[Patents] BGH authorises claims to computer programs

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> while people like Melullis, Chisum, Kober and others become more and more
> famous as villains of history.

Melullis actually has a reputation of being cautious and willing to take
public interests into consideration, as seen in his article of 1998

        http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/grur-mellu98/

My impression is that he is a bit confused and unflexible but less
bad-willing than many other people in this field.  However the current
verdict, as I see it, seems to carry his handwriting, as do the previous
two and his article of 1998.  He plunged into erroneous thinking and
became so closely associated to it that there was no way out.  When he
started recognizing the dangers, his ship was already on course and it
would have required quite a lot of acumen to get it off again. Thus,
whether deserved or not, his name will be primarily tied to these
infamous decisions in the public perception.  And my prediction that they
will become more and more infamous is based on the estimation that the
patent system as a whole is now on a collision course where it will
generate a lot of trouble: enough to mobilise lots of adversaries but not
enough to kill those adversaries.  This whole problem is a historic
accident of a kind of which there have been quite a few.  Recipes
derived from patent buster utopia, such as those of Greg, can be a great
motivation for Greg but apart from that would not change the course of the
ship even if they were realisable.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch                                         http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation      http://swpat.ffii.org/
95000 signatures against software patents       http://www.noepatents.org/