Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Hmm. Ok. Processes are included, it seems, but that doesn't alter the 
> fact that some very precise exclusions where added when defining what is 
> patentable, and software is a bloody close fit to that.

But clearly not close enough to have made it unpatentable. :-)

When we talk about this, let's talk about *good* software patents, not 
crappy ones. Ones where experts had spent years trying to come up with the 
solution, and the software solution found astounded the experts. Something 
like public key encryption, for example, which many people (at least outside 
the NSA) didn't even consider to be possible, let alone how to do it.

Of course there's a lot of crappy software patents, but there's a lot of 
crappy every kind of patent.

 > The argument is
> that software is a description of abstractions in a lot of cases. 

In many, yes. But that's true of patents like the Segway patent as well.

> the math the guy used on paper to describe the means to map something to 
> a 3D point in space is "not" fundamentally different than the code used 
> to do the same thing. So, you can't patent the process of calculating 
> such a point, though you might the specific "way" you do it. 

Right. That would be patenting the mathematics.

But the DH patent didn't patent modular roots. It patented using modular 
roots in order to do public key cryptography.

 > Problem
> with a lot of patents has been that they cross that line by a wide 
> fracking margin, attempting to patent, as in one person's example, the 
> process of making bolts, not the *specific* bolt in question.

Certianly. But that hasn't anything to do with whether it's a patent on 
software or hardware. You know what the segway patent covers?

A vehicle with two wheels on the same axis with a passenger having a center 
of gravity above the height of the axel.

There's no diagrams of how it goes, how it balances, etc. Basically, nothing 
you can't learn by watching a 10-second clip of someone riding past on a 
segway. That's a crappy patent too. That doesn't mean vehicles shouldn't get 
patent protection. It means the patent should disclose how to go about 
making it happen in a novel way.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
     Then he is not omnipotent.
   Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
     Then he is malevolent.

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