🚀 go-pugleaf

on 3 Sep 91 23:02:56 GMT,
kap1@icarus.spc.uchicago.edu (Dietrich Kappe) said:

=>    => This question is perhaps answerable for less than one million dollars in
=>    => legal fees, but I doubt it.

=>    => A layman's reading of the law would seem to say that algorithm patents
=>    => are not permitted.  But the Patent and Trademark Office disagrees.  So
=>    => do many patent lawyers.

=>    Probably because they can earn a lot of money with it. Finally, the
=>    possibility to get a patent for an algorithm or piece of code will
=>    kill the software industry (except for a few big companies) and they have
=>    no job anymore :-).

=>    Hans Fleurkens
=>    Eindhoven University of Technology.


=> Distribution of source code should still be permitted, right, since that
=> is equivalent to the description of an algorithm rather than its
=> implementation? A text file is after all not executable by a computer
=> (under normal circumstances), and distributing source code amounts
=> to publication and (though wordy comments) discusion of the patented
=> material, which is what patents are supposed to encourage, right? 

If someone wants to prevent his invention and make some money, just hide
the implementation details from everyone. It will still take other companies
lots of time to built an equivalent system, if they think it's worthwile
to develop a similar program. Up to now I only heard of patents on trivial
things a child of six years old could re-invent. If someone wants to use
this technique, he has either to pay for it or work around it by using
another (maybe less efficient) technique (if he's aware of the fact
this technique is patented). Even worse, say you can patent look and
feel in world which will be standarized soon (X, Motif, etc.). 

What would happen if a car manufacturer would patent a steering wheel?
Another one could either pay a lot of money or use two buttons to steer.
A third one could ....

Hans Fleurkens
Eindhoven University of Technology.