🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <PREECE.91Nov14171837@neptune.urbana.mcd.mot.com> preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Scott E. Preece) writes:
>I don't think I understand this argument at all.  What has the cost of
>production to do with the patentability of something?  Are you saying
>only expensive things should be patentable?

If I understand him right, Russ is trying to explain how software is
*fundamentally* *different* from other types of invention, which is
the reason many people believe that software should not be patentable.
(While the truth of the antecedent is completely obvious, there are
many people who would not accept the consequent; I think that the
other arguments---i.e., that software is primarily mathematical in
nature, and that patenting software doesn't pass the constitutional
test of advancing the useful arts---are much stronger.)

>
>In any case, this doesn't make software unique.  You can patent, for
>instance, hybrid plants, which cost nothing whatever to produce.  For

There are a lot of nursery companies out there which would be
very interested to hear this...

-GAWollman
-- 
Garrett A. Wollman - wollman@emily.uvm.edu - uvm-gen!wollman

Disclaimer:  I'm not even sure this represents *my* opinion, never
mind UVM's, EMBA's, EMBA-CF's, or indeed anyone else's.