Re: [Patents] "Betrayal of physics"

["Christian Beauprez" <beauprez@beauprez.fsnet.co.uk>]

> consumption in an existing fielded software application, or by saving
> energy by displacing energy expenditures using other technology.
> So if you were to change the patent laws of the world to require
> some such standard for all technologies, including software, I am sure
> that some forms of software would be able to meet such a physical
> criteria.
But Greg you have just been writing about how information itself is physical
and technical. So why must information patents be dressed up in physical
language and claimed with a physical apparatus or as "energy" or "matter".
Since information itself is physical we can just claim the idea surely?

You seem in this instance now to be in agreement with the FFII position that
"forces of nature must play a part in the teaching". If you think that there
are examples of software patents (inventions implemented by a computer)
that do this then where are they? Perhaps if you show people what a "good
software patent" looks like they will be able to decide whether such patents
would be desirable and not overly broad. However I have not seen a software
program yet that can by itself increase the speed of a processor or cause an
"abnormal interaction" between software and hardware- only software that
executes as intended on an already "invented" processor displaying on an
already invented monitor and recieving and transmitting over an invented
network. The idea that software authors sit writing code while measuring
electron changes in the hardware to create a "technical effect" is
laughable. Software is written using a computer and keyboard- the skills do
not relate to the hardware at all any more than ideas in a film relate to
the projector.