🚀 go-pugleaf

Bob Richardson (brichard@sensemedia.net) wrote:
>>      You see, what you really would need is a program that could
>> encrypt a picture in such a way as to be readable with a GIF reader.
>> That might not even help, since as I read the actual patent, its the
>> encryption that is protected.

Then, will I be infringing if I used the LZW algorithm, but generated
a different encrypted code? (e.g. by using a differently built code-table,
different code lengths, transpose the data with a bijective mapping like
XOR, 2's complement, ...) 

The definition of a "protected encryption" is vague to me.
An encryption is just a reversible mathematical function (bijective
mapping) and now it is said to be patentable.

What would have happened if the sine function, tangent function,
Normal distribution function, or even the identity function had been
patented?  I think it would just have been an obstacle to the
development of maths.
 

>>    Not really true in this case.  If you built a tape drive that 
>> wrote LZW tapes, you'd be infringing no doubt, regardless of the
>> actual circuit design or microcode. So, no program that produced a
>> LZW encrypted picture would be "sufficiently different"
>> 
>>    Yes, it would. LZW is not a method of producing an encryption, it
>> is a method of encryption. Subtle, but major difference.

And what if the genetic information inside DNA were found to LZW-encoded
by a biologist tomorrow?  Will all living things be infringing?



>>    My major beef with Unisys here is that when LZW was first patented,
>> a sort of "verbal license" was given by them stating publicly that 
>> they would never attempt to enforce the patent against "software only"
>> uses. I'd have to say that the current reversal probably will never
>> stand up, given that the so-called enfringining programs have existed
>> for nearly as long as the patent, with Unisys' tacit and public consent.

Well... in HK, a verbal promise is legally binding, like a written contract.
The difficulty lies in establishing the evidence for such a promise.