuit analysis) I can predict computationally whatever "matter
transformation" is being caused by an analog or digital circuit
being patented.   Using mechanical CAD programs, I can predict the
by computational means the matter transformation caused by a large
number of the mechanical design patents being applied for (just
determine the Langranging and integrate).

And maybe anything computationally predictable - mechanical,
chemical, circuits, optics, software - should not be patentable.
But once again I will point out that this just shows that there
is nothing peculiar about software to treat it different for
patenting purposes.

Any definition of how much "technical effect/industrial application"
has to appear in a software patent will easily be met by filling,
at great expense to the inventor, the patent specification with lots
of boring examples.  The US courts finally realized the futility of
trying to come up with such definitions, and you Europeans are going
to waste a lot of time doing so as well.  Definitions are NOT the
way to solve the software patent problem.

Any computationally predictable is also NOT the way, because such a
test would find as many targets inthe mechanical and chemical arts
as it would in the computing arts.  Heck, the universe is a quantum
computer anyways, so inherently everything is predictable :-)

In the end, you will fail trying to distinguish software from all
else.  Software meets all of the criteria of being a science, which
implies it is a technology, enough so to legally satisfy any
convoluted requirements specified by European rulings specified by
"technical effect".

Greg Aharonian