> Correct, the goal: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", i.e. make trade secrets public
I could just as easily say:
Correct, the goal: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", i.e. encourage people to invent.
My point is that it was left up to us as a society to interpret those words, and just claiming that your interpretation is the correct one does not make it so.
No you can't, inventions that aren't public don't promote the progress of Science. Science is by it's very nature a public endeavor.
> My point is that it was left up to us as a society to interpret those words, and just claiming that your interpretation is the correct one does not make it so.
It is so because words have meaning and under no interpretation can promoting science simply mean to encourage invention because invention alone, without making the knowledge public, does not promote science.
So "useful arts" doesn't refer to writings? How about "writings"?
But back to software patents, if the real societal good of patent law is disclosure than there is no need for it at all in the software world. As soon as Visicalc sold their first spreadsheet every programmer knew how to build one. There is no benefit to society to grant the monopoly in exchange for instructions on how to build a software idea.
The straight forward way is to give a financial incentive for inventors to tinker and come up with new ideas.
The way you're suggesting is to give inventors (that are already inventing without need of incentive) an incentive to disclose their invention and then that will promote other inventors to build on top of the invention even though they will have pay the original inventor for the privilege.
My point is that neither of these methods are effective at promoting progress in software.
No, we're discussing the reason patents exist.
> The way you're suggesting is to give inventors
I'm not suggesting anything, I'm simply stating why patents exist.
> My point is that neither of these methods are effective at promoting progress in software.
Software should not be patentable at all, so we're not in disagreement there.
The reason patents exist, as you've repeatedly asserted, is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. We are discussing two mechanisms by which that might be accomplished (and by which it is quite arguably accomplished in some fields).
Then our discussion is over as that is the only point I was making.
> We are discussing two mechanisms by which that might be accomplished
No we are not, as how to accomplish promoting science was not anything I commented on at all. You may be trying to discuss it, but I'm not interested in that digression.
That is explicitly what you commented on, twice. I can go into more details if you need them, but geeze...
"[M]otivating inventors was not the purpose of patents, it's merely the side effect of the method used to get inventors to give up their trade secrets."
I quote you again:
"[M]otivating inventors was not the purpose of patents, it's merely the side effect of the method used to get inventors to give up their trade secrets."
Let's break this down a little:
"X was not the purpose of patents, it's merely a side effect of the method used to get Y."
And now you're claiming you weren't talking about X and Y?
Note that I've shown this to others, and they don't understand your position either, so if it's brain-damage it's not uniquely mine.