Re: [Patents] Re: Summary of legal arguments

[Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>]

>Many of these start their argument with a definition debate about "what
>are software patents", trying to score points on the difficulty of the
>other side in defining something that is understood.

There is no difficulty in defining "software".  Much like a circuit
diagram or a VHDL listing, "software" is a shorthand notation for a
specific type of digital machine (for example, all software can be
translated into field programmable gate array patterns for their
implementation).  AS SUCH, software is just as patentable as a
circuit diagram, or more specifically, the applied use of the software
is as patentable as the applied use of the circuit diagram.

And this is consistent with EPO decisions and with the law.  Further,
the deliberately ill-defined vague wording of 52.2.C was written at a
time when people everywhere thought that some aspects of software
could be protected by copyright.  In the decades since 52.2.C was
written, the use of copyright for protecting software has been so
limited by courts on both sides of the Atlantic that today copyright
is effectively impotent for protecting software.  Had 52.2.C been
written afresh today, there would be no 52.2.C in it, especially in
light of today's hardware-software codesign tools which blur any
applied use distinction between hardware and software.

Now people like Hartmut can could be into the bowels of history and
dredge up old language from old decisions to attack today's legal
decisions, but that is a feeble attempt in my mind, since others can
dredge up their old language to support today's decisions.

The patentability of hardware and software are inseparable.  Which I
think is the point of this forum - to attack all forms of patents,
not just software.

Greg Aharonian