Programs are mathematical proofs. If maths cannot be patented, software can’t be, either.
Proofs can be represented as programs, not the other way around. Also, USA allows for algorithm parents, and algorithms are maths. While I agree with you, your reasoning is not correct.
Correspondence is quite a weak relation. Very far from one being another.
Judges and Justices are not that precise. They aim to preserved public order before anything else. If a whole industry is based on a questionable interpretation of patent, they is a lot of chances that judges would agree on it. Even in countries where you could not patent algorythm, industries patent the documentation, the “software design”, the brand name, the illustrations used, and aggregates everything together, to say they own it. And it works.
TL;DR : Class Justice
You can hear a more detailed explanation on VLC’s stance from the man himself (JB Kempf) in the FOSS pod S1E11 episode around 22:10.
Basically:
- Not that many threats become lawsuits
- Patent trolling is countered with publicly accessible prior art
- Having no money is also a good deterrent
This is all well and good, and where’s the Traffic Cone!?!
What are these “other country” things you mention? You mean the place where war happens and immigrants come from? I didn’t know they had computers there.
Can confirm, here in Norway there’s both civil and uncivil war at the moment. The uncivil part is against sweden. The country ran out of hamburgers last week, and the hamburger mines have been sabotaged. The only productive diplomatic channel with sweden has been utilized to agree on forming a donkey-caravan across the atlantic ocean into Mexico where humanitarian efforts will provide us with sombreros and crime for our trip north towards the US border. I am posting this from the last steam powered telefax which still has enough coal to run. Wish me luck.
Please be sarcasm… Please be sarcasm… Oh I pray to the dark void of the universe that this is sarcasm.
it absolutely is, take it from an autistic person.
(autstic people often don’t recognize or can’t properly replicate sarcasm, which is why i often use /s)
AFAIK european laws only allow to patent “inventions”. Software is considered to be a series of “words” in whatever programming language you’re using and, like sentences, it’s not an invention and can’t be patented.
On the other hand, software-assisted inventions can be patented as a whole.
With that said, software can still be considered a “work” protected by copyright laws.
