🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <66150@sgi.sgi.com>, karsh@trifolium.esd.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes:
>Does anyone really believe that anybody will invest in a scheme which requires
>that you raise capital, develop a product, bring the product to market, but
>after 5 years the product can be copied freely?  It takes about 3 years just to
>develop a mass-market software product nowadays.

Whoa, we're talking about algorithm patents, not application patents.
It would make no more sense to allow the patenting of Lotus 1-2-3 than
to allow the patenting of a Chevy.  There might, or might not, be
certain unique or innovative algorithms employed in 1-2-3 worthy or
patent protection, I don't know. 

Let's not forget what patents are and who they're designed to benefit. 
They're intended to encourage the publishing of innovative,
non-obvious designs by providing a temporary right to exclusive use of
those designs to the inventor.  Such innovations might otherwise
remain trade secrets and *never* become public domain.

In article <38006@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu writes:
>Nonsense, Bruce.  Up until a few years ago the software industry operated
>with the following assumptions:
>
>1) You can't patent software.
>
>The Patent Office summarily rejected all software patent applications until
>relatively recently.  Yet there was a successful software industry.

So what?  There was a successful hardware industry before patents
existed, too.  That's not the point.  There were *many* secrets
carried to the grave with the inventor.  *That's* what patents are
for: getting those secrets into the public domain. 

>2) You don't own a graphic user interface.

That's a horse of another color.  Nobody's talking about patenting
interfaces.

>> Software deserves the same protections as any other invention does.
>
>Software is adequately protected by traditional copyright (of the code itself)
>and trade secret rules.

True enough, if you're not bothered by the fact that without decent,
workable software patents many algorithms are hidden away in
proprietary code and protected by non-disclosure agreements.  Seems to
me that rewarding innovation by granting a short-term monopoly in
exchange for giving the innovation to the public is a win-win
situation.  It must be, otherwise there wouldn't be nearly 5,000,000
patents on file in the U.S. 

-- 
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov)		These are my opinions.
Martin Marietta Energy Systems
Workstation Support