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Darren New wrote:
>> Either software is a thing, or its instructions. If its the later, we
>> have a serious problem.
>
> I'm saying that people don't patent software. They patent hardware
> that's running that software. You may argue that it doesn't make any
> difference, but that factually isn't the case, or nobody would be trying
> to change that via the courts right now.
>
Show me how many patents MS holds that talk about the hardware, and not
software, then explain to me how its not patenting software itself. You
are wrong about that. And the arguments being made are not "if they
should" allow patents on software itself, but whether or not they
**should have** in the first place in a **lot** of cases. On rethinking,
there may be some cases where its damn fuzzy and might be reasonable,
but there are two arguments against it, one being that even the
industry, including, in some cases, the patent holders, find it
*detracting* from the purpose of promoting innovation, and it is so damn
fuzzy that avoiding crossing the line might not be even feasible.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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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.
Post a reply to this message
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Show me how many patents MS holds that talk about the hardware, and not
> software, then explain to me how its not patenting software itself.
I quoted you one. Show me one that actually claims to patent the software.
> You are wrong about that.
Show me one patent that *says* they're patenting the software, and not the
computer executing the software or a piece of hardware storing the software,
or describing it as an abstract "process for blah implemented via a computer".
I have looked at hundreds of software patents, many professionally, and not
one I have seen has ever claimed to patent software.
> And the arguments being made
I'm not asking what the "arguments being made" are. I'm asking whether it's
*you* making the arguments, or someone else. In either case, I don't care
to debate the matter of "should" or "should not".
Obviously they *did* allow patents on lots of software. Obviously they're
now rethinking on whether that's reasonable, and if not, how to exclude
software.
Let's say you have an industrial process. In theory, a human could indeed
control that with a pencil and paper except for being so slow the chemicals
or whatever would all congeal by the time he decided whether to cook it any
longer. So you need something to compute how the machine works. Does that
make the machine non-patentable? How much of the machine can you take away
before the machine can no longer be patented? That's basically the problem.
--
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.
Post a reply to this message
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Darren New wrote:
> 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.
>
You keep persisting in missing the point of what I am talking about, and
trying to equate instructions on "how" to do something, with
descriptions of "what" something is, or what it actually is. Until you
stop trying to equate the two, there is no point in arguing over why
software is the former, and not the later.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
Post a reply to this message
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Darren New wrote:
> Let's say you have an industrial process. In theory, a human could
> indeed control that with a pencil and paper except for being so slow the
> chemicals or whatever would all congeal by the time he decided whether
> to cook it any longer. So you need something to compute how the machine
> works. Does that make the machine non-patentable? How much of the
> machine can you take away before the machine can no longer be patented?
> That's basically the problem.
>
Please.. Please! Stop confusing the instructions that tell the machine
what to do with the bloody machine. They are not the same thing. Of
course the machine is. The question isn't if the machine is, its whether
its "sufficient" to claim that stuffing the instructions the human would
use into the machine somehow *turns* those instructions into *part* of
the machine, or whether or not it makes any damn sense to claim that
this "improved" the machine, given that the machine was perfectly
capable of doing it without them, it just **didn't know how**, just the
the human wouldn't, without instructions either (note, the original
premise assumes a human that can understand and follow any instructions
you might give them, not one prone to *make up* steps on their own, or
already knows how to get the result, so its the same thing as a machine
that has the *capacity* to do X, but doesn't know, without instructions
to follow, how to *do* X).
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
Post a reply to this message
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> stop trying to equate the two, there is no point in arguing over why
> software is the former, and not the later.
You seem to think that I don't understand software is instructions. What
*you* don't seem to have done is read any patent claims on the matter.
People don't patent software. Until you understand why I say that, you're
not going to understand what the supreme court case is discussing.
--
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.
Post a reply to this message
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Let's say you have an industrial process. In theory, a human could
>> indeed control that with a pencil and paper except for being so slow
>> the chemicals or whatever would all congeal by the time he decided
>> whether to cook it any longer. So you need something to compute how
>> the machine works. Does that make the machine non-patentable? How much
>> of the machine can you take away before the machine can no longer be
>> patented? That's basically the problem.
>>
> Please.. Please! Stop confusing the instructions that tell the machine
> what to do with the bloody machine. They are not the same thing.
I know that. OK, I give up, since you're apparently so worked up about this
you're not even reading.
> or whether or not it makes any damn sense to claim that
> this "improved" the machine, given that the machine was perfectly
> capable of doing it without them, it just **didn't know how**,
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This pile of pots and pans and
chemicals *could* cure cancer. They just *didn't know how*. Hence, the
instructions for making a drug that cures cancer shouldn't be patentable, right?
--
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.
Post a reply to this message
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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> Let's say you have an industrial process. In theory, a human could
>>> indeed control that with a pencil and paper except for being so slow
>>> the chemicals or whatever would all congeal by the time he decided
>>> whether to cook it any longer. So you need something to compute how
>>> the machine works. Does that make the machine non-patentable? How
>>> much of the machine can you take away before the machine can no
>>> longer be patented? That's basically the problem.
>>>
>> Please.. Please! Stop confusing the instructions that tell the machine
>> what to do with the bloody machine. They are not the same thing.
>
> I know that. OK, I give up, since you're apparently so worked up about
> this you're not even reading.
>
>> or whether or not it makes any damn sense to claim that this
>> "improved" the machine, given that the machine was perfectly capable
>> of doing it without them, it just **didn't know how**,
>
> That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This pile of pots and pans and
> chemicals *could* cure cancer. They just *didn't know how*. Hence, the
> instructions for making a drug that cures cancer shouldn't be
> patentable, right?
>
Erk.. Oh, yes, and everyone knows that a pile of pots, pans and
chemicals are a) able to, or b) designed to, follow sets of general
instructions. I give up....
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
Post a reply to this message
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Erk.. Oh, yes, and everyone knows that a pile of pots, pans and
> chemicals are a) able to, or b) designed to, follow sets of general
> instructions. I give up....
They certainly are. You insist on looking at legal problems from the point
of view of abstract computer science. Nobody is patenting abstract computer
science.
--
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.
Post a reply to this message
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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Erk.. Oh, yes, and everyone knows that a pile of pots, pans and
>> chemicals are a) able to, or b) designed to, follow sets of general
>> instructions. I give up....
>
> They certainly are. You insist on looking at legal problems from the
> point of view of abstract computer science. Nobody is patenting abstract
> computer science.
>
No, they are just redefining what **is** abstraction as *not
abstracted*, so they can say its not the same thing. Kind of like what
the Catholics did with Capabara to redefine them as fish, so they could
get around eating them on holy days. It doesn't impress me, but it
certainly does impress someone whose area of expertise is the patenting
of discrete machines, but ***not*** computers.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
Post a reply to this message
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