From phm@a2e.de  Thu Dec 13 06:36:01 2001
From: phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 07:36:01 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [Patents] Re: A European observation on hardware/software equivalence
In-Reply-To: <200112130744.CAA11431@world.std.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0112130714320.1569-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>

Greg Aharonian once again made a speech to the EPO congregation, leaving
software specialists (such as patents@aful.org) out of the debate for good
reasons:

>     An article in the 10 Dec. 2001 issue of Electronic Engineering Times,
> page 22, explores the future of integrated circuit design.  The commentary
> is written by Jon Treanor, president of Celoxia in Abingdon, England.  The
> end of his comments are as follows:
>
>     Clearly, as the demand for more functionality at higher levels
>     of performance grows, hardware designers are going to face a
>     tougher task.  Hardware design methodology does not focus
>     attention on the overall function, but the detail beneath it.
>     An ideal would be a holistic approach that meshes the less
>     complicated approaches of the software world with the
>     performance benefits of hardware.
>
>     The debate on the viability of C-based design for ASICS is
>     considerable, but adding yet another language to that mix is
>     more than any civilized person can endure.  However, the
>     combination of C-based design methodologies and reconfigurable
>     electronics based on complex FPGAs has definite possibilities.
>
>     C-based languages can offer a simple expression of parallelism
>     and give hardware designers a solid HDL that overcomes the
>     complexities of RTL without forsaking manual control over
>     structures and timing.
>
>     The world of reconfigurable electronics merges the worlds of
>     hardware and software into one.  Functions are dedicated to
>     parallel devices that can be reconfigured on the fly, and
>     intellectual property takes on the characteristics of software
>     libraries.
>
> Many research efforts and tools being developed in Europe support this
> merging of software and hardware, gradually removing any boundaries
> between hardware and software (and there are no boundaries in software
> itself - word processing and process control are both equally software).
> Thus either drop 52.2.C or add "hardware programs" to 52.2.  EPC rules
> that are not invariant to swapping "hardware" and "software/computer"
> are increasingly incompatible with developments in these industries.

This merging or interchangeability of software and circuit implementations
is nothing new.  It was a standard argument for software patents in the
60s and 70s and it was well analysed and refuted in Gert Kolle's article
of 1977

	http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/grur-kolle77/

Art 52.2 EPC does not contain anything like "software programs".
It is a list of non-inventions, and one of these is

  plans for .. mental activity .. and programs for computers

If your innovation consists only in a calculating rule, usable by
programming a known or obvious device, then it is not an invention, be it
implemented as "software" or "hardware", because physical forces are not
a constitutive part of the contributed solution.

As our control of physical forces continuously improves, more and more
problems are reduced to software.  This means that there is no longer any
physical inventing to be done in those areas.  Which is really a good
thing.

Of course there are still areas where our control of physical forces is
not satisfactory yet.  We do not yet have the matter-compiling computer
yet.  Much still relies on physical problem solutions that must be found
by trial and error and produced by buying together lots of parts.  So
there is still enough room for patents and patent experts.  Don't panic.
The software patent experts, such as Greg, are the only ones who have
something to fear.  They are of course trying to spread this fear to the
whole patent community, thereby pushing that community into extreme
positions which, if anything, will make it vulnerable and accelerate the
rise of a more comprehensive anti-patent movement in our society.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch                                         http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	    http://swpat.ffii.org/
98000 signatures against software patents       http://www.noepatents.org/







