Re: [Patents] "Betrayal of physics"

[Simo Sorce <simo.sorce@xsec.it>]

On Thu, 2004-07-08 at 16:21, Carsten Svaneborg wrote:

> This is something that can be assessed by economists.
> The patent offices (like all true believers in doctrine) seems
> rather hesitant in actually trying to assess the truth of their
> beliefs, as the result might be a surprise.

Right, but economy is not everything, you cannot adopt slavery just
because it may be beneficial to economy, there are other limits as well.
I think one of these limits is freedom of information for example.

> I think one of the major problems about the directive is that
> "computer-implemented inventions" at one end is a business
> method running on a PC, and in the other end software
> controlling ABS breakes.

I do not see it this way sorry, the software itself that controls ABS
brakes is not the invention and so it shouldn't be patentable imho, that
software has enough protection under copyright. Instead the whole thing
(ABS brakes) may be worth of a patent.

> What is needed is a simple and robust way of distinguishing
> between real CIIs and software-innovations. Anything that's too
> complicated (such as natural forces...) will be deconstructed
> to nonsense by the EPO hordes of lawyers.

Anything will be deconstructed to nonsense if that's your goal, twisting
words and rules is one of the jobs of a lawyer.
Your idea of distinguishing between classes of software are way much
more difficult to describe than a clean "physical" distinction between
natural forces and pure information. Excepts Greg A. (and all other
silly people that like to twist words and facts to adapt them to their
needs) everyone knows the distinction as it is pretty much intuitive.

> A simple guideline is that software-innovation, is functionality that
> can be transferred as information through a communication line.

"Functionality that can be transfered"?
So a user interface on a web page isn't a sort of functionality that's
also transfered through a communication line ?
Ah wait, but the same is not anymore patentable if it is not transfered
over the Internet and instead viewed locally on the machine ?
Ah no wait, computers are made by wires, they are communication lines
aren't they? And doesn't that mean that each program by simply issuing
instructions transfers information over wires (either real ones or
printed on chips) and is therefore patentable?

I think your idea makes little sense or it is expressed poorly and I
have not understood, if that's the case then I apologize and would like
clarifications.

Simo.

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