Re: [Patents] TRIPs lie: the UNICE version

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

Hartmut writes:
>The computer program is a description of the calculation, and TRIPS 
>certainly doesn't stipulate that the descriptions of processes must
>be patentable.

In your universe.  A computer program is a description of a machine, 
when annotated with a few items such as the intended processor to
be executed on.  A software patent is a description of that computer
program, that intended processor(s) and the useful application of
that program on the processor.  That the patent may be broad because
multiple target processors are specified, and multiple applications
specified, does not change the patentability.  Indeed, if I write
my computer program in VHDL, then I have the additional option of
having the computer program being the machine itself by running the
VHDL code through circuit design tools to get a chip produced.
To then say I can get a hardware patent on the VHDL code converted
into a circuit, but not a softare patent on the VHDL code converted
into binry data which converts a general microprocessor into a 
specific circuit, seems arbitrary with no basis in science or
engineering.  Since TRIPS says that descriptions of machines are
patentable, that would include the combination of a general
microprocessor and some software for a specific application.

Greg Aharonian