[irq]: techie interrupted14/09/2012
“ In other words, when we say patents protect inventions, what we mean is they protect specific solutions to problems, rather than the idea of solving a particular problem. The design for a plough can be patented; the idea of ploughing a field can’t. A specific new drug that stops a headache can be patented; the function of using a drug to stop a headache can’t. Lemley explains how patent applications were increasingly written to go outside these bounds, culminating in a case in the 1940s where a judge finally declared patent claims that attempted to fence off a function — “functional claiming” — as an invalid use of patents. „
The software patent solution has been right here all along | Open Source Software - InfoWorld
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