Re: [contacts] Re: proposition d' action eu ropéenn e : financement d' un cabinet de lobbying professionnel

[Jean-Marc Le Peuvédic <cocktails@freesurf.fr>]

I doubt there is any invention that is defined by a physical effect 
(e.g. ABS) and that *cannot* be implemented without a computer (ABS 
*was* implemented without computers in the sixties in airplanes and 
prototype cars). Maybe the only valid case is a small category of 
inventions whose object is to integrate a computer into something else, 
a connector for instance (very wide IBM EPO Patent in 98 on "smart 
cable" which I need to work around). But since few patents give the 
actual size of each element, or the actual technology used to achieve 
the feat in a given size, they tend to be patents on ideas rather than 
practical solutions of practical problems.

e.g. "A connector, containing a computer having two communication ports".

As the size of elements is not usually given in computer-related 
patents, the same physical effect can *always* be achieved using huge 
analog electronics or other technologies. The simple fact  that 
computers are not physical objects but logical objects allows a lot of 
different implementations even though mechanical (and quantum) computers 
have drawbacks (it's difficult to interface them in our electronic world).

I am not saying that it would be practical to implement these inventions 
without using digital electronic computers, but I am saying that the 
main patent claim rarely defines what the computer is in terms of 
technology or size, but rather does it in terms of logical effect 
(software).  Modern computers allow more complex logical functions in a 
product in a given size and power budget, but size and power budget are 
rarely considered in patents. The IBM patent I was referring to above 
doesn't even explain how the computer is powered, even though getting 
power from signal cables is in no way trivial !!

It seems to me that software patents describe solutions to logical 
problems (how to compute some result). This is how IBM's patent is 
formulated : how to translate conventions in the connecting cable 
between two "devices". Is that a general characteristic ?

J-M Le Peuvédic

Hartmut Pilch wrote:

> > In the battle against swpats or for FLOSS, we try to gain support from 
> > enterprises. They're used to a jargon, they're in contact with "IP" experts 
> > and patent offices. It makes sense to use their language. When talking to 
> > someone, it's up to YOU to make yourself understood -- the best way being 
> > to talk the other person's language, and not wait that this person speaks 
> > your language.
> >    
>
> I think this "computer-implemented inventions" jargon is not the jargon of 
> software companies and not even of serious lawyers.  Nobody does any 
> serious thinking in that jargon.  It wouldn't have made sense for 
> westerners in the cold war area to approach eastern heads of states with 
> the Pravda's terminology.  That would only have earned disrespect, even 
> from the heads of the eastern states.
>
>  
>
> > I'm not sure it's so black and white. There are inventions that today,
> > we cannot implement without computers.
> >    
>
> Computers can only implement computer programs and those aren't
> patentable.  ABS is not a computer-implemented invention but a 
> brake-implemented invention even by the EPO's definitions.
>
>
>
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