[Patents] Burce Perens: Software Patents vs. Free Software

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> Nice repeat of the same old arguments against software patents.

Just the basic points for the >20th time

(1) hardware has a per-piece cost at some fixed value above zero
    Its production and distribution requires an industrial apparatus
(2) patents on software-designed hardware = software patents.
    If there is no new empirical knowledge involved, then all you have
    invented is a new logical scheme, e.g. software, which shouldn't
    be patentable.  To your logical scheme, the hardware you use it on
    is like to my software program the computer that it runs on.
    You are just programming a certain known material medium.
(3) You must draw a borderline somewhere.  And however you draw it, there
    will be plenty of rooms for difficult border cases.  Such cases
    are typical of all laws made my humans.
(4) The criteria of novelty and non-obviousness are not suitable for
    eliminating even trivial patents, especially when you admit software
    (= logics) into the field of patentability.  This was acknowledged by
    well-known patent law scholars on this list, see

        http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/frili/

    (incomplete list of citations)

This is just for the new readers.
Greg already heard these arguments about >20 times in recent months
without ever showing a sign of having understood anything.
Good arguments are not appreciated, they just add to his obsession.
An obsession that is meanwhile taking on more and more ridiculous
forms. Bruce Perens wasn't even talking about the borderline question,
but nonetheless he struck Greg's nerve.

> And
> yet another example of an argument that can be applied to all other
> patents, especially hardware patents.  There is no longer any
> practical difference between the amount of effort, ingenuity and
> needed lifetime of hardware designs and software designs - the same
> tools are used, etc.  So Perens argument is as much an argument
> against most forms of patenting, once you subtract out the worshipping
> of software implicit in his arguments.
>
> Greg Aharonian
>
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