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

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On Wed, 19 May 2004, Simo Sorce wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-05-18 at 22:27, Flemming Bjerke wrote:

> > Well, it was not exactly what I said. I said that information in a 
> > computer is 
> > purely material/physical. Do you disagree? Has a computer a mind? Or?
> 
> Are you saying that the brain is not purely material/physical ??


  I've come to think that those who support information process patents
when implemented by software think that computers are "voodoo magic
boxes".  Information processes which we would think ludicrous to patent
when executed by the brain (single brains or in groups) such as acts of
parliament (which are simply information processes authored by parliament
and in theory executed in the brains of the judicial system) all of a
sudden become "magic" when the same information process is executed in a
CPU.

  We somehow have to demystify the computer for people.  While a CPU and a 
human brain carries out information processes differently (each better at 
some processes than the other), this should not change the patentability 
of the information process itself.  I consider the whole question of 
whether information processes are patentable to be ludicrous.

  This is not to say that if a manufacturing process utilizes information 
processes (operator training, computer software) that the *manufacturing 
process* should not be patentable, just that the information process 
itself should never be patentable.

  Whether the electrons in the brain or in a computer have mass or are
physical is an interesting distraction that some special interests have
added to the discussion.  I consider the question entirely irrelevant to
the question of patenability.

  I also find the voodoo logic behind the misinterpretations of "as such"  
to allow software patents to be embarrassing for those who make it.  When
we speak about the trained operator of a manufacturing process we never
had to use the term "as such" to ensure that the training did not become
patentable.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Open letters with Susan Crean http://www.flora.ca/creators/
 Petition for Users' Rights http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/
 All citizens are "rights holders" http://digital-copyright.ca/discuss/3057