🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <8247@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes:
>My letter to the Patent and Trade Office went out at lunchtime today.
>The thrust of my comments was not only that ideas and algorithms should
>not be patentable, but also that _interfaces_ should not be patentable.
>I cited the example of DEC's "BI" bus, which forced competitors to
>abandon the DEC add-on board market in favor of lousy-performing Ethernet
>interfaces.  Other examples of interfaces are GUIs, data file storage
>formats, network protocols, command languages, and programming languages.
>In general, the concept of "interface", whether for human or machine
>use, should not be patentable or copyrightable.

	In my letter, I also talked about big companies using their
marketing power to establish a standard that has one of their patents
designed in.  I mentioned DEC's BI Bus, Nintendo's game cartridges,
IBM's MicroChannel bus, and Farallon's PhoneNet (macintosh network)
as examples patents being used to thwart compatibility.  I probably should
have included the Hayes modem "+++" patent in that list.

	I suggested that an extended version of the law on "mask works"
should cover all forms of electronic and even photonic circuitry, and
that patents and copyrights should be removed from this domain.  The
current "mask work" law, as I understand it and as I described it in my
letter, offers a ten year copyright-like protection for the masks used
to produce silicon chips in exchange for a copy of those masks being
deposited (with the library of congress?) so that after those ten years,
anybody with the appropriate equipment should be able to get a copy of
the mask from the government and make dirt cheap chips.  It is my
understanding that the law also makes duplication of electrical
interfaces explicitly legal, as well as reverse engineering.  Apparently,
a number of chips companies have found this to be an acceptable
bargain and, as a result, ten years from now we may have a lot of
public domain chip masks floating around.

	I also argued for reducing patent durations to 3-4 years now,
and reducing them a little more in the future.

	Those of you who are still writing your letters may wish to
use some of these ideas.

Adam J. Richter			adam@soda.berkeley.edu
409 Evelyn Avenue, Apt. 312	....!ucbvax!soda!adam
Albany, CA 94706		Home: (415)528-3209