Re: [Patents] Software is not hardware, social sciences are not natural sciences.

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, Jonas Maebe wrote:

> Indeed. A way of using a dril may be patentable, but whether you 
> describe this method in C or in English and whether the controlling of 
> the drill occurs by a worker or a computer doesn't matter as far as 
> patentability is concerned (shouldn't, anyway).

  That is the way it should be, but isn't the way it is today in some
countries.

  If you describe a business model, an application of a social science, in
English or some other human language, you can not get a patent on it.

  If you describe a business model in software, somehow the voodoo 
economists and lawyers claim that this gives it a technical character 
(largely because these economists and lawyers don't know what software 
is), and certain backward patent offices will grant it a patent.

  The existence of software should neither add to, nor subtract from, the 
patentability of an invention.  Unfortunately if you add software to an 
application of a social science you can sufficiently confuse patent 
offices and patent courts into doing things which they would otherwise not 
do if they knew what software was.

-- 
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