[Patents] Bruce Perens: ...

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> I beleive hardware and software are equally patentable, and that patent
> offices are having problems examining such patents.  But my solution,
> as it has been for many years despite the false distortions spread on
> this list, has always been to give the patent offices more resources to
> do their jobs better, to get rid of most of the bad patents, bad hardware
> and bad software, that are being issued.

See

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

for reasons, including quotations from old discussions in which Greg was
involved, on why Greg's recipe cannot work.

In short: the very purpose of patent offices, according to their basic
rules, to grant what normal specialists would considers as "trivial
patents".  Making them work better means making them grant more trivial
patents.  Giving them more ressoures means strengthening their power to
lobby for more trivial patents.   Allowing softwar patents means removing
the last barrier to total triviality.

> What makes me tick?  Simple.  Making the existing systems work better
> for issuing both hardware and software patents, as opposed to many on
> this list who are against both hardware and software patents.

Evidently this is not what makes Greg tick.
He knows perfectly well that his recipe achieves just the opposite of what
he claims.
I think what does make him tick is his skill at finding prior art.
Everything else is an ideological superstructure built on that skill.
Greg's self-esteem and motiviation depends on that superstructure.
Which is why even an unrelated speech by Bruce Perence hit Greg's
sensitive nerve.

-phm