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Deadliest Sin #1: Treating the abstract as the physical | 202 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Deadliest Sin #1: Treating the abstract as the physical
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 31 2013 @ 04:27 PM EST

Software is abstract. It's a an interpretive language applied to "the particular pattern of electrical flow"1.

In that regard, there's absolutely zero difference in patenting software as there is in patenting a particular flow of morse code.

Software does not exist in physical form. You can not point to anything and call it the physical embodiment of software anymore then you can point to a book and call it the physical embodiment of English.

While you can author a set of instructions in the form of software you can do exactly the same in the form of a blueprint. In both cases, the information available in the software/blueprint are interpreted under the human concept of communication. They - themselves - are not the inventions they are used to define and describe.

While you can use descriptive language to describe a steaming cup of coffee - even to the point someone reading the description could be salivating in anticipation - the reality is that the description is still not a steaming cup of coffee. It holds no nurishment for the physical body.

Yet all the above touch on the reasons many give as to why software should be patentable.

Reasons that overlook the fact that software always has been, and always will be, nothing more then abstract language used for communication purposes.

The simple correlation that since software shares certain apparent features with something in the physical world, since that object exists in the physical world, software must exist in the physical world. A very poor correlation which falls apart immediately upon even basic analysis. No matter how strong a correlation is that is presented, the software description of a cup of coffee will never - ever - be a physical cup of coffee.

Like Morse, English and Blueprints - software is nothing more then another abstract language that serves a particular purpose!


1: The pattern takes on many physical forms such as magnetic, electricity or even hole punch. The focus should be on the concept of interpreting the physical pattern - not the particular physical technical detail difference that may exist in a given implementation.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • abstract idea physical - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 01:40 AM EST
  • 1s and 0s - Authored by: Wol on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 11:59 AM EST
    • Exactly! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 12:38 PM EST
"Software patents" is a legal fiction
Authored by: myNym on Thursday, January 31 2013 @ 11:35 PM EST
A situation that will hopefully be remedied shortly.

(See RAS's reply for details.)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

ATTN DROdio: A Proposed Response to the USTPO's Topic 1 Question on Functional Language ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 03:27 AM EST
I tried to post this at drodio.com, but your blog wouldn't let me.

so here goes:

One thing that bugs me no end is the USPTO's idea that the software that is patentable is that which turns a general purpose algorithmic device ie a common-or-garden computer, into special-purpose device. I first came across it reading the garbage that various entities produced in their effort to get the European Union to swallow the software patent, hook-line-and-sinker. I couldn't believe they were serious, except now I've read in in the USPTO's own documents referenced by Groklaw.

If you've ever read any serious book on operating systems, you'd realize that the whole tenor of computer science development has been in the opposite direction; multiprogramming a la the IBM OS MFT, with memory partitioning (even MS DOS with Terminate and Stay Resident fits that paradigm); then multitasking, with virtual memory protection, eg IBM MVS, Unix, VMS, etc, the virtual machines, a la VMS/370 aka CP/CMS, Linux on Xen plus UML, etc ...

The only software that I know of that fits that definition - turning a general-purpose computer into a special-purpose computer - within the span of my computer-using memory happens to be the much-loved MS DOS and MS windows 3.x + 9.x viruses, boot-sector or not.

So basically we can take as read that the supporters of software patents are defining their software as malware. Try selling that to the overseas markets!!!

Wesley Parish

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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