From phm@a2e.de  Sun Jun 17 18:41:45 2001
From: phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 19:41:45 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Patents] Re: 80,000 signatures for software patent free
 Europe
In-Reply-To: <200106171739.NAA20518@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.31.0106171935330.14015-100000@querty.oas.a2e.de>

> >Yes, it was.  But since swpatents came it has been dramatically changed
> >to descriptions of combinations of existing business processes.
>
> Please do not waste the time and bandwidth of people on this list with
> such naive and ill-supported statements.

There is nothing wrong with the above statement.  To make it even clearer:
software patents came as a natural consequence of the legalisation of
function claims.  In Europe, function claims were introduced in the early
eighties, and software patents came a little later.  Function claims
typically refer to a logical combination of existing processes.

You are wasting people's bandwidth with the reiteration of positions that
have been refuted on this list dozens of times.  And you are abusing your
intellectual authority to scare people into intellectual submission,
usually by terms like "scientific", "co-design tools" etc, all used in a
way that is contrary to the spirit of science and that, if it were to be
considered religious, would constitute an abuse of sacred words.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                           http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	      http://swpat.ffii.org/
80000 signatures against software patents         http://www.noepatents.org/



