[Patents] 8 hardware questions thanks to Hartmut's 8 software questions

[srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

Hartmut just posed 8 questions.  Here are logically equivalent questions:

    1. In how many % of the 30000+ hardware patents granted so far by the
       EPO is the claimed contribution to technological progress so
       precious, that it could be worthwhile for us as lawmakers to
       reward this contribution by granting a 20 year monopoly?
       What do the EPO hardware patents usually claim and how high is
       the average cost of finding the claimed innovation?

    2. Is the hardware industry's innovativity suffering from too rapid
       imitation, or does the traditional regime of copyright make
       imitation costly enough to allow the first mover a sufficient
       market advantage?

    3. Which contributions to the progress of information technology
       do we owe to the incentive offered by hardware patents?
       Why would conventional incentives on the basis of copyright
       not have sufficed?
       What would a "specially-tailored hardware rewarding law" (lex sui
       generis) look like, that combines the advantages of copyright and
       patent law and avoids their disadvantages?

    4. Why not have a phenomenon of Free Hardware via the Open Source
       exchange of VHDL (et al.) file?
       How does the economics of immaterial goods differ from that of
       material goods?
       Which role could/should Free Hardware play in the information
       society?
       Under which rules can proprietary and free hardware prosper
       together productively?

    5. According to which rules do European courts (EPO Technical Board
       of Appeal, German Federal Court and Federal Patent Court) judge
       the patentability of hardware?
       Art these rules clear?
       Where have they been formulated in the clearest terms?

    6. According to which rules did European courts judge the
       patentability of hardware?
       Were these rules clear?
       Where have they been formulated in the clearest terms?

    7. Which clear delimiting rules aka invention concepts are there for
       us to choose from today?
       How many % of the total number of EPO patents (hard and software)
       would be confirmed as valid, if each of these rules was applied?

    8. Assuming these rules were codified as European Directives, what
       would happen to those patents that could no longer be confirmed
       as valid?


Increasingly in the hardware design world, the exchange, sale and
licesning of hardware IP (systems described in hardware design
languages) is approaching the levels of sales of software, the final
manufacture into physical form handed over to large fab factories
little different from the large factories that burn software CDs for
sale.  Hartmut's questions, once again, help show the equivalence of
hardware and software in so many aspects as to require their patentability
to be equivalent as well.  Thank you Hartmut for your continuing efforts
to demonstrate the equal patentability of hardware and software.

Greg Aharonian