🚀 go-pugleaf

mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Michael Ernst) writes:

}Bernie Cosell (cosell@bbn.com) argues that algorithms, which are close kin
}to padlocks, should be protected in the same way:
}>   Say,
}> instead of selling something that sorts a list you want to sell
}> something that padlocks a box shut.  well, if you want to take
}> advantage of Medeco's or Sargent's or whoever's innovations, you're
}> free to buy one of theirs or license the technology.  If you don't want
}> to do that, you can find an unrestricted type of locking mechanism, or
}> you can invent your own.  The idea that you could take one of their
}> locks apart [or read their advertising copy where they describe how it
}> works] and then go and make, and sell, a knock off is outrageous.

}There are several mechanisms used in toothpaste pumps.  Companies are
}rightly prohibited from opening up a competitor's pump, copying the design
}exactly, and marketing their own.  However, the concept of a toothpaste
}pump is not protected by a patent on a particular one.

We're going at this in email [I didn't know his email reply to me was
posted also... grumble...] but I'll just note that this is probably
incorrect.  Patents for really innovative things often make double
claims: one claim is a particular mechanism that does some interesting
thing in a novel way; the other claim is some novel new thing-to-do
regardless of the mechanism.  For example, the now-rich engineer [on
Long Island, was it??] that had a prior (US) patent on a Rubik's
cube-like puzzle.  He really did innovate a new type of game-mechanism
and he filed a double patent: for a puzzle/game based on rotating
slices of a cube, AND for his particular mechanism for building such a
cube [a complete kludge.. some kind of ugly magnetic awfulness that
looked it it would never work].  Thanks to Rubik (independently, of
course) coming up with a really *workable* mechanism for building a
cube-puzzle like the one he patented, he sued Ideal (the US licensee of
Rubik's mechanism), and **WON**.

the toothpaste pump is *clearly* an innovation over what had come
before [after decades of stagnation with "the tube"].  The patent might
well cover "delivery of toothpaste by a hand operated pump mechanism of
any design", I don't know.

}A competitor is
}free to develop his own different mechanism for pumping toothpaste and
}market that.  (In fact, this is exactly what has happened.)  Would you
}argue that a patent on a particular type of ball-point pen should exclude
}all other writing implements from the marketplace, simply because they have
}the same function?

I thought that the ball-mechanism *WAS* patented!!  And you are free to
developm you own 'different mechanism': you want to compress a file, go
invent a mechanism.  There are infinite ways to do it, and you should
just go find a new one, unless you want to pay the inventor of some
already-existing one.  There is nothing inherent in the 'idea' of
compressing a file that forces one algortihm or another, any more than
there is anything inherent in operating a bicycle-brake that forces one
type of mechanism or another.  Some very good mechanisms in both fields
[compression and activating a bicycle brake] are already available [and
you can use them for a suitable license fee].  The field is totally
open, though, for you to invent your own if you want to/ are able to.


}Now, suppose that I see a feature of someone else's user interface -- say,
}pull-down menus -- that I wish to incorporate in my own.  I have not
}learned how it works or how it was implemented, merely what it does.  I
}should be free to craft my own distinct design for a mechanism with a
}similar function (just as is the case in "'real' disciplines"), to invent
}(as it were) my own type of locking mechanism.

This is ill informed nonsense.  If you read that Medeco locks use
clever beveled pins to make the lock harder to pick, and then go and
make an *identical* lock [right down to the angles you pick for the
bevels], you'll get your ass sued so fast it'll make your head swim.

Whether 'pull down menus' are, in and of themselves, innovative enough to be
granted protection is a judgment call.  If a court asked ME to rule [as a
reasonably well-informed computer science person], I woudl say that they ARE:
that the really-basic mechanism of "selections from a list of choices" is *NOT*
patentable, but a particular mechanism for effecting that selection *IS*, and
pull-down menus are just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to do such
a thing.  [look at auto-focus cameras, I'd argue that you can *NOT* patent the
idea of making a camera auto-focus, but you CAN patent any particular mechanism
[or pile of logic and photodiodes or edge detectors or whatever] for *DOING*
the auto-focusing].  



}> }Quick Sort, Heap Sort, Shell Sort, etc. would all be patented.  YOU
}> }COULDN'T SORT DATA WITHOUT PAYING A ROYALTY.
}> 
}> This is the sort of hyperbole that, I think, undermines the positions
}> of the anti-patent arguers.  Some sorts would surely be patentable, and
}> others would not.

}If I understand correctly, the public-key cryptography patent covers all PK
}cryptography systems, not just the RSA scheme.  Patent disclosures must
}include an example implementation, and the RSA scheme is written up as such
}in the PK cryptography patent disclosure.  Many other patents are written
}so as to cover the method, not the particular algorithm (or simply the
}prototype mechanical design). ...

This is a bad example: I happen to think that the "mechanism" of using
a public-key technique for providing security is a *brilliant*
innovation.  I had worked for years prior to the disclosure to the
public-key idea in the area of security, encryption, key-passing
schemes, authentication schemes, etc.  The public-key idea is an
unbelievable advance.  Yes, it might seem 'obvious' in retrospect ---
but the very best and most difficult-to-come-up-with ideas are always
like that --- but it should wasn't back then [speaking as someone in
the trenches, whose who way of THINKING about those problems changed in
a stroke after understanding public key].

In a similar vein, I'm not nearly well-enough trained, nor inventive
enough, to come up with a suitable mechanism BY WHICH a public key
system could be effectively implemented.  Why not be willing to pay to
be allowed to piggyback on someone ELSE's abilities to come up with a
good scheme?


}..  So it is not
}unlikely that computer sorting could be covered by a patent, if the patent
}office had been in its present state of mind a few years ago.

I think this is incorrect speculation.  Lists have been "sorted" for a
very long time.  A VERY long time.  It is one thing to patent a novel
new kind of writing implement, but quite another to try to patent
'writing'.  That a particular *way* to sort a list, by computer or by
that klduge of an IBM machine to sort cards [the 059 or some such??]
ought to be patentable, I have no uncertainty.  But "just sorted"
almost certainly would NOT be.

  /Bernie\