Re: [Patents] Software patents: the case against

[Carsten Svaneborg <zqex@mpipks-dresden.mpg.de>]

On Saturday 27 March 2004 04:30, Christian Beauprez wrote:
> Music: I liked this example because it could be shown to work in a process,
> but the problem is that people could see it as an aesthetic rather than
> industrious product.

Music can make a "technical contribution":

http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/classical_music_milk_production.cfm
Psychologists at the University of Leicester, UK, played music of different 
tempos to herds of Friesian cattle.
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled 
Water were a big hit in the milking shed. But when rowdy numbers, like Mud's 
Tigerfeet and Size of a Cow by Wonderstuff, were played, there was no 
increase in milk yield.
"Calming music can improve milk yield, probably because it reduces stress," 
said Dr Adrian North, who carried out the study with colleague Liam 
MacKenzie. 

Now imagine somebody invents a synthesiser designed for playing music
for cows, and that the music it plays is made to optimize milk production.
It would be novel, be industrially applicable, and probably also have 
inventive height. However, would it be an invention in the domain of
music?

Just as computer-implemented inventions are
software-implementerede innovations, then would this be a 
synthesiser-implemented invention or a music-implemented innovation?

Clearly the synthesiser is technical device, and the instructions for it, 
e.g. 
it's software is sheet music. Think of a MIDI file as being software for
a computer.

-- 
  mvh. Carsten Svaneborg