Z:gnu-www-ja-software-patents--2999a8-When the US started having sof/en

When the US started having software patents, there was no political debate. In fact, nobody noticed. The software field, for the most part, didn't even notice. There was a supreme court decision in 1981 which considered a patent on a process for curing rubber. The ruling was that the fact that the apparatus included a computer and a program as part of the process to cure the rubber did not make it un-patentable.