On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 12:28 AM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
In short "specific hardware" is extremely generic until the software gets in whence it morphs into "special adoption or modification of its hardware or organization ".
In the above i have restricted myself to silicon. But the same could apply to full machines - robots -. What a robot does is totally dependent on the software. You could make it do flips or eye surgery.
What you should aim at is complete ban on patents for any software / process / method irrespective of it being tied to specific hardware, including the results of code being morphed into machine readable binaries, either for execution on, or modification of internal elements in FPGA / ASIC / General or special purpose machines, irrespective of it's method of storage or accessseaability
jtd, I have to agree with you. Given how easy it is to produce "specific hardware" nowadays, this can be a dangerous loophole.
Venky