Re: [Patents] "Betrayal of physics"

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> The purpose of patents is to spur innovation. All other attempts
> at rationalising existence or absense of patents e.g. from the point of
> view of energy expenditure, from philosophical mind-matter differences
> or whatever are irrelevant.

Not quite true, you lost the argument to Greg.

Whether or not innovation is spurred by a patent is difficult to assess,
and no judge can be asked to assess it. A legal system must be built on
clear rules, not on concepts such as "whether it spurs innovation".

If Greg can successfully argue that the mind-matter rule is too unclear to
be used, that argument does have a serious impact.  One might even 
suppport assertion 2 from above on this basis by saying:

1 either everything or nothing must be patentable, subject matter borders 
  don't work
2 doing away with patentability as a whole is harmful 
3 allowing patentability for everything is also harmful, but in practise 
  the harm can be greatly mitigated by proper prior art search
4 ergo: everything must be patentable

You have so far done nothing to break that logical chain.  

-- 
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/