🚀 go-pugleaf

In <362215c6.1954540@news.demon.co.uk> malcolm@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon) writes:

>>* The means of performing a computation is mathematical knowledge.
>>
>>* Any possible scope of a "software patent" is a means of performing a
>>computation. All computations that can be performed by a computer are
>>mathematical, whether or not you express them that way. Inside, the
>>computer is just pushing bits.
>>
>>* Therefore software is mathematical knowledge.
>>
>>* Therefore software patents ought not be permitted.
>>

By the same line, all real objects are made of atoms, and since atoms,
as natuaraly occuring objects are not patentable, no patent should be
granted. The patent office is not interested in the essense of things
but in the practice and use of things. A new way of making, using etc
something is patentable, even if the essense is not. Thus, although
computers use math and may even essentially be math, the specific
actions which the software performs is not. It is an invention to
accomplish a certain purpose. It is that purpose, and that technique
which are patentable. You could use exactly the same software to
accomplish a different purpose, and you would not be in violation of the
patent. Ie, it is the specific way in which those bits are pushed and
the accomplishment of some purpose by that bit pushing which is
patentable, not the bit pushing as an abstract idea itself.