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RE: [dvd-discuss]Does software really satisfy the requriments for Copyright?



On 15 May 2002 at 15:26, Richard Hartman wrote:

From:           	Richard Hartman <hartman@onetouch.com>
To:             	"'dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu'" <dvd-
discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
Subject:        	RE: [dvd-discuss]Does software really satisfy the requriments 
for
  	Copyright?
Date sent:      	Wed, 15 May 2002 15:26:19 -0700
Send reply to:  	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu

> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Stephen L. Johnson [mailto:sjohnson@monsters.org]
> ...
> > Right now the Patent Office is awarding patents for trivial 
> > things that don't 
> > deserve one. Patents for software that any competent 
> > programmer would come up  
> > if they were required to develop it. Given the same task to a 
> > large number of 
> > programmer, a significant number of them come up with a 
> > similar solution. 
> > There goes the patent requirement of being non-obvious.
> > 
> 
> This argument, however, is merely an argument against the
> current implementation of the patent process and not against
> patent protection per se.
> 
> You will have no greater agreement from anyone that the patent
> office is being run by a bunch of morons who can't tell an
> original idea (and therefore can not tell a derivative and
> obvious idea) from the hole in their heads.

THeir heads? That's not where the hole is. ;-)
The argument is not against patent protection per se only against patent 
protection for software per se.
But that's a good point-seperating practice from policy is difficult here. We 
have a situation where the law is vague. The patent office political toads. The 
examiners overworked , undertrained, underwhelmed.
But the original point about nonobviousness is well taken. Given the same 
problem if the programmers come up with the same solution, how is that novel? 
It fits more in the category of the stock in trade which is NOT patentable.  

> 
> Be that as it may, software is more akin to a device than
> it is to expression and patent is more applicable than
> copyright.  That the patent review process is flawed is
> not germane since there are horrible problems with the
> copyright process as well (and both should be corrected).
> 

akin but not a device. What we have here is that the sequence of specific 
instructions to a general purpose device is unprecedented. Those instructions 
are highly complex. I like to give the analogy that a complex computer program 
is comparable to War and Peace in number of pages and words but the difference 
is that if I don't read every word or War and PEace I still get the story. Not 
so with software. ON the flip side, not every part of that software is 
patentable. Patents were meant to be specific well defined, well understood, 
and well ISOLATED things. Software is not so. Applying patent protection to it 
means that one has to apply it to all the code or only to the idea the code 
implements. NEITHER is the stuff of patents. 
> 
> -- 
> -Richard M. Hartman
> hartman@onetouch.com
> 
> 186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!