I was interviewed by Microsoft for a position as a pre-sales consultant for their security products. In the interview I was asked what I would do if I attended a sales meeting with a prospective customer and at that meeting a Microsoft salesman promised the customer that the software we were offering could do something I knew it couldn't. I told my interviewer that I would mildly correct the salesman and offer an accurate perspective on the software so as not to mislead the customer.
After the interview I heard back from Microsoft and was told that they wouldn't give me the job as my answer showed I wasn't prepared to back up their sales techniques. I was amazed. Basically they wanted me, as a pre-sales consultant, to lie to prospective customers about the capabilities of MS software. I've been in situations before where I've had to dig my company out of sour deals where salesmen have lied to customers about products they're buying, and it ain't nice. Too hear that MS do this shouldn't have been a suprise, but to hear it officially certainly changed my mind about working for them.
No, still wrong. Software for controlling doors, alarms, whatever will still not be patentable. Only the physical devices that interpret the electronic signals controlled by the software will be patentable. These will be detectors, manipulators, motors, chips, etc. But still not the software which runs in the chip and exists purely as a stream of electrons or configuration of magentic impulses.
No, even an algorithm for webcams following things in their field of vision will be prohibited from being patented. The software has no effect in the real world. Software, in it's purest sense, is a means to interpret and control the flow of electrons through electronic components, and it is these components that allow physical interaction with the real world. Without the components the software can do whatever it wants, but without interaction with the real world the software is useless. Only the physical componenets will be patentable, i.e. things that can be seen, touched and manipulated.
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After the interview I heard back from Microsoft and was told that they wouldn't give me the job as my answer showed I wasn't prepared to back up their sales techniques. I was amazed. Basically they wanted me, as a pre-sales consultant, to lie to prospective customers about the capabilities of MS software. I've been in situations before where I've had to dig my company out of sour deals where salesmen have lied to customers about products they're buying, and it ain't nice. Too hear that MS do this shouldn't have been a suprise, but to hear it officially certainly changed my mind about working for them.
No, still wrong. Software for controlling doors, alarms, whatever will still not be patentable. Only the physical devices that interpret the electronic signals controlled by the software will be patentable. These will be detectors, manipulators, motors, chips, etc. But still not the software which runs in the chip and exists purely as a stream of electrons or configuration of magentic impulses.
No, even an algorithm for webcams following things in their field of vision will be prohibited from being patented. The software has no effect in the real world. Software, in it's purest sense, is a means to interpret and control the flow of electrons through electronic components, and it is these components that allow physical interaction with the real world. Without the components the software can do whatever it wants, but without interaction with the real world the software is useless. Only the physical componenets will be patentable, i.e. things that can be seen, touched and manipulated.