Re: [Patents] You have rights.. Software Patents are Illegal

[Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>]

More copyright nonsense:

>Therefore proposals to extend patentability into data processing place
>us in express violation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty, The Berne
>Convention, The Software Copyright Directive and the TRIPS Treaty itself.

NO, software patentability does not conflict with these treaties.  Start
with Berne, which pretty much implies (but does not state clearly) that
literary works are to be protected by each country's copyright laws, and
in some case patent law (Berne talks about design patents, and is silent
on utility patents, which is why it has to be redrafted since more and
more art is being protected with utility patents around the world).

So saying software is literary under Berne means very little since it
takes you back immediately to software copyright, which has been an
intellectual disaster for thirty years.  Why?  Most national and regional
copyright treaties quite clearly state that copyright protection only
applies to expression - there is no copyright for ideas, processes, and
methods (anything functional).

And this is the problem.  Everytime courts have tried to separate idea
and expression in software, they have either failed or added to the
aspects of software that are explicitly uncopyrightable.  Most aspects
of software are uncopyrightable in the United States due to various
court decisions over the last twenty years.  Indeed, in one decision
that seems most governing (Altai), the court lamented that they wished
that all of this software IP stuff be thrown over into the patent world
which is better suited for analyzing structure and functionality.

Arguing that software is literary as a political tactic was tried 30
years ago in the United States (the nonsense CONTU commission) and
failed miserably, leading in the years to follow of the switch over
to software patents.

While it will be amusing to see some of you go back 30 years in time
for your arguments, I would prefer to watch "Back to the Future".

Greg Aharonian