Re: [Patents] meaning of "program"

[Xavi Drudis Ferran <xdrudis@tinet.org>]

El Mon, May 05, 2003 at 04:15:23PM +0200, Hartmut Pilch deia:
> 
> Software patents do cover a single program.
> 
> E.g.
> 
>       system and method using [ elements of a general-purpose computer
>       ], characterised by that [ a certain combination of steps is
>       performed ]
> 
> This is a computer program, of which many implementations can exist.
>

I don't know about legal meanings, but it is very contrary to the language
I speak as a programmer. For me a program is what I write, If the 
person next door writes some other code that does the same, that's 
another program, and a software patent covers many. 

What you (or whoever) call program, might be a specification, but 
in swpats claims are usually much broader and undefined to qualify 
even as such. 


> 
> It is not helpful especially in the European context to reduce the meaning
> of the word "program for computers" to "particular copyrighted instance".

helpful for who?. If lawyers understand one thing for "program" and 
programmers another (am I the only one?) we have a communication problem, no?

> That is what patent attorneys have, since the mid-eighties, been pushing
> the EPO to do and what Arlene McCarthy claims the EPO means.  The EPO
> itself has at least until recently been reluctant to define "program" in
> this way.  They in fact didn't make it quite so easy for themselves, but
> rather tried to distinguish between "program as such" and "program with
> futher technical effects", which perhaps could be something like the
> above "chemical program".
> 

I would like more explanation on this. Why does a patent attorney want 
to make the word program (or any other) more narrow?. 

> If you want to explain to people that software patents are broader than
> copyright, you have to find another way.  It is wrong and
> counter-productive to say that such patents are not directed to programs.
>

My understanding was that they were directed to a broad set of programs
each patent. The patent may talk of a program (or programmed apparatus
or process) but since it only defines some aspects of it, many programs
match the description (this is with my meaning of program).