Re: [Patents] The Importance of Potential (continued)

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> I suppose what I am saying in very simplistic form is that:
> 
> While a new machine that contains software maybe patentable
> 
> A machine that contains new software is not....

Not quite, because the novelty of the hardware operations might
also be defined by use.  E.g. you might have a fully automated chemical 
laboratory running a program and thereby bringing a new combination of 
forces of nature together to cause a surprising effect.  The program for 
this is perhaps as simple as A + B = C but the chemistry is quite 
unrelated to it.  Yet you have a known chemical laboratory with a new
program.