[Patents] the burden factor in soft vs hard

[Luuk van Dijk Luuk.van.Dijk@xs4all.nl]

Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> 
> >Information has zero replication cost
> 
> Which, whatever its truth, has nothing to do with the issue of
> whether or not something is patentable, at least here in the
> United States.  The patent system grants someone a monopoly to
> incent them to invent something, but the laws for the most part
> say nothing about how much reward the inventor should get - that
> is left to the marketplace.  So the cost of information (such as
> patentable software) is irrelevant to patent law as it is now
> stated.
> 
[SNIP]

I think phm only meant to say something about the damage done
by patentmonopolies, not about revenues justifying patentability (or not).

> 
> And as I have said before, the medium of exchange in more and more
> patentable industries is information - gene sequences, VHDL coding
> for hardware circuits, finite element meshes for mechanical designs.
> Here too the replication cost is zero, especially in the Internet
> era.  So if you are making this replication cost argument against
> software patents, you are in fact making an argument against patents
> in most other fields of technology.  Which is what I think your
> real motives are.

(After you write something like this, do you lean back and laugh 
satanically about the reactions you know you are going to get 
from all these worked up Europeans?)

So here we go again: Granted, the cost of reproducing the information in 
these industries is the same as the cost of reproducing information
in the software industry: near zero.  The difference is that in sw,
the information = the product.  In these other industries there are 
still production lines to be set up to etch the wafers/assemble the
DNA/copy the whatevers.

Still, I do agree with you that a VHDL program should not
be patentable. But a device which incorporates this maybe
should be if they it is new, involves an inventive step and
is susceptible of industrial application.

On a side note: I wonder, what is your explanation for the 
fact that in  software more than in other industries, the 
patents filed are so absolutely trivial, and the claims 
are so broad?

Luuk van Dijk

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Mind over Matter         Mind.over.Matter@xs4all.nl
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