[Patents] A comment on Prof. Pascual's paper

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

    I have read Prof. Pascual's paper.  If in Section 3 of his paper,
you swap the concept of computer program with that of digital
circuit (in both cases programming with VHDL), this altered Section
3 is as valid as the original.
    Here is one alteration:
        "For each of the parts into which the circuit was divided,
        the VHDL programming solutions may prove either simple or
        complex.  If a solution is complex, it may be split again
        into a number of simpler parts.  If it is easy, it can be
        solved using common sense and the resources every professional
        circuit programmer should have.  If a solution is difficult,
        it can demand a research activity in order to design a
        suitable circuit."

        The vast majority of the small problems solved by a circuit
        designer belong to the easy category, if he or she is
        sufficiently qualified.  The ability to find a combination
        of circuit elements to achieve a certain objective is
        essential in a good circuit designer.

        Moreover, and independently of how easy or difficult the
        small problems are, they usually have a single solution
        or a reduced set of reasonable solutions.  If the solutions
        to these small problems were allowed to be patented, the
        accidental infringement of a circuit patent would be
        highly probable.  And it would be easier for a circuit
        designer to solve a problem on his or her own than having
        to search through a patent database to see whether the
        circuit has already been designed by any valid or no
        longer valid patent.  In case that it is valid, he or she
        would also have the additional task of negotiating the
        license or to try to avoid it by looking for a different
        circuit.

        Up until now we have referred to patents affecting small
        and simple parts of a circuit, but the same can be
        applied to other circuits, such as the circuits on some
        trivially different cosine transform, and the global
        idea of a hardware device, ....

So once again, whatever complaints you have about software patents
apply to hardware patents (go ask anyone who has gotten a letter
from Rambus).  If European governments accept the above logic, they
will have to apply it to hardware as well as software.

What's kind of funny after he tries to argue that all software can
be reduced to bunches of simple concepts in a simple manner, he
writes:

        Given the technological complexity of programming, it is
        difficult for non-programmers to decide whether a method
        is simple or not.

So is programming technologically simple as in Section 3 of his
paper, or technologically complex as in Section 4.  Also, to the
best of my knowledge, most of the software examiners at EPO have
substantial programming backgrounds.

Later on we read:

        The problem is so serious that there are companies,
        usually known as litigation companies, whose only
        activity is patenting very simple ideas so that when
        somebody has the same idea they demand renumeration.

Once again, such litigation companies are involved with hardware as
much as software.  In fact, some started playing this game before
software patents became big news.

Prof. Pascual mentions a far number of "simple" software patents,
yet in his intellectual laziness, he did not bother to contrast
these to anything, like also mentioning a fair number of "simple"
digital hardware patents.  I suggest he do so, and I suspect he
will soon become as equally disgusted with many of the patents
he comes across on simple digital hardware circuits.

Now I know most of you hate these hardware analogies, and want to
focus solely on fighting software patents, but politicians and
bureacrats can't.  They will be hit with arguments like the one
I make above, especially arguments coming out of EPO to put
software and hardware patents on equal footing.  Unless you have
a good counterargument, other than the physical/informational
which is too abstruse for politicians, you lose.

Greg Aharonian