Newsgroups: trial.misc.legal.software
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Patents (was Re: Copyrights)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 20:56:53 GMT
Message-ID: <1990Aug07.205653.10322@looking.on.ca>
References: <1990Jul27.014947.19528@hellgate.utah.edu> <>> <MERNST.90Jul27145740@emu.lcs.mit.edu> <rodney.649107377@dali.ipl.rpi.edu> <2096:Jul2900:53:4390@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <MERNST.90Jul28233614@emu.lcs.mit.edu> <9492@goofy.Apple.COM> <1990Aug01.022905.26807@l <KOLENDER.90Aug7103809@gambetta.ics.uci.edu>

So what's the problem.  The point of patent law is to protect inventions
(and to also thus encourage their publication).

If Frobnob invents a really good algorithm, and it's not at all obvious
to those who haven't seen it before, then why not have Frobnob own it.
We're assuming that without Frobnob's work, *nobody* would know the
algorithm -- it wouldn't even exist.

Algorithms are not laws of nature like F=MA.  At least not the kind of
algorithms I'm talking about.  They don't exist until somebody creates
them.

This is the philosophy.  We then have a couple more pragmatic issues to deal
with.

a) What about the kind of invention that is "waiting to happen", such that
one person is merely first, and others independently discover it.

b) What about inventions that are truly obvious -- where it's the problem
that's new, and not the solution.

Well, these are tough questions, but they are the same for algorithms and
for mechanical inventions.  The decision, in patent law, to give the rights
to the first filer, screwing subsequent independent developers, is a tough,
and often unfair one.  But what, other than the abandonment of patent, is
the alternative.

In the case of B, that's where we need judges and experts in the field of
research.  But again, no difference between algorithms and mechanisms.

A mechanism *is* an algorithm to me.  The thing that's valuable about
a patented mechanism is "how it works" not how it is made.  The difference
is engineering.   If the only difference between idea and realization is
competent engineering, then as far as intellectual property is concerned,
the idea and its realization are the same.  If truly creative engineering
is required, then it's more complex.   (But truly creative engineering is
also invention, unlike more mundane engineering of the "here's blueprints,
make this for me" sort.)

-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
