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Authored by: reiisi on Friday, February 01 2013 @ 07:47 PM EST |
Software is not cognizant of time.
Reference the stopping problem.
No hardware, no way to interact in the time domain.
This is one of the ways in which the computer/software interface is
misinterpreted in current patent practice. Software is entirely mathematics.
Adding "implemented on a computer" to a patent is a faux attempt to
deal with this. To properly address the problem, the patent must specify which
computer, which run-time and drivers, which compiler, which libraries, and the
ways in which the software uses these to interact with the real world. And there
must be a patentable claim in the interaction. And the claim must be limited to
the combination of source code and run-time environment specified in the patent.
And the patent must not be allowed to specify run-time environment in which
operation has not been confirmed.
By the time you wade through that whole mess, however, you end up with not a lot
of patentable matter, and patents that really don't help you maintain your
rights to an invention in the vast majority of cases.
(In theory, a patent on something that runs under Unix would have a chance of
covering the same source running under a Linux OS, but much less of a chance of
covering the same source running on MSWindows. If it's general enough to cross
the gap, it's likely too general to actually include non-abstract stuff that
gets beyond the mathematical nature of software. The patent office should
require an assertion of functioning in each OS/run-time in which the claims are
asserted, in the form of makefiles, etc., with test programs and results.)
Math is part of literature. Copyright is the appropriate thing for software.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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