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Check out how (late) Phil Salin puts it: http://philsalin.com/patents.html "It is an absurdity to expect those millions of individuals to perform patent searches or any other kind of search prior to the act of writing a program to solve a specific problem." I just wish that people of the USPTO would pay attention to Phil's excellent article. ~Mike

http://philsalin.com/patents.html

There! Read that and rub it on those corrupt gov's faces.

I just patented *everything*.

ps. best story on patents, ever:
http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

If people read (late) Phil Salin's article, people might start saying the right things. Right now the state of affairs on both sides just sucks.

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

Consider it the bibble on anti-patents.

"...pull the USA back into line with the majority of the world which simply does not recognize patents on software but respects them as literary works subject to copyright law."

That'd be beyond beautiful. If anyone wants to muster up ammo for the debate, please consider reading (late) Phil Salin's amazing article:

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

An absolute *MUST* read by anyone talking about patents and freedom of speech in software.

Too bad the guy is dead now, he could have helped us all out a great deal !

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

Looks like patents are doing the opposite.

Someone needs to seriously bring down the whole patent system, it's just ludicrous.

Here's some good reading about freedom of speech in software development:

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

Too bad he isn't alive anymore. We really need someone like him to for once and for all address this stupid idiotic system.

People really need to read this article about freedom of speech in software, patents: http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html He said it so well, and I believe it can assist in bringing down this idiotic system.

Perhaps with the help of (late) Phil Salin's document about free speech in software, found here:

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

we can finally rip apart this bogus corrupt system.

A *MUST* read on patents:

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

People really need to read Phil Salin's article: http://philsalin.com/patents.html

Patents turn ordinary developers with ideas into criminals. Check it out, this really is one of the best articles about patents I have ever read: http://philsalin.com/patents.html

This really is best piece I've ever found on the patents lunacy: http://philsalin.com/patents.html

Whenever I see a patent conversion, I point people to probably the best article on patents ever:

http://philsalin.com/patents.html

Yes, patents *are* a bad idea. I stress people to read Phil Salin most excellent article on patents. It is the most clearest, strongest, most sensible things ever said about patents.

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

I do this from time to time. This (late) guy, Phil Salin, has written the most amazing article on sofware patents. It is an absolute *MUST* read for everyone, I am totally dead serious.

http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html

http://philsalin.com/patents.html Please let the EC be the only sane software-patent-less place to make money. When some slob shuts me down in the US, I can still use my genuine inventions in the EC. Keep the evil scum out !

You are shifting the burden of proof and rather distorting the facts: You may only ever have seen exceptionally weak arguments, but that is not because only exceptionally weak arguments have ever been deployed - quite the converse is true*. The problem so far has instead been that no argument with even a semblance of strength for introducing software patents has ever been produced. And however weak you think any argument against the expansion of patentable subject matter is, it automatically wins unless you have a strong argument in favour of that expansion. But the expansion has occurred anyway of course, and in the face of strong arguments and strong opposition from industry and academia. That many companies, academics and individuals had to make such arguments at all illustrates the appalling state of recent policy making in this area (if you can call it policy making). Any credible economist will tell you that patent scope expansion without prior empirical and sound theoretical justification is verboten. Too bad - the damage is done and in the US it seems the fight's effectively over now, but the rest of what I want to say is appropriately Eurocentric anyway.

*
http://researchoninnovation.org/online.htm
http://www.si.umich.edu/~kahin/mip.html
http://swpat.ffii.org/archive/mirror/impact/index. en.html
http://philsalin.com/patents.html
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/knuth-to-pto.txt
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul05/1557
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=stor y_16-8-2005_pg5_12
http://swpat.ffii.org/archive/quotes/index.en.html

"You have to be prepared to deal with issues like why expressing a particular piece of logic in C or Ada doesn't deserve patent protection, while expressing the same logic in Verilog or VHDL, which look identical to a non-programmer should deserve that protection."

That is definitely not an issue. One does not ask whether or not some invention deserves a patent, but whether or not it is patentable subject matter at all and your example is a poor one because if the claims of a patent are directed to the expressions of logic, then they are software patent claims.

"Likewise, why a device that fits the description in a patent claim should not be protected if the implementation happens to be (even in part) carried out with an embedded processor with embedded code, even though it's not at all apparent to the outside world that there's any software involved at all."

The distinction between hardware and software is not useful and is not at all relevant to the question of whether a patent claim is a software patent claim or not. One way to discover how the distinction between software patent and non-software patent is determined (and it is not always easy) is to read the way it is expressed by Judge Peter Prescott QC in his recent CFPH decision, in which he carefully and fully interprets the EPC Article 52 exclusions. Unfortunately, Prescott's interpretation seems to me to leave a lot of room for claiming things such as image enhancement techniques derived from purely mathematical considerations, but at least compression algorithms and data manipulation and data st

Heres an interesting essay on the subject. One of his three major points: "Central Planning or Licensure of Good Ideas in Software Won't Work. Just as any attempt to centralize or classify all original (or "non-obvious") literary, musical, or scientific writings in the patent office would fail, so any attempt to centralize information regarding all innovative software programs will also fail. No human can know all of software relevant to any large subject, just as no human can know all that has been written on any large subject, and for the same reasons. Current and near-term innovations in the writing of software will cause the amount of software developed every year by the one million professional programmers in the U.S. to grow at an ever-increasing rate. As a result, the burden of central licensing of innovation by the patent office will grow steadily more onerous, creating unnecessary and costly barriers to software progress." This guy saw what was coming in 1991.

It's about me or you or anyone having the natural right to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants. Imagine if you didn't have the benefit of standard libraries because all the concepts and processes in them had been patented.

The ariticle lays out all sorts of other seemingly reasonable analogies that I'm too tired to type at 4 am.

FYI, I think this post does quite a good job of laying out the systemic issues.

It's about me or you or anyone having the natural right to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants. Imagine if you didn't have the benefit of standard libraries because all the concepts and processes in them had been patented.

The ariticle lays out all sorts of other seemingly reasonable analogies that I'm too tired to type at 4 am.

FYI, I think this post does quite a good job of laying out the systemic issues.

It's about me or you or anyone having the natural right to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants. Imagine if you didn't have the benefit of standard libraries because all the concepts and processes in them had been patented.

The ariticle lays out all sorts of other seemingly reasonable analogies that I'm too tired to type at 4 am.

FYI, I think this post does quite a good job of laying out the systemic issues.

It's about me or you or anyone having the natural right to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants. Imagine if you didn't have the benefit of standard libraries because all the concepts and processes in them had been patented.

The ariticle lays out all sorts of other seemingly reasonable analogies that I'm too tired to type at 4 am.

FYI, I think this post does quite a good job of laying out the systemic issues.

It's about me or you or anyone having the natural right to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants. Imagine if you didn't have the benefit of standard libraries because all the concepts and processes in them had been patented.

The ariticle lays out all sorts of other seemingly reasonable analogies that I'm too tired to type at 4 am.

FYI, I think this post does quite a good job of laying out the systemic issues.