[Patents] Greg upset about "peace, love, linux"

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> >Software copyright is not a construction within a logical system.

> I disagree, as do many others on both sides of the Atlantic.  There is
> much about patent and copyright law that inherently has a logical
> basis, if one chooses to be so explicit.  For example, all systems can
> be represented in predicate logic,

If real life can be represented in predicate logic, that doesn't mean that
real life is a construction within a logical system.

> especially the systems that correspond to mechanical, chemical and
> electronic inventions.  Indeed, some of the best work in this area is
> being done in Europe.  With such systems expressed in predicate logic,
> many patent laws can be expressed as tests on sets of logic statements
> (for example, the novelty test becomes the rule 'No invention can be
> patented if its corresponding predicate logic equivalent already has
> been made public prior to the patent application submission', etc.)

This sounds just like a clumsy reformulation of the novelty test.

Or do you mean to say that any prior art that was not formulated in
terms of predicate logic is not considered to be prior art?

Is predicate logic useful for something beyond the above clumsy
reformulation activity, e.g. for automatising operations such as
subtracting the prior state of the art from the new state of the art ?

> In some cases, theorem proving predicate logic systems are being used
> to invent, design and verify mechanical components and digital
> circuits, the output of which can be not only the design, but a patent
> claim corresponding to the design.

If a machine can obtain a patent, this leads at least a part of the above
approach ad absurdum.

> At least when using the types of systems logic developed here in America
> by scientists and mathematicians.  Maybe they have a different logic in
> Germany.

In Germany, like in America, today as in antiquity, higpriests of all
types tend to be invoked as authorities by people who fail to build
adequate models of reality at the level of common sense.

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