Re: [Patents] Re: Summary of legal arguments

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> The question of whether software can be protected by copyright is
> entirely irrelevant.  The question is why certain areas have
> traditionally been excluded from patent coverage.

Or to say it with the final of of the

        Dispositionsprogramm decision
        http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/bgh-dispo76/indexen.html

   Any attempt to attain the protection of mental achievements by means
   of extending the limits of the technical invention -- and thereby in
   fact giving up this concept -- leads onto a forbidden path. We must
   therefore insist that a pure rule of organisation and calculation,
   whose sole relation to the realm of technology consists in its
   usability for the normal operation of a known computer, does not
   deserve patent protection. Whether it can be awarded protection under
   some other regime, e.g. copyright or competition law, is outside the
   scope of our discussion.

> Greg's "solution" is to pretend there are no such reasons.

Indeed a 30 year old "solution", as old as the co-design junktalk.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch                                          http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
100,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/