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Interstate discomfort

16 Mar 2017 Robert P Crease
Taken from the March 2017 issue of Physics World

Software creates an indeterminate legal zone blurring the line between patentable inventions and unpatentable ideas, as Robert P Crease explains

Photograph of a street sign stating software patents
Problems ahead: attempts to patent software underline the limits of the law. (Courtesy: iStock/theasis)
Laws, unlike nature, cannot recognize indeterminacy and will go to all lengths to squash an ambiguou

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Robert P Crease is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, Stony Brook University, US and writes the monthly Critical Point column for Physics World, robertpcrease.com, e-mail robert.crease@stonybrook.edu. His latest book is The Leak: Politics, Activists, and Loss of Trust at Brookhaven National Laboratory
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