Re: [Patents] "Further technical effect"

[Roland Orre <orre@nada.kth.se>]

Greg has now again proved to really deserve his nickname Gregbot. He is
repeating the same nonsense in the same old style. Three years ago when
I was new to this list he came with exactly the same arguments and I
tried to argue with him, but this showed to be useless. It's true that
in a way he is helping us polish our arguments, but also boring because
he is doing exactly the same to the debate as sw patents are doing to
the technical development, i.e. helding it back. Apart from the simple
fact that Greg's job as a patent buster becomes more easy the more
insane software patents which exist, I would say that Greg expresses a
scare about software development advancing. Maybe he has seen too many
movies like Terminator? (I wouldn't ask about the Matrix, because that
he certainly doesn't understand)

On Sat, 2003-05-17 at 21:35, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
> James writes:
> >My distaste is based on the analysis that sw pats would (on balance)
> >reduce innovation, create a much more uncertain environment for
> >developers, promote monopolies, lock out open-source, and restrict
> >self-expression; all to no good purpose.
> 
> I have been collecting data on software and software patents for ten years
> much of which I publish.  There is no emprical evidence that software
> innovation is being reduced because of patents - no evidence when you
> actually measure things.  There is no evidence that uncertainties of
> software developers and the potential monopolies they might face any
> significantly different that for developers of chemicals, circuits,
> machines, etc.  And at least in the US, there is no evidence that software
> developers are experiencing any higher levels of restricted self-expression
> than any other developers (such as the ability to express thoughts about
> newly discovered gene sequences).  No evidence.

* So, what is your evidence that swpatents is not holding the
  development back? 

It is easy to understand by simple logical reasoning how sw patents are
limiting the sw development, but I have no way to imagine how sw patents
can be an incentive, and I'm a proffessional in the software business,
I know how software works. This is also the reason why I can't see how
programs can be patentable.

* By the way, what is your evidence that swpatents do not threat the
  open source development?

  (as we all know that it does, which we have several proofs about, and
   it creates a lot of unnessery extra work, holding the development
   back, also here)

> Software is just another technology dealing with the manipulation of a
> physical object - information (that is, if you read the physics
> literature for the last ten years, you will see the growing incorporation
> of information into the fundamental theories of physics as a physical
> quantity).  Software then is a controlled way of using the forces of
> nature to manipulate and transform a physical quantity - information.

No, software does nothing. Software can not manipulate physical objects.
If (as most people would consider quite a weird view) you see the
information bits which needs to be represented in some physical way and
need energy to be shifted to another state as an innovative "technical
effect", then you need a psychiatrist, or a long long vacation.

Software does not manipulate anything! It's actually the computer which
is able to manipulate the physical world. A program does nothing.

When a piano is playing, do you consider the kinetic sound energy of
the accelerated molecules to be generated by the ink on the score?

> In that sense, the Nordic patent committee report of 1963 was just
> anticipating the understanding of information as being physical when
> they refer to the energy aspects of computer operations (since all
> information exchanges expend energies).  The Nordic patent committee,
> in writing that a computer program transform a general machine into
> a specific machine, also was anticipating the reasoning of the American
> courts in the decades to follow that shifted effective software
> protection from copyright to patents.

This is the reason why also quantum computers (for now, the most
energy efficient way of computing we know) actually needs some energy
to change states of its information bits, but hardly a motivation for
so called sw patents as a way to innovate on the use of natural forces.

> Spend a few months (or years) and wander throught the physics literature
> and learn something serious about the forces and quantities of nature.

Greg, obviously you have pressed the reset button, as you are now back
in your boring old track again. I actually had some hope about you for
a few days. Then you return as nothing has happened. When you failed on
your knowledge about patents, when you considered my knowledge about
patents low, just because I didn't see circuit diagrams as patentable.
I didn't consider circuits diagrams as patentable, and they are not.
If they are in your country, then it's your problem and you have to do
something about it.

If software is patentable in your country, you and others involved
in this US patent mess need to do something about it, but don't try to
force this mess also on us!

What is the use to disturb the debate on this list in the way you are
doing. At least come with something new!

        Best regards
        Roland