🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2734@tank.uchicago.edu> ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <3767@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, bmartin@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Brian Martin) writes...
>
>>In article <1833@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> rampil@cca.ucsf.edu.UUCP (Ira Rampil) writes:
>>>Yes Matilda, there are patents.  I know, I saw one.
>>>It was a patent issued to Bill Atkinson representing Apple.
>>>The patent covered a new algorithm for handling arbitrary
>>>rasterized regions.
>> 
>>I was at a seminar on patents and copyrights last night, given by a patent
>>attorney. According to him, algorithms can't be patented. Apparently,

>Well, some of Bill's stuff is patented, and if it's an algorithm, then that
>must mean algorithm's can be patented.

  There is a NY Times article posted outside a faculty member's door
here on patenting algorithms.  They can be patented, at least
according to the U.S. Patent Office.  The example given in the article
is a linear programming algorithm patent, I think given to somebody at
AT&T.  (I believe the article said this hadn't been tested in the
courts, though.)

+---------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| Anton Rang (grad student) | "VMS Forever!"         | "Do worry...be SAD!" |
| Michigan State University | rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu |                      |
+---------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+