Re: [Patents] some practical ideas

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> > A big global business is that of selling hardware designs
> > in software form.
>
> Yes, and in the case of the LEON processor, this design
> is covered by copyright.
>
> http://www.gaisler.com/
>
> (I think LEON is mainly used in sattelites of the
> European Space Program)

Indeed companies are demanding the extension of copyright to hardware
design, and in some cases courts are refusing it for systematic reasons,
saying this is the domain of patents.

I would say that, given the developments to which Greg is alluding, the
domain of copyright needs to be extended and the domain of patents
reduced.

In the case of "hardware design in software form", the ultimately produced
piece (such as a chip), is like a disk on which software is stored, except
that it is write-only.

The reasons against patents weigh a little less in this domain than in the
domain of read-and-write software and it is up to the legislator to make a
polic choice.  Arguments such as similarity or dissimilarity to other
patentable domains, such as GregBot is tirelessly advancing them, are
largely arbitrary and irrelevant, as has been said here many times.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
130,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/