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software vs. time | 202 comments | Create New Account
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software vs. time
Authored by: reiisi on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 07:47 PM EST
Software is not cognizant of time.

Reference the stopping problem.

No hardware, no way to interact in the time domain.

This is one of the ways in which the computer/software interface is
misinterpreted in current patent practice. Software is entirely mathematics.

Adding "implemented on a computer" to a patent is a faux attempt to
deal with this. To properly address the problem, the patent must specify which
computer, which run-time and drivers, which compiler, which libraries, and the
ways in which the software uses these to interact with the real world. And there
must be a patentable claim in the interaction. And the claim must be limited to
the combination of source code and run-time environment specified in the patent.
And the patent must not be allowed to specify run-time environment in which
operation has not been confirmed.

By the time you wade through that whole mess, however, you end up with not a lot
of patentable matter, and patents that really don't help you maintain your
rights to an invention in the vast majority of cases.

(In theory, a patent on something that runs under Unix would have a chance of
covering the same source running under a Linux OS, but much less of a chance of
covering the same source running on MSWindows. If it's general enough to cross
the gap, it's likely too general to actually include non-abstract stuff that
gets beyond the mathematical nature of software. The patent office should
require an assertion of functioning in each OS/run-time in which the claims are
asserted, in the form of makefiles, etc., with test programs and results.)

Math is part of literature. Copyright is the appropriate thing for software.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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