[Patents] Re: Software Patents and inernet spreading

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> What does the oponents say regarding patenting software and business
> method in regard of the above said?

Software patents (i.e. patents on computer-implementable rules of
organisation and calculation = patents on abstract functionalities) are
basically business method patents and vice versa.  E.g. the patent on
controlling one computer by another is a patent on a useful kind of action
with business value.  So is the patent on automatable medical diagnosis or
on trapping viruses.  All this can be performed as a business.  The
question whether this is done or not usually poses itself during use of
the process, not during patent examination.

Nobody has a clear rule that allows distinguishing between business
functionality and software functionality.  One could of course
nevertheless make the distinction even in the absence of a clear rule.
Not all distinctions in law are based on clear rules.  But to pretend that
software patents are good and business method patents bad and that we can
easily separate them is hypocrisy.

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