Re: US Patents vs Non-US software ...

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:22:58 +0200
>Many countries do not grant software patents so it is not
>likely
>that IBM applied through PCT since a refusal in one
>country may
>cause to patent to be refused in all countries.

Contrary to popular misconception, virtually all countries
grant software patents. The problem is that people have
applied the term "software patent" to USPTO-specific
lameness like "one-click shopping", which really is
outside the scope of traditional software patents. While
most countries do not grant patents for this flavor of
frivolousness, they do grant hard-theory algorithm design
patents across virtually all types of machinery (including
virtual machinery).

Traditional software design patents are structurally and
functionally indistinguishable from chemical process
patents, which are generally recognized as valid in most
countries. Software patents have to have novelty that
survives reduction to general process design (and the ARC
algorithm looks like it qualifies) if you want most
countries to grant it. The problem with USPTO and
so-called "software patents" is that they allow people to
patent what is essentially prior art with re-named
variables. Chemical process patents are a good analogy
because literally every argument used against "software
patents" could be used against chemical process patents,
which no one apparently finds controversial. What often
passes for material "novel-ness" in software processes
with the USPTO would never fly for chemical processes with
the same USPTO. If someone invents a better pipe alloy
for carrying chemical fluids, you cannot re-patent all
chemical processes with the novelty being that you use a
better type of pipe -- that change is not material to the
chemical process, even if it improves the economics of it
in some fashion. The only thing patentable would be the
superior alloy design in the abstract.

Most of the lame "software patents" are lame because
reduction to machine process design gives you something
that is decidedly non-novel. In other words, the
"novel-ness" is the semantic dressing-up of a non-novel
engineering process.

cheers,

j. andrew rogers