[Patents] Man Patents the Wheel

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> Who decides what are "standard terms" and "fixed fees"
> in their proposal?  The government, according to at least one version
> of their manifesto (I am thinking of their article in the Communications
> of the ACM).  Samuelson et al. proposed vague economic mechanisms in
> their Manifesto, because they did not have a sound economic alternative
> to software patenting, which is one of the reasons their Manifesto has
> been ignored since it was published, especially those versions of their
> manifesto that put the government in charge of determining "standard
> terms" and "fixed fees"?

> Of course, you could let the market place decide the economic compesnation
> for a fixed period of time for software in their sui generic proposal, but
> wait a minute, .... that's just the patent system.

No, it just means that there is one more feature in common with the patent
system.

> Software engineering is the technology of the science of mathematics.

Of course you can find a definition that allows you to use "technology"
and "engineering" in connection with software.  Just as you can use them
in connection with writing music or putting together legal argumentations.
There can always be a "technology".  So what?

> It is all process and method acheiving a technical effect - in need of
> no other IP protection than patents, at least theoretically.

According to what theory?
Theories are tools.
When they produce inadequate results, you discard them.

> Practically, we have to get industry and governments to take software
> patent examination seriously, to improve patent quality to get rid of
> the crap that issues.

We have to get rid of long-refuted junk arguments ...

> What's left would be legitimate patentable subject
> matter,

.. such as this one.

> even satisfying the shifting ambiguities of European patent law (and
> please, stop worshiping the German courts.  When, in one of their
> decisions on 'technical effect' they pretty much admitted they have no
> definition of the phrase, well, that is sloppy).

It would be nice if you sent me the money for translating those court
decisions.

If then you could read them, you would find that they never talk about
"technical effect".  That is EPO terminology of 1986 and later.

And to say that German courts have no definition of technical invention is
like saying that Greg has no idea of what patents are and how to bust
them.  Or that Greg, when talking about the limits of patentability, is
capable of playing by rules of logic other than Gregorian logic.

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