Re: [Fsfe-uk] Fwd: UK Leading Patents?

[PILCH Hartmut]

> > electronics idea is a non-invention: a new logical idea which is
> > translated into circuitry by known means.  I don't want logical ideas to
> > be patentable.

> My argument, which no-one has shown a reasonable defence against, is
> that all electronics are emulatable.

which doesn't have anything to do with patentability, as Xavier explained.

You get a patent on the way to lay out the circuitry, if that is
inventive, not for the logical functionality.  When someone achieves the
same logical functionality with software, well, that's life.  Patents
are supposed to encourage innovation by circumvention.

> > What about the Nymeyer example from 1980 that is cited on
> >     http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/gasnu/uk/
> > and that I cited here yesterday?

> It's not in the patent database, and the patent number doesn't even
> appear to be valid (UK patents start with 'GB').

It does start with GB, the number is the same.

> The fact that you say
> later legislation changed the validity of the patent means this argument
> has no relevancy for me anyway. Should it? Can you provide a link to the
> patent database?

There was no later legislation.
Anyway the patent support what I argue on the page.

> > Why can't a proven good concept be applied to the UK, particularly when we
> > are talking about a european directive ?
>
> You haven't proven it's a good concept for the UK at all. We have an
> entirely different legal system here. You're asking for our history of
> patent judgements, the body of case law and the raft of interleaved
> measures to be thrown out. That's not going to happen. If it did, we
> would be in a greater mess than we are currently.

It's not me but the UKPTO who is pushing for a european regulation.

If the UK wants to rely on its caselaw anyway, then what's the point in
talking about european regulation ?

> > If I understand correctly, you want the black box to be patented and thuse
> > the software solutions, which usually seem to exist in the cases that you
> > have in mind, to also fall under the patents.
>
> You haven't read what I have written at all. Please go back and read it
> again; I have explicitly said why software would _not_ be covered.

You have made some nebulous distinction about software as such vs the
things done by software in the electronics field.  I can't see the
difference when the thing done is nothing but control logic within known
axiomatic models.

> > If neither by economic assessment nor by a clear rule
>
> Again, read what I have written. I have proposed a clear rule - "it is
> software". That is enough, and clearer (I would suggest) that
> dispositionsprogramm.

Xavier has clearly explained the kinds of ambiguities that this leaves,
see VHDL.  I wonder whether you read what we write.  Did you read e.g.

        http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/korcu/index.en.html
        http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/bgh-dispo76/index.en.html

It might help if you argue by explicitely quoting and criticising.

> > The feedback they get is always pro-patenting.
> > They have before them a poor applicant begging for a patent and only
> > rarely someone disputing the patent in an opposition procedure.
> > More patents means more power for them.
> > The behavior of the UKPTO clearly that talking to them, even in a public
> > consultation, doesn't change their mind even by a millimeter.
>
> This attitude confuses me. You say they only get pro-patenting feedback,
> then in your next breath you tell us it's a waste of time trying to talk
> to them. Given they are part of our elected government, the day I give
> up trying to lobby them for change is the day I give up on politics
> altogether. I don't believe that they are bad people, and I don't
> believe that they gain any more power out of allowing more patents. The
> UKPTO has no power.

You can talk to your MPs or to other people who can act as a check on the
organisational self-propagating tendencies of the patent system.  The
UKPTO clearly is not an institution designed to keep the patent systme
within limits, just as the army is not an institution designed to promote
disarmament.  That doesn't mean that you cannot talk to the people at the
army, or that they are bad guys, but if you are serious about disarmament,
you are not going to waste much time on talking to them.

> List of things not allowed: "software". It's quite simple.

read Xavier etc

> > Patents are granted not for systems, but for inventions.
> > The form of materialisation (circuit or diskette) does not matter.
>
> The materialisation does matter: you can't make it out of software. You
> claim that all software inventions would fail the dispositionsprogramm
> test, I have yet to see you back up that claim although I have asked on
> a number of occasions.

All software/logics comes in a materialised form, be it a diskette, an
EPROM, a computer or a transposition into circuitry according to some
known method.

> > The patent is granted for a teaching about physical forces.
> > A computer could play a role in an embodiment of that teaching, perhaps
> > the preferable and only reallistically implementable embodiment, but still
> > the teaching would be independent of software.  It would say something
> > like "you mix chemicals A B and C together at environment conditions D E
> > and F according to formula G and thereby obtain H".  You get the patent
> > because the cause-effect relation of that teaching was not obtainable by
> > calculation based on known mathematical models.
>
> Then you have no idea how the chemical world works any more. People
> don't sit in laboratories mixing together chemicals. They use computers
> from day one to create their substances. They are able to model the
> chemicals they use accurately, and experiment with materials in
> software, looking for their desired properties, before actually mixing
> the substance. Sometimes the substance behaves slightly differently than
> the model, so the new physical characteristics are noted and fed back
> into the computer model (we don't know everything about the physical
> forces of nature) but at the end of the day, it's a competely virtual
> material. Probably the last great material to be designed without
> computers is teflon; unless something is discovered accidentally, it's
> designed.

The mind/matter teaching/embodiment distinction does not prevent such
inventions from being patented.  Whether logics and computing played a
role during inventing is not decisive.  What is decisive is that it did
not suffice: forces of nature were a constitutive part of inventing.
Accodording to your above account, this was the case.

I am not quite unfamiliar with chemical engineering, and I don't think it
all works as you say above.  But the tendency is there.  As much of
chemistry becomes computational, the space for technical inventing in that
area may also become thinner.  The UKPTO people and patent lawyers will be
very worried and upset about such tendencies, just as some social welfare
agencies become very worried when the problems of social welfare (e.g.
sub-urban house-building) have been largely solved.  But for the rest of
us, it is great news.

> > The inability of the UKPTO (and yourself) to come up with any rule for
> > differentiating between "technical" and other algorithms demonstrates this
> > point.  Read also Donald Knuths comments on this question in
>
> I'm not trying to differentiate between the two. My last email stated:
>
> "Algorithms are what the universe is made of, everything we do is
> algorithmic. Defining what is mathematical and what is not is ultimately
> useless."

That is even worse: it would mean that the universe is a part of our mind
and behaves according to the laws of reason. You can, but needn't quote
Albert Einstein as in

        http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/korcu/

or Karl Popper or about any modern philosopher or scientist to refute this
kind of statement, which, unfortunately, has been erring around in the
patent scene quite a lot.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
100,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/