[Patents] regulation draft proposal: revision

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 11:34:20AM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> >A "technical" process is one that uses natural forces to directly
> >cause a transformation of matter.
> 
> And pay tell, what matter is transformed inside a digital hardware
> circuit?  It is just a bunch of electronics flowing over a network.
> Sure, the digital circuit might be connected to something tjat
> transforms matter, but you can also connect software to something
> that transforms matter.  And with FPGAs, you have software as part
> of a process that transforms hardware to alter the flow of electrons
> in the circuit.
> 
> You live in the wrong century Hartmut.  The patent world may have started
> out in the mechanical (which is why dictionaries define "techincal" as
> "mechanical or scientific"), and the original shapers of patent laws
> (like here in the US being Thomas Jefferson) could only write the laws
> in light of the mechnical technologies they knew, but that is no longer
> the world we live in.  

Jefferson did not like patents, but saw them as necessary evil. Hence
the phrasing of the US constitution.  His views still apply, because he
was taking a higher point of view.


> Increasingly industries and technologies are all about "ideas", ideas
> worth protecting.  I argue for their patentability both because most
> ideas have functionality and utility, and also because if you force
> people to rely on copyrights (which is increasingly being weakened)
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
sure ... just repeat it ... and it'll become true

Bernard

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