Re: [Patents] "Further technical effect"

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> > > I don't think it was *me* who was basing their position against software
> > > patents on the claim that software creation required no knowledge or
> > > experimentation about the outside world.

> > Nobody is basing his position against swpat on such a claim anyway.

> Why not?


If you substitute

        knowledge about the outside world

with

        new knowledge about controllable forces of nature

then it's ok.

Nobody is saying that business programming requires no knowledge about the
world of business and that such programs needn't be put to any practise
test.

Also one must distinguish primary and secondary arguments.  The primary
argument lies in the experience that swpat create a lot of trouble and do
little good.  Limiting patentability by a concept of technical invention
is secondary.  It follows from requirements of legal system, such as the
need to have a clear limit, and may not be the immediate basis for the
position against software patents.

Advocacy does not begin with the 'forces of nature' concept but with more
practical experiences.  But if you want to answer the questions posed
by CEC, McCarthy & Co, i.e.

  "we have here a system which grants broad monopolies on whatever is new
  + some other condition, please define that condition"

then the answer will inevitably be 'problem solution involving
controllable forces of nature' or similar.

One may find the problem idiotic in the first place, but that takes us too
far.  In the area of technical invention the idea is at least not as
idiotic as in other areas.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
145,000 votes 400 firms against software patents     http://noepatents.org/