on 2012-08-28 15:43 DagT wrote
Which is very unfair for those who have great ideas.
that's a sweeping statement to which i will withhold my response, but your individual points below are thought provoking …
You know the circuitry for making efficient car engines? It may easily be duplicated by software if it is not already. Some millions of dollars research just to give it away to the competitor. Why bother making clean engines? But we want them, so have make people do the research if they don´t get anything back?
it seems to me that this example is about an alternative implementation of an idea rather than a method; patents aren't intended to protect ideas
Another thing is, of course, that we in Norway have found lots of new oil resources the past few months. Mostly due to software developed by seismic companies where the sensors themselves are well known. Why would they make these investments of the next (mostly likely US) company could just use the same idea. Our economy is certainly dependent on partially software relates, very complex, inventions.
if i were deciding how such a company should protect its work, i would treat it as a trade secret, not as a patent
No, your theory works for small software inventions, but those are not the complete picture. You need a better definition.
i think your point is not disputing my definition, but rather returning to the question of whether some or all software should be patentable
Another thing is, of course, that computer programs may be implemented as hardware...
if you mean as firmware, or as a configuration of an integrated circuit, it's still software if it is a description (loosely speaking) of inputs, outputs and a logical sequence; and if you are talking about specific computer programs, they are covered by copyright (copyright laws, at least in the US, are also flawed, but i don't object in principle to software copyrights)
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