For the impatient: I hate software patents. For the rest of you, it seems you can now patent things that do not physically exist. At first, I thought the general patent system was for protecting one's great ideas that are put down on paper, such as plans for devices and machines for example. I did not think however that patents could apply to ideas themselves.

It turns out, you can patent an idea. But you might say that that is impossible. Only plans for physical and material things can be patented. Well, maybe I can show you how that is no longer possible by looking at software patents.

Did you know that software does not exist? It does not. Try and get some software in your hand, I'll bet you can not do it. Did you pick up a floppy disk, CD-ROM, flash drive or other storage device? That is not the software. Are you going to retrieve the hard drive out of your computer to show me? Sorry, you still do not have software. Are you going to dis-assembly a hard drive and point to the metal platters? Nope, all just various magnetic acids and metals.

Ok, so you get a disk editor and show me the binary bits on your hard drive. Nope, that is still just binary bits, the stagnant and still bits and bytes that make up a program, but is not the software itself.

You see, software only exists while it is running. When it is loaded into memory, it is executed/run and you use it. But until this happens, the software does not exist, the instructions or binary "recipe" is there to get it working, but software is intangible and only exists when you want it to exist. The software is not it's source code either. Source code is source code. Even it is useless until it is put through a compiler to convert it to machine code. Still again, the source code is automatically copyrighted, so it is an inherent protection the very moment it is created.

So, if software can not exist physically, and it cannot be represented by anything and only exists when executed and placed into volatile memory, it therefore does not ever exist until the user wants it to. Therefore, it is pretend and perhaps, an illusion created by the computer, and a delusion when perceived by our brains.

Therefore, if software is patentable, this can only prove that you can now patent ideas and no longer need plans, diagrams or schematics of a potential physical device in order to get a patent.

I always thought that you could not patent ideas. You can't even copyright ideas, you can only copyright their expression once you have them on paper or in some other form that can be transmitted or transferred. But it seems I was wrong. You CAN patent ideas and other non-existant things. Is this not worrying to any intelligent being?

So this is why I do not support the idea, concept or marketability of software patents. Software patents, so far from circumstantial evidence, only serves to makes lawyers richer and delude those who may already be confused about what patents are meant for and just want to make a living from litigation of software patents. The other uses seem to be honourable. Software patents are not honourable and anyone who pushes for them really needs a good reality check.