Re: [Patents] how far will they go ?

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> Doesn't this imply that, according to the Council, a program converting
> a string of bytes into another string of bytes, is not a "program as
> such" ?

Of course it implies that.

A "program, characterised that upon loading into memory it does X"  is
also not a "program as such" according to the Council, see
        
        http://swpat.ffii.org/letters/cons0406/text/

Basically any program described in terms of the sledgehammer-like broad 
claims of the patent system is not a program as such, according to 
Bolkestein (who stressed that in his speech at the Council session).

There is no limit to how far the Council wants to go.  Try to propose a
rules that clearly excludes any economically interesting subject matter
from patentability, and you can be sure they will be against that rule.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
330,000 votes 3000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/