Re: You have rights.. Software Patents are Illegal

Dear Phil,

Thanks for your views on this.

> I don't agree with your logic.
>
> Computer programs are subject to copyright, but that doesn't mean that the
> function that they perform cannot be subject to patent.

 The function (or performance of the work) is covered by copyright and the
author has the right to perform the function on a computer. It is only when
the machine running software produces a new physical process that we can
seperate the invention from the computer program (which is a literary work).
If I perform a piece of  music on an instrument, does the obligation to the
author end? Can I then patent the concept of his sonata when it is played?


 A blueprint of a
> machine is subject to copyright, but the function that the machine
performs
> can still be patented. There is no real difference between translating a
> computer program into an executable image in memory, and transforming a
> design into a working machine.

I would dispute this. One is the work of the author, the other the inventor.
Transforming a design into a working machine requires experimentation in
applied natural science. Inventions (e.g. monopolies in patent law) are
supposed to be granted because experimentation (with no guarantee of
success) is an expensive business.

 Computer programs contain only logic and abstraction- there is no
experimentation required in order for me to know what a computer is going to
do with my piece of code- nor any expense to implement it. I can write it
down on paper and know this before it is executed.

The computer program itself is more akin to an instruction manual than a
physical invention. When we talk about computers running programs, we are
not talking about a new industrial process that is being realised. We are
talking about a calculation machine running instructions- computers have
always been "invented" to do just this.

What I'm saying is that in order to qualify to be an "invention" in the
sense of patent law, the new process must lie outside the "virtual machine"
aka "computer program" otherwise it would be the same as allowing one author
of a book to own the concepts within it. Or allowing someone with a
calculator to patent the rules of calculation, in reality it is only
possible to own an expression of these things.
This explains why software patents are nearly always trivial, they are based
on existing known statements with logical innovation.

>If I took someone else's drawing and made a
> sculpture exactly like it, I would be violating their copyright. If it
were
> a working machine, they could protect it additionally with patents, so I
> couldn't legally produce a workalike. I don't see that software is
> fundamentally different.
>

Software is, under international treaties a literary work.Copyright means
you can own an expression but not the concept. So for example if you copied
the original work, the author would have to prove that you had done this.

 Under invention law, the "inventor" would own the concept of
"A statue characterised by the features...."

If you made an indepedent work that matched this description you would be
violating a patent even if you had no knowledge of it.

 By definition under the protection it has been given, one cannot own the
idea in a literary/artistic work.

> My opinion is that the patent system is already broken, and adding more to
> it isn't going to fix it, it's just going to extend the influence of a bad
> system.

I quite agree, what I'm saying is extending the patent system to mere logic
and abstraction cannot generate more efficiency in the market since other
people are perfectly capable of having reasoned ideas- and these cannot be a
single persons monopoly.

Kindest Regards,

Christian