🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <17pj4fINNm8i@early-bird.think.com> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>In article <FRIEDMAN.92Aug29214928@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu> friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman) writes:
>>   Axman's message suggests that the data format or the conversion
>>algorithm may be patented as well as (in its details) trade secret.  This
>>means that even if we figure out how to do the job (which may not be
>>impossible), we'd be sued for implementing it.
>
>How can something be "patented as well as trade secret", when the two are
>mutually exclusive?  A patent by definition makes the details public, while
>a trade secret requires that you guard the details (anyone you disclose
>them to must agree to keep your secret).

Photo-CD involves more than one ``new'' idea, just like a new 
car or a new computer.  Some ideas are patentable;  some more 
appropriately copyrightable.

My understanding is that the patentable part involves a rewritable
CD format, and the hardware differences needed for CD readers to
recognize a disk that has the equivalent of several file system
partitions.  

The photographer may send a couple of rolls of film to be developed 
and printed as 300 meg to a Photo-CD CD ROM.  Later on, the photographer 
may send another roll of film along with the CD back to Kodak for another
few hundred meg of prints.

The data format of individual digitized images to be used by Kodak 
may be proprietary -- I don't know.  But the talk of "beating" 
Photo-CD by reverse-engineering digital photos of checkerboards 
and stripes really misses the point.  It can and should be done, 
of course, but this is more like a case of "beta vs. VHS".

My bet is that CD media will become cheap enough that rewriting
will not be seen as a major advantage compared to the hassle of
trying to convert the marketplace over to a new, incompatible
hardware standard.  In this case, Photo-CD will die a natural
death.
-- 
-- Bill Johnston (johnston@me.udel.edu)
-- 38 Chambers Street; Newark, DE 19711; (302)368-1949