Article 50589 of comp.sys.amiga.misc: Path: news.csos.orst.edu!gaia.ucs.orst.edu!flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU!reuter.cse.ogi.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!ns1.nodak.edu!news.uoknor.edu!constellation!convex!convex!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!usenet From: jdickson@nemesis.jpl.nasa.gov (Jeff Dickson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Re: Stupid patents (was Re: Injunction against C=) Date: 26 Apr 1994 09:58:29 -0700 Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory - Pasadena CA Lines: 80 Message-ID: <2pjh7l$9a0@nemesis.jpl.nasa.gov> References: <2p9cus$2rc@bigfoot.ecl.wustl.edu> <2pi7b4$mak@rainbow.sosi.com> <2pivcf$iiq@math.mps.ohio-state.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: nemesis-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In article <2pivcf$iiq@math.mps.ohio-state.edu> vidynath@math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao) writes: >(Must be time to change the newsgroup list) > >In article <2pi7b4$mak@rainbow.sosi.com>, >Maxwell Daymon wrote: >>Next thing you know our patent office (with the collective intelligence >>of pondscum) will be giving out patents for $hitting while sitting. > >Change "sitting" to "squatting" and, given the USPO record, you just might >get a patent. (Patent officers don't know anyone who does that, so it must >be new.) > >-- >Vidhyanath Rao It is the man, not the method, that solves >nathrao+@osu.edu the problem. - Henri Poincare >(614)-366-9341 [as paraphrased by E. T. Bell] I reread Dave Haynie's reply to a question I posted a while ago on software patents and was appalled to come to the realization that the XOR scenario could really be true. I'm still skeptical though since afterall the Amiga has been up to this XOR bit for around nine years and this is the first I've heard of any patent infringement. Pretty scary that ideas are patentable in the US anyway. I'll have to put on my thinking cap and come up with my own. Retiring at age 32 and being set for life...ahhh - I could do that. Here is the article I spoke of. From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Subject: Re: Patent treaty update Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 49 In article <1991Apr3.185516.12631@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> jdickson@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jeff Dickson) writes: > I don't understand software patents. How do they differ from >copyrights? If I hold several copyrights, can I obtain software patents? Here's an engineer's attempt at explaining this junk: Patents and copyrights are entirely different things. If you copyright a program (which is essentially automatic, though folks intending a court battle generally register their copyrights with the appropriate government agency), no one can legally make copies of it other than you and your licensees. However, someone can come along and make a program that works very much like yours (look and feel copyright legislation notwithstanding). A patent, on the other hand, is an "invention". You pay lawyers big bucks to write up a description of your invention, in big $25 lawyer-type words. Then you send it to the patent office. If they deem it a true invention, something unique that's never been done before, you get a patent for 17 years. During that time, no one can use your invention without your permission,even if they invent it independently after you've applied. And you don't even have to let anyone use your invention, though typically folks have found they can get money for patent licenses, and so they do often let other use the patents. The real problem with software patents is that the patent office hasn't had Clue #1 about software until very recently. So there are all these patents on real obvious things that have been around for years, but never patented (since, of course, they were obvious to their original inventors, and way back when software patents were not accepted in the US). The other main problem with software patents is the magnitude of unique ideas you'll find in a piece of code. You might have 10-20 real patentable things in a piece of hardware. If you're unlucky, 2 or 3 of them might actually be covered by a valid patent, and you could pay a couple of percent of your income on these to license said 2 or 3 patents. In a piece of software, you might have 10,000-20,000 things the patent office considers patentable. If you have to pay 1% each, and only 1000 of them are patented, you lose big if you try to market your piece of software. The other big problem is that big companies spend lots of money trying to get patents, just because they know they can make big bucks off them. Little guys can't afford that many court cases even if they know a good portion of the patents held against them are invalid based on documentable prior art, so they give in. This kind of thing is just really starting to happen, and could throw the whole software community into chaos in a few years if it keeps going on its currently wacky course. Stay tuned... -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"