Re: [Patents] Even worse abuses with copyright

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

This is good grist for the mill:

It occurs to me that we really need to convey to the policymakers that if
they decide that abstract ideas can be patented, then it makes no difference
whether code is contained inside a patented "computer-implemented invention"
or not:  ideas are not somehow magically confined to the device; if you say
that patenting a device patents the ideas expressed in its software, then
you are patenting the idea no matter where it's applied.

This might not be the most felicitous phrasing, but this point, that ideas
are not confined (expressly because they are ideas, are ideal), needs to be
presented in response to such nonsense as the following nonsense we keep
hearing from national politicians, civil servants, Ministers and State
Secretaries, who all seem to really believe in what they're saying (not to
mention the Gregbot).  These are lines from the Dutch State Secretary's
letter at http://kwiki.ffii.org/?NlGovLttrResp0422En:

"Additionally, it is once again confirmed that software on its own,
independent from an application in a specific device, is unpatentable."

"The inventiveness of the invention must lie in the technical aspects of the
invention. Therefore, inventions which are only inventive regarding the
non-technical aspects, are not patentable."

"As a consequence, business methods, that are non-technical in nature and
are just implemented using a computer, are not patentable."


(Apologies to the person who actually performed the above selection, which I
have pulled from discussion elsewhere.)


Seth



Stefano Maffulli wrote:
> 
> Funny story, thanks for the info.  But of course it is meaningless
> for what we are discussing here.  It would have been better for the
> society if the German theater, instead of abusing of the will of
> the author, wrote a different piece with women on stage instead,
> and called it something else.  That is the point of copyright.
> 
> If Beckett had the possibility to patent the absurdist ideas of "Waiting
> for Godot" no other play would have been possible.  Any reinterpretation
> could have fallen under the patent, giving the author the possibility to
> stop evolution.
> 
> regards
> stef

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