🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct12.112607.13870@doug.cae.wisc.edu> kolstad@cae.wisc.edu (Joel Kolstad) writes:
>I have a question about this Smith Chart copyright discussion...
>How is it that you can copyright what is basically the mere plot of a
>mathemetical function!? (z=(1+k)/(1-k))
...
>I realize that if you have _the_ Smith chart produced by ??? Electric, you
>can't copy it -- just like a book.  But if you regenerate the plot from the
>mathematical model?  This seems odd to me...  if so, pretty soon people
>will want to copyright things like the Mandelbrot set, etc.!

You make a very valid point, and someone more experienced with copyright
law than me would need to comment on it.

I think it entirely reasonable to assume that the copyright covers
Smith's artwork (which was very expensive to produce at the time!) and
not the function itself.  If he had wanted to restrict the _use_ of
this plotted function as a means of calculating complex impedances, he
should have gotten a patent rather than a copyright.  And he didn't.

Comments from any knowledgeable person?
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