🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bx0JrG.JsE@iat.holonet.net> phoffman@orac.holonet.net (Paul E. Hoffman) writes:
>oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) writes:
>>The original poster asks for help on several forms 
>>of protection for his software, and I observe that he did not mention
>>patent protection.  Then I ask if that was a conscious choice.
>>I agree that the vast majority of commercial software is not patented.
>>But I think many items of commercial software represent things that
>>could have been patented if the author/inventor had applied for a 
>>patent.
>I find that statement intriguing. Examples, please (if you can do so without
>violating confidentiality). Are you saying that they could be patented under
>the spirit of the patent law or simply due to the incompetance of the
>patent office?

  IBM recently received a patent on "the various functions and procedures
  needed to support a preprocessor-based application program interface from 
  an embedded SQL program to a database engine".  I.e., IBM managed (God only
  knows how) to patent the concept and details of using a call-level
  interface to call a database engine.  The whole idea is so ludicrous and
  yet, there it is, IBM holds the patent.  By my reckoning, this means that
  most of the database companies in the industry may need to seek license
  arrangements in order to continue to provide preprocessors and APIs for
  their database engines.  

  You may call this incompetence of the patent office.  I am not so sure.
  Many decisions have upheld the right to both copyright and patent certain
  aspects of programs and their interfaces (both user and programmatic).  
  None of these decisions have gone to the Supreme Court as of yet, and
  I expect some will in the not too distant future.  Until this all gets
  worked out, who knows what the outcome might actually be?

  Jon Rosen