Re: [Patents] Software patents: the case against

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> I have written a report on this issue that is available in both .pdf and
> .html form. I know that many of you will be familiar with the arguments
> already but I have tried to keep it as concise as possible.
 
If programs are to be "protected as literary works", that indeed should
mean that the scope of "protection" is determined by copyright, and not by
a cumulation of copyright with something else.  Copyright determines that
ideas are excluded.  They can not therefore be included by means of
patents.

I think the argument about "industrial application" is not quite tenable.
Even if you reduce "industrial" to "commercial", as abusively done by EPO
(it should imply that material goods are brought to the market), you still
have a meaning of usefulness in there (functional vs esthetic, "causally
overseeable result" from the technicity definition).  That is why
comparing software with music may not be convincing to the reader if not
done with care.  People intuitively feel the difference between functional
and esthetic, while they may not grasp the difference between mind and
matter so clearly.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
300,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/