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Patents are to protect the creators idea.

See e.g. this 8 slide presentation, especially pages 3-6.

Regarding "no secrets", in addition to the etymological derivation of "patent" (Latin for open) and its secondary definition (obvious; plain), I believe the original purpose of patents was to promote progress by discouraging secrets and thus encouraging the sharing of ideas.

However, your basic idea is indeed correct: they're supposed to promote the sharing of information, in return for a monopoly on the concrete application of this information (i.e., on building inventions based on whatever is described). The problem with software patents, is that the application of this information still is information (a computer program). So you are getting a monopoly on the information itself, not on some concrete and physical thing/process.

It's as if a patented engine would result in a prohibition for anyone else to write and sell technical manuals on how to construct such an engine, because if the reader follows those instructions, he would be violating the patent. So the patent is not promoting the spreading of information, but inhibiting it.

Traditionally, the physical invention is on the monopoly side and information on the disclosure side, but with software patents both are pure information. As such, you indeed end up with patents on ideas (information) instead of on inventions. The result is that you get much more broad monopolies, where the advantage of disclosure no longer weighs up to the disadvantages of the granted monopolies.

It really isn't a problem of the patent offices, it's simply the patent principle and patent law which aren't fit to protect advances in logical reasonings. Especially read the discussion between the programmer and the UK Patent Office Deputy on that page (first point).

Two of the four main targets are inacessable.
The other two are holding up.

wget -vr http://www.onlinepacifictrust.com/site/assets/
wg et -vr http://saapexbank.com

wget for windows

There are already third parties who've built or are building their own apps to control the LanBox. For example, this simple thingy running on Linux

(disclaimer: I work for them, so my views may be slightly biased :-)

can be found at dumbo
Although a few might be outdated.
Good luck.

Universiteit Gent has some pictures of reversible logic gates, including a four-bit adder composed out of Feynman's "NOT, the CONTROLLED NOT, and the CONTROLLED CONTROLLED NOT" reversible logic gates, and some other circuits they've built.

They also have links to other sites about reversible logic and reversible computing, such as Ralph Merkle's Reversible Computing page (from Xerox).

Also note the bottom of the page: there's a vacancy in the research group, for all those just aching for a chance to work on reversible computing! (Looks like you'll have to speak Dutch, though.) ;-)

So, if I write a dataprocessing program that can be used by another piece of software to do something new....then I can patent it...or the other bit of software...or neither...

(a) "computer-implemented invention" means any invention within the meaning of the European Patent Convention the performance of which involves the use of a computer, computer network or other programmable apparatus and having in its implementations one or more nontechnical features which are realised wholly or partly by a computer program or computer programs, besides the technical features that any invention must possess;

A lot of them are popping up in the embedded world (A must if you are using C++ in small memory spaces).

These guys are doing a bit more than just template reduction here

• Industrial application: the EPO interprets this as "usable in a way that makes money". Don't believe me? One of the biggest proponents of software patents said so himself in the JURI meeting, when other proponents mentioned they were afraid that this requirement would exclude too many software patents.
• Technical effect: first of all, the "normal physical interaction between a program and the computer" is nowhere defined. Furhter, technical is also nowhere defined (and they don't want to define it, they say it has to follow from case law). In other words, you need anundefined effect apart from something which is not defined, so what could that be? Plenty of things, it turns out (see the heading "When is something technical"). Examples: processing data representing an image, saving memory, increasing speed, using computers instead of humans to process secret/private/sensitive data and automating a known process if the automated process provides surprising speed or economy of scale benefits.

For information on her other claims, please read the the English translation of the letter I sent to most Flemish MEPs, as well as this short overview of why software patents are bad.

Thanks for writing your MEPs, and keep it up!

• Industrial application: the EPO interprets this as "usable in a way that makes money". Don't believe me? One of the biggest proponents of software patents said so himself in the JURI meeting, when other proponents mentioned they were afraid that this requirement would exclude too many software patents.
• Technical effect: first of all, the "normal physical interaction between a program and the computer" is nowhere defined. Furhter, technical is also nowhere defined (and they don't want to define it, they say it has to follow from case law). In other words, you need anundefined effect apart from something which is not defined, so what could that be? Plenty of things, it turns out (see the heading "When is something technical"). Examples: processing data representing an image, saving memory, increasing speed, using computers instead of humans to process secret/private/sensitive data and automating a known process if the automated process provides surprising speed or economy of scale benefits.

For information on her other claims, please read the the English translation of the letter I sent to most Flemish MEPs, as well as this short overview of why software patents are bad.

Thanks for writing your MEPs, and keep it up!

This is what I prepared for our own site (www.freepascal.org). It may still change somewhat, of course.

This page can maybe be used as a basis to draft something like you propose. It's way to lengthy as just a splash page though, imho. It won't be easy to get the whole problem wrapped up in one paragraph.

I don't know about you guys, but protests aren't working, letters aren't working, e-mails aren't working. Voting is not working, propaganda isn't working. There's only 1 alternative after peacful protest; violent protest and our leaders are too dumb to realize that if they piss enough people off, they are dead meat literally.

I do have contacted my (Flemish) MEPs and it turns out all Flemish parties but one are against software patents (only the liberals haven't chosen a side yet). Arlene McCarthy is starting to get strong opposition from within her own (socialist) faction... Although I by no means want to suggest the fight is over or won, the article at the Register is spreading a lot of uninformed FUD imho.

It does make some good points, but it's by no means accurate about how a lot of politicians think about this issue, unless only the Belgian factions are against and the representatives from all other European countries are pro, but I doubt that... Most of the times, these factions try to take a common stand.

PS: I'm not politically active (except by writing an email - in Dutch - to the Flemish MEPs on this issue) or tied to one or other party in any way.

One of those assistants told me he's never seen such an enormous amount of public attention for a proposal in the two years that he has worked at the European parliament. He thinks there's actually a very good chance of preventing this proposal from getting approved. Really, it's easy to say "all politicians are alike" and "corporations own the politicians anyway" etc, but that's simply not true (note: I'm not a member of any political party nor politically active, except in cases like this). Yes Virginia, there still are a lot of people with a conscience in politics who want to do the best for society at large, they just need access to the right information. In cases like this, people like us can make the difference.

If a non-programmer or non-ip-lawyer reads a proposal like McCarthy's, I can perfectly imagine that it's not that difficult for that person to be convinced that she's indeed trying to protect the software development community at large. The background text of her proposal is really full of misleading and sometimes outright wrong statements to justify her goals.

For example, she cites one study which shows that software patents are beneficial to small and medium-sized companies. In the same footnote, she states that they also looked at several other studies, however, at least one of those concludes exactly the opposite. Nevertheless, the way it is put forth in her text, it seems as if all those studies show exactly the same results. There really are a lot of things like that...

Adding more pics to the parent dir.

Original (.mac site, bandwidth will be exceeded soon probably). Mirror on my machine. Another one (side view) here.