🚀 go-pugleaf

pplacewa@bbn.com (Paul Placeway) writes:

}karsh@trifolium.esd.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes:

}The problem with the "software patent" is that people are trying to
}play both sides of the game.  They file for a patent, publish the
}idea, get fame etc. for describing a new good idea, AND THEN GET TO
}TELL EVERYONE "By the way, this is still MINE and you can't use it."

}Of course, when a patent is granted, the idea becomes public
}knowledge, and is thus secured for the future.  This is WHY the patent
}laws exist.

}The problem is that usually when one of these patent-pending good
}ideas appears in a journal, there is no warning that this might be
}propriatary.  Other people will start to use it as if it was free
}(because they don't know any differently -- it was PUBLISHED after
}all), and then they find out later, AFTER THEIR PRODUCT DEPENDS ON THE
}GOOD IDEA, that they can no longer use it (or SOMETIMES, but not
}ALLWAYS) that they can but have to pay some amount.

I think this is a matter of the lack-of-training of 'software
engineers'.  Virtually every field has its journals, and they describe
the same sorts of things in their disciplines as software journals do
in ours.  The difference is that in the 'real' disciplines, the
engineers have a general respect for each others ideas and *assume*
that unless an innovation is properly PD that'll it'll be patented and
that if they want to do that function they'll have to invent their own
trick.

This idea that you read about someone else's work and then go off and
copy it [or even worse: you BUY someone else's product, and say "gee, I
could do that".. and so go and do it and then have the audacity to try
to sell it [not to mention to be indignant when the person who really
innovated it comes after you]] is singular to the software world, far
as I can tell.

}Quick Sort, Heap Sort, Shell Sort, etc. would all be patented.  YOU
}COULN'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.  Your list is not bad: almost certainly Shell Sort,
Quick Sort, and maybe Heap sort [not so sure there] woudl be patented,
as would things like the fancy multi-phase enternal sort that IBM used
on 1401s back in the 60's.  

The dumb sorts would surely all be unrestricted.  Oh... you don't want
to USE the dumb sorts: you want to use one of the fancy, more efficient
ones... no problem: just pick the one that best fits your needs and
buy/license it; is that _such_ a blasphemy?  Why is that any different
than your building something using any other kind of technology.  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.

  /Bernie\