🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <17205@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes:
>In article <448@oneb.UUCP> kmcvay@oneb.UUCP (Ken McVay) writes:
>
>>>GeoWorks?  It has a "Mac look-and-feel".  Unless they licensed the rights 
>>>from Apple, I think that Apple doesn't care because people aren't buying 
>>>GeoWorks instead of their overprice Macs.
>>
>>Speaking simply as a "user", this whole issue seems childish, although
>>I can readily understand the financial side of it. How far will we go 
>>with "look and feel" crap before we wake up?
>
>These are all physical objects -- hard capital.  A piece of software
>is *intellectual* property.  It costs you very little to steal
>intellectual property, as opposed to physical property.
>
[...]
>
>So, what you're advocating is this: let no one reap the benefits of
>R&D.  Just sit back until someone else comes out with a great idea,
>then clone it and reap the benefits.  Well, that's great... but who's
>going to eat the R&D in the first place, if they don't get the reap
>the benefits?
>
>--
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Jeffrey A. Sullivan		| Senior Systems Programmer
>jas@venera.isi.edu		| Information Sciences Institute
>jas@isi.edu                    	| University of Southern California

I think you're missing the main point...copying (cloning) an exact copy of
a software package is wrong and should be punishable by law, the same way 
as duplicating a manuscript and selling it as your own. This is known as
copyright infringement. Where the problem occurs is in the issuance of
PATENTS for software...Patents were originally designed to protect 
unique designs of PHYSICAL PROPERTY. They are currently being applied
to INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY which, as you mentioned, is totally different
than physical property. These patents are being applied to algorithms
and concepts such as backing stores and XOR cursor placement, which are
closer to integration techniques than to cars or physical inventions.

What this means is that the consumer/user is forced to use non-optimal
software because the programmer is not allowed to use ALL the tools at his
disposal because of the possibility of patent infringement. Using XOR for
cursor placement is a BASIC technique in graphics programming, and mentioned
in several text books, but you're not allowed to use it because some company
owns the patent. 

This whole situation is analogous to a mathematician not being allowed to
use a certain technique/algorithm to solve a problem because some company
owns a patent on that technique (intellectual property). Enough patents, 
and the mathematician can't do anything without having to pay royalties
out the ass. Just how much research would get done in this situation???

Speaking of R&D (and footing the bill for R&D) Apple, Microsoft, etc.
do alot of software development, but produce very little research.
They basically build on the work of others (Universities and basic 
research facilities) and then apply for patents to keep others from using
these same techniques. what this does is to keep the original researcher
from using his or her own techniques.

The use of patents for intelletual property is stupid at best and at worse 
can halt virtually any research. Initially its just an inconvieniance, very
quickly it becomes an insurmountable hurdle as more and more tools are taken
away from the researcher. If the techniques used in a software package can
be patented, then why not any other bit of intellectual property? say an
integration technique, or engineering methodology, or a design procedure...
whats the dividing line?

Think about it some more, and you'll figure out WHY American companies have
such trouble competing in the world marketplace, they are too involved
with litigation, and not involved enough with R&D.

John Burton
(gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov)

Of course my views don't reflect those of my employer...