[Patents] novelty and the anti-copycat affect

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> Indeed, but I will think that we cannot expect the patent offices to deal
> with binary only programs. I mean what if I have this great program for my
> Nixdorf computer (from 1968), how are they going to run it, let alone
> understand it? No, I think that what they need documentation of what it
> does.

which is often not available.  Nevertheless the ideas were disseminated
with the program and are therefor no longer novel.  Moreover, in contrast
with chemical products, programs tend to be easily replicated and widely
disseminated, so that the borderline between the "embodiment" and any
separate "publication" is blurred, and the program itself carries some of
the function of what in chemistry would be an article or a piece of
documentation.  Programs tend to be self-explaining.

> How this documentation is to be provided is another matter.
>
> > When talking to small companies about what they might want swpats for, the
> > usual answer is "to protect our new functionality from being imitated by a
> > competitor who has seen our demo program at the exhibition".  So in fact
> > even a demo program that didn't circulate but was shown at an exhibition
> > is prior art.
>
> Yes indeed, I know of alot of companies that are afriad to bring demos to
> exhibitions due to the reasons you state.

which could be a reason to give them some extra legal weapons against
copycats, but not a reason to give them patents.  Patents can protect only
a small percentage of what people are afraid of showing at an exhibition,
and whether the exhibited feature is an invention or not is irrelevant to
the issue.

-phm