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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, October 11 2012 @ 10:00 PM EDT |
>> Writing software is like drafting an explicitly-detailed
contract between the programmer and the computer.
>> Does this mean that contracts should be patentable? Why
should lawyers be denied the ability to get a patent on a
specific type of contract? Because a contract is an abstract
set of instructions to be performed by each party. It should
be protected by copyright, if anything (just like software).
Software is nothing like a contract. A contract involves an
agreement between two parties. A contract is a legally
binding agreement that the parties will follow, with
specific financial consequences if it is broken.
As far as I know, a specific new type of contract *could* be
patented as a business method patent, provided it was
useful, novel and non-obvious. This might be impossible for
a contract, but (afaik) it is still patentable subject
matter.
Also, a recipe (which is a set of instructions on how to
combine inputs to create an output) can be patented if it is
useful, novel and non-obvious. Software is much more like a
recipe than it is a contract. MOST recipes are protected by
copyright, because they are obvious: but some have been
patented.
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