🚀 go-pugleaf

peter@global.hacktic.nl (Peter Busser) writes:

>While we're at nit-picking:
>>Intellectual property is not limited by hardware platform.

>Then why can't IBM sue every clone maker? The PC and AT architectures and BIOS
>are intellectual property of IBM because they were invented and published by
>IBM.

This is not true. The BIOS's that are used in all IBM clones are NOT 
intellectual property of IBM. The were reverse engineered by the Japanese,
so that the code is totally different but has the same functionality. I
can write a program that does exactly the same thing as another from
scratch, and I am not violating anyones copyright - if I use anotherse source
and call it my own, then I am violating another's copyright as I am using
their intellectual property without their consent.

>Intellectual property is not protected by copyright. Copyright restricts the
>right to copy the physical apearance (that is, the words, sentences, pictures,
>etc.) not the ideas. The only way to protect intellectual property is to keep
>it strictly for yourself, making it a trade secret or pattenting it.

You can copyright anything that is written down - lyrics, computer program
code whatever. As soon as it is written by you, it is your intellectual
property and is automatically covered by copyright law (at least this is
how it works down under :-).

+------------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Kendall Bennett,                         | Internet:                     |
| Advanced Computer Graphics Centre,       | kjb@citri.edu.au              |
| Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, | rcskb@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au    |
| Victoria, AUSTRALIA.                     |                               | 
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| CoSysop (Bossman), PC Connection Australia:               +61 3 688 0909 |
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