It's not software per se that gets patented in the US.
I have a
colleague from Ukraine who learned programming without using any computer.
Everything was done with pencil and paper. The teacher would read the students'
code and point out errors, much as a compiler would have done if they'd had a
compiler.
There's no way any software, as long as it just stays on paper,
can violate a US patent, because all the US software patents are all for running
software on a device.
If you're using the term "software" to denote only
software that's on a computer, then yes, software is patentable because you
don't call stuff written on paper "software". However if you concede that
programs written on paper are also software, then it's not the software per se
that's patentable but only its use on a device.
Note: I have written a
lot of programs on paper napkins at coffee shops. Most of it later goes verbatim
onto a computer. Because the paper record resembles so closely the source code I
see on a computer, I regard the markings on paper to actually be software.
YMMV [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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