"The Ghost In The Machine" <ewill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1qmv64-929.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote
> on Thu, 04 Jan 2007 04:28:32 +0000
> <2674069.VoOGUtdWV9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> Software ain't patentable, damn it!
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | So what we have now is the US government allowing companies to patent
>> | ideas, expressed in various software languages that they didn't invent,
>> | using concepts and techniques developed and refined in the open, to
>> | perform tasks that are obvious to one versed in the field. This is
>> | the antithesis of what patents were intended to protect.
>> |
>> | [...]
>> |
>> | So we all should applaud, and support, the activities of the Software
>> | Freedom Law Center in fighting the legal fiction of software patents.
>> | As this current case illustrates, software patents not only threaten
>> | and discourage the creation and use of free software but also
>> | commercial/non-free software as well.
>> `----
>>
>> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/software_aint_patentable_damn_it
>
> I would hope that all those involved realize that a patent
> on a piece of code in, say, C, allows infringement claims
> on any other code that implements the algorithm in a
> similar fashion, *regardless of language*.
>
> In short, if I implement LZW in Perl to generate GIF
> images, I infringe on the (fortunately now expired)
> Unisys GIF patent. (Yes, I have a small counter using
> this concept; I took it down when I found out about the
> patent, and replaced my smattering of GIFs. Earthlink now
> no longer supports CGI so the counter's no longer useful
> anyway. :-) I'll have to see if I still have it; I'm not
> sure where it wandered off to.)
>
> Done one way, this could tie the legal system up in knots
> -- and that's the *good* news. But never mind that,
> what did one want to monopolize today?
>
What is patented is the idea claimed in the patent, not the implementation.
So if you have a great idea about how to do something better than before,
you can patent it whether your example is made of gears, pulleys, and link
chains or is made up of software running on some computer. You are not
patenting the software, you are patenting what the software accomplishes.
The notion gets somewhat confused when the patent is in regard to how to do
something with software better than before, say some file system
implementation, but the principle remains.
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