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Send your email to: Bilski_Guidance@uspto.gov The FSF's suggested text is: Software patents hurt individuals by taking away our ability to control the devices
by rwl 16y ago
Send your email to: Bilski_Guidance@uspto.gov
The FSF's suggested text is:
Software patents hurt individuals by taking away our ability to control the devices that now exert such strong influence on our personal freedoms, including how we interact with each other. Now that computers are near-ubiquitous, it's easier than ever for an individual to create or modify software to perform the specific tasks they want done -- and more important than ever that they be able to do so. But a single software patent can put up an insurmountable, and unjustifiable, legal hurdle for many would-be developers.
The Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled in favor of the patentability of software. Their decision in Bilski v. Kappos further demonstrates that they expect the boundaries of patent eligibility to be drawn more narrowly than they commonly were at the case's outset. The primary point of the decision is that the machine-or-transformation test should not be the sole test for drawing those boundaries. The USPTO can, and should, exclude software from patent eligibility on other legal grounds: because software consists only of mathematics, which is not patentable, and the combination of such software with a general-purpose computer is obvious.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoThe suggested text is nonsense. Software is no more "mathematics" than are circuit diagrams, chemistry nor books.
- nitrogen 16y agoIf you ask a mathematician, everything is or can be described by math. I'm inclined to agree when it comes to software. Software is just a domain-specific mathematical notation for expressing algorithms in a machine-parsable way.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoThere is Nothing more mathematical about assembly language than coding a book in ASCII - its a coincidence, not intrisic to the subject.
- amalcon 16y agoTell this to Alan Turing or Alonzo Church.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoYes, and if you come up with a new theory of computer science, then run off to the patent office. But if (like most of us) you write A program, then its a program, not an equation or a theorem or anything else mathematical.
- amalcon 16y agoI think you miss the point. The fundamental insights that both Alan Turing and Alonzo Church independently had was that a program is an algorithm (or, more precisely, a numerical representation of an algorithm), which is mathematical by definition.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoAnd a lathe is an algorithm, and a cell, and ...
- amalcon 16y agoI've had this argument several times before, and frankly I'm not interested in having it again right now. If you want to understand, I suggest reading the Wikipedia page on algorithms for a start. If you don't, this is also fine by me.
- rwl 16y ago> Software is no more "mathematics" than are circuit diagrams, chemistry nor books. Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry-Howard_isomorphism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry-Howard_isomorphism
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoSure Some software corresponds to Some math in a contrived example. That is well-known. How about a disk driver? a network protocol? A game where you shoot a bunny with a flamethrower? Some Computer Scientists occasionally gain benefit from applying math to certain algorithmic software. Is that the only kind that is being patented?
- gnubardt 16y agoDon't forget to CC licensing@fsf.org, so the FSF gets a copy and the USPTO knows there's a large organized body opposing software patents.