And that is why there are no software patents in Poland - software is math. In fact every software ever created could be written as math formula in lambda calculus.
No, it's not. Math does not have side-effects. Software does have side-effects since it runs on physical devices connected to the physical world.
Huh?
Take the "apple bounce" patent. I can see images move on a screen. How did that happen without a "physical world implementation"?
Note that the "cure rubber with heat" patent mentioned abouve covered a process, a set of steps. It wasn't a patent on a rubber curing machine.
There is a logical dilemma with allowing patents based on software side-effects.
Patent attempt #1 is some computation made to effect side effect A.
Patent attempt #2 is the same computation made to effect side effect B.
If you grant both patents, you have acknowledged that the computation is irrelevant to the patent. The side effect, which is often the goal that was set out to be achieved through computation, is not a secret in need of patent protection to encourage public disclosure, so the patent rationale fails.
If you grant only the first patent, you claim that the computation in part affects the novelty of patents, therefore the novelty of math affects the novelty of patents.
This is taken to the extreme where the non-math portion of a patent is a general purpose computer. The meaningful parts of a patent are the math. The general-purpose computer that handles all the side effects is necessary, but uninteresting, and not in the least bit novel.
Most of the time, specific side effects aren't even mentioned in the patents. Here's an MP4-related patent:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sec...
The patent, like other software patents, tries to tie the completely functional core (mathematical) idea to a physical computer, but what the trick amounts to is
any arbitrary math function + specification of a general purpose computer + money => patent
(insofar as the math function is novel and not trivial in the opinion of a patent examiner)
But seriously: what is patentable in video codecs? Isn't it just math function? Give input in the domain of function and you get output.
Beside side-effects are only reading input and writing output - nothing else is side-effect. We already figured I/O almost 50 years ago - nothing novel here (the moment you get touchscreens is the moment kbd on touchscreen is created as it is obvious)
It's akin to asking "what is patentable in a medication; it's just a chemical formula, a diagram on paper".
It's a function satisfying non-trivial constraints, like: size of the output should be smaller than the size of the input [ideally, ratio is adjustable by the user]; regardless of the quality ratio, the output should be similar to the input [really, how do you define "similarity"? -- simple RMS difference won't do]; etc, etc.
Finding such a function is a rather big research endeavour, and IF it has been privately funded, then by all means, there should be away to ensure that the researcher(s) have exclusive rights to the exploitation of their results.
I agree though that the patent system is very faulty, but I am NOT for totally abolishing mechanisms for IP protection.
There are many mathematical functions that have to satisfy non-trivial constraints and none of them are patentable. Why is it so that when you change the domain of use for function from one branch of math to another (CS is branch of math too) you suddenly can patent it?
I'm NOT for totally abolishing IP protection but there are things that shouldn't be patented, especially in very innovating areas of industry (i.e. what is patented today in CS in next 5 years will be obvious thing... while protection will last for 20, thus stifling innovation)