I haven't read all of the interview, but Mr. Boone offers a lot of insights into the patent process. I particularly liked his remarks on Inventing around Patents.

Thanks for posting.

Here's a (to me) interesting quote: "One thing that I think is important is how patents apply to software.

There have been recent decisions clarifying that software is patentable. Basically the courts have said, quit bothering us with the details of whether you use iron or silicon or bits. The question is not what it's constituted of; the question is whether it's new and whether it's not obvious. If it's new and not obvious, it's probably patentable.

Software is not different, despite what you may hear from programmers. Software is not different from any other kind of engineering. You can definitely make those kind of distinctions. This code is new, this code is not. Or, this code may be new, but it's obvious. The same test that has traditionally and I think quite equitably, distinguished patentable inventions from all other inventions, applies equally well to software.

There are some other regulatory requirements. You can't patent an algorithm, but if you attach that algorithm to a valve, and [the algorithm] decides when the valve opens, then that becomes an apparatus, which falls into the statutory categories of what's patentable.

Anyhow, I'm boring you with anecdotal war stories, but the concern is not so much legal, because that is clear. But to get back to the attitude of engineering and software design groups, I think that there are some really sad examples of companies whose business is nominally software not obtaining patents when they should and when they probably could. There seems to be a curious attitude among software people that patenting is bad. I don't know if software people are Socialists or what, but most software people I know think it should be free. I'm sorry, but that's wrong. This is America! This is free enterprise! It is only through the patent statutes that one can declare "What I discovered, I'm entitled to exclusively." It's really sad to see a whole category of companies that will become more important than hardware development companies, adopting an attitude that's so negative about such a fundamental right. End of lecture."

(Emphasis added.)

Terrific insight into a fundamental piece of history. He went into some great detail about how things actually get done as opposed to what "history" will probably record.

Confusing chip and circuit design with software design is a common misconception. It conflates intellectual pursuits with the production of physical devices. One may as well talk of patenting concepts in works of fiction and non-fiction.

"he realized that by combining common components on a circuit, he could solve multiple problems (customer requirements) by rewiring (programming) the circuit for a specific purpose"
Patentable, or not?
To me, this is an obvious conclusion, but his specific application may not have been obvious at all.
I think over selling software's function (unethical, but rampant in software marketing) is a much more serious problem than lack of patentability.