Re: Why are software patents wrong?

[threeseas]

threeseas wrote:
> Two catagories of answers:
>
> symptoms and cause
>
> or from the other direction:
>
> cause and effect.
>
> Seems to me many have found arguement against software patents that only 
> deal with the symptoms or effect of software patents, rather then the 
> more fundamental underlying reasons why software doesn't qualify for 
> patent status.
>
> So how about it?
>
> why do you think software should not be patentable? and is your answer 
> cause or effect?

So far I have seen only at best "symptoms" or "effects" in comment 
responses.

Perhaps I should try and clairify.

A disease causes symptoms which can be treated, but so long as the 
disease itself is being ignored, and only the symptoms being attemped in 
treatment, then the disease will continue on.

Of the things that are not patentable:

natural law

physical phenomenon

abstract ideas

are the top three.

there are others, such as mathmatical algorythims (another area of 
questional patent granting)

Anyways, what I mean by cause, perhaps I should realsize that term is 
biased to hide away the disease source...

Perhaps I should have said: how does software fit those things that are 
not patentable?

I guess the disease (cause) is in the misunderstanding of the real 
nature of software enough to clearly see it as fiting what is not 
patentable.

So how does software fit that which is not patentable?
What are the misunderstandings causing the disease?