From orre@nada.kth.se  Sat May  5 03:15:47 2001
From: orre@nada.kth.se (Roland Orre)
Date: Sat, 5 May 2001 04:15:47 +0200 (MET DST)
Subject: [Patents] Software and Technical effect
In-Reply-To: <200105040322.XAA15997@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.30.0105040752510.13226-100000@faun.nada.kth.se>

On Thu, 3 May 2001, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> Software is a technology.   PERIOD.   All software applications
> achieve a technical effect (if anyone in Europe bothered to define
> a scientifically rigorous definition of "technical effect".)

Roland:
You, Mr. Aharonian, use these definitions to claim that computer
programs would be patentable according your US prejudicies.
None of these are true and the claim is therefore false.

According to Webster's "technology" is defined as:
Etymology: Greek "technologia" systematic treatment of an art
1a: the practical application of knowledge especially in a
    particular area
1b: a capability given by the practical application of knowledge
2:  a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical
    processes, methods, or knowledge
3:  the specialized aspects of a particular field of endeavor

The word "software" is defined as:
something used or associated with and usually contrasted with
hardware: as
     a: the entire set of programs, procedures, and related
        documentation associated with a system and especially
        a computer system;
     b: materials for use with audiovisual equipment

Mr Aharonian, as you can see from these definitions, you are wrong.
You claim that "software is a technology", which obviously
is wrong. The word "software" relates to the computer program.

The "technology" you refer to may be "computer engineering",
"computer science" or possibly the modern buzz words
"information technology", where the latter has nothing
to do with computer programs per se. Information technology
is not very well defined, but is usually synonymous with
"information processing"

Encyclopedia Britannica on
information processing:
    the acquisition, recording, organization, retrieval, display, and
    dissemination of information. In recent years, the term has often
    been applied to computer-based operations specifically.

computer science:
    the study of computers, including their design (architecture) and
    their uses for computations, data processing, and systems control.
    <abbreviated>

    The major subdisciplines of computer science have traditionally
     been (1) architecture (including all levels of hardware design,
     as well as the integration of hardware and software components to
     form computer systems), (2) software (the programs, or sets of
     instructions, that tell a computer how to carry out tasks), here
     subdivided into software engineering, programming languages,
     operating systems, information systems and databases, artificial
     intelligence, and computer graphics, and (3) theory, which
     includes computational methods and numerical analysis on the one
     hand and data structures and algorithms on the other.

Greg [repeat of above]:
> Software is a technology.   PERIOD.   All software applications
> achieve a technical effect (if anyone in Europe bothered to define
> a scientifically rigorous definition of "technical effect".)

You speak about "software applications" but the whole question
we were discussing earlier were if "computer programs" were
patentable, which they can not be, because they do not specify
a specific application per se.  A "software application"
requires both a computer program and a specific computer
defining how the program is interpreted to run the software on.

The "technical effect" you are speaking about is not specific
for a specific computer program. It is defined in terms of
how a specific computer interprets a specific computer program.
A certain "technical effect" can be achieved by an infinite
amount of different computer programs. A certain computer
program can as well have an infinite amount of different
"technical effects".

If you want to patent software, i.e. the computer programs,
then you have to patent books, music, mathematical formulas
and paintings as well. All of these are equivalent to computer
programs, they are just patterns of information, where any
"technical effect" can only be defined in terms of how a
specific pattern is interpreted by a specific interpreter.

A computer program is a piece of information according to
a specific formalism. A stringent mathematical formalism
for computer programs is e.g. lambda calculus. Any piece
of software can be converted to lambda calculus, and thus
be viewed as a mathematical formula. A mathematical formula
per se has no "technical effects", it is first when you
define certain functions in the interpreter to have certain
"side effects" when a computer program, interpreted by a
computer can have any "technical effect".

The "technical effect" is something defined in the eyes
of the reader, for books, music, paintings as well as
for computer programs.

Most programming languages are not so mathematically
stringent, they are closer to normal written language than
a stringent mathematical formalism. I can, however,
easily convert any program written in some of the ordinary
programming languges like Ada,C,C++,CL,Fortran,Java,ML,
Pascal,Perl, Scheme etc to the mathematical formalism
lambda-calculus.

The so achieved mathematical formulas I can then run in
a scheme interpreter environment and I can assure you
that these mathematical formulas will result in no technical
effects at all if I have not specified those.

If I want some so called "technical effect" of this then
I can define that certain functions will achive some
specific side  effect, but this is completely arbitrary.
I can define any side effect of this program to have an
infinite amount of different "technical effects" but
this would still be the same formal program definiton.

This program, constructed by these mathematical formulas
I can further reversible translate to e.g. pictures,
music or any human readable language to which I can
assign an arbitrary meaning when interpreted or
just enjoy as art.

So, Mr Aharonian, if you want to patent the specific
technical effect of a specific computer program, then
you have to specify exactly what computer is being used,
what operative system, what language interpreter and in
what environment this computer is being used.

You have to remember, Mr Aharonian, that programs,
literature, music, painted art and other immaterial
information patterns arts are very much different
from technology. You achieve a technology first when
you apply any of these information concepts to a
very specific area.

	Best regards
	Roland Orre



