| Good point. This is called "written description" or "enablement." I researched this in some depth and even have a unfinished paper on the subject. To me it's the silver bullet to ending software patents, or one of the bullets. The legal standard, believe it or not, is that you don't even need a detailed flowchart, let alone source code. The actual code is something anyone skilled in the art can do, sorta like a lab tech determining the exact temperature and pressure to use to manufacture your chemical compound. I was in some informal discussion in Google Legal, and someone stated unequivocally, "source code will never be required in patent descriptions." You have to ask "Why TF not?" I think the answer, at least the non-quiet part () is "the PTO is not equipped to judge your source code's adequacy. Any skilled coder can write the code." ( cynicism alert) the quiet part is "that would put us all out of business." It's totally reasonable to require that a patentee checks his source code and build files into GitHub or some other repository. Probably the PTO should contract with someone to build a repository and they will operate it. The lawyers and politicians and PTO will never do this on their own. Software engineers will have to organize and force it through. A lengthy flame on HN will not accomplish that. |