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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, October 14 2012 @ 09:44 AM EDT |
Words in a novel aren't physical either. Neither are plans
for buildings. Both are as abstract as code on a printout or
hard drive, and you can't patent either.
I think you are trying to convince the wrong people with
your arguments. I know
patents on software or scientific or mathematical principles
are stupid, you know that, and pretty every programmer,
engineer and scientist knows it. You have to explain why
software patents are stupid to lawyers, law makers, and the
public. To do that, you need to explain it in ways that they
do understand and can see a precedent for. They do
understand novels and creative use of building blocks is not
patentable. It is the same patent law that covers both these
which has been extended to cover software. These analogies
can be used to demonstrate far more clearly to them that the
concepts of non-patentability of concepts in novels and of
physical building blocks should apply also to the software
concepts, and the way in which building blocks of software
code can be used.
The maths argument can be made for the non-patentability of
the concept of the rectangular block which is a geometric
shape, but the case needs to be made in a much simpler way,
and by analogy to things they do understand, if law makers,
lawyers and juries are going to accept it.
I am not arguing against anything you are saying - I just
think that if you walk into a court and argue that software
is only mathematics, and by inference everything else is
also mathematics, all you are going to do is to persuade the
court that mathematics is patentable because on that basis,
there is a precedent for it in every patent that has been
granted.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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