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From: sampson@cod.NOSC.MIL (Charles H. Sampson)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Should software ideas be protected? (Was Re: Software Copyright Law
Summary: An algorithm is an expression, not an idea.
Keywords: European Community, copyright, reverse engineering
Message-ID: <1870@cod.NOSC.MIL>
Date: 13 Apr 90 00:17:26 GMT
References: <1093@goofy.UUCP> <14867@s.ms.uky.edu> <1990Apr8.003410.9841@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <2634@psueea.UUCP> <7510@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM>
Reply-To: sampson@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (Charles H. Sampson)
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 11
X-Local-Date: 12 Apr 90 17:17:26 PDT

In article <7510@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> ned%cad@MCC.COM (Ned Nowotny) writes:

>Copyright no more covers algorithms in software publishing than it does
>plots in book publishing.  Copyright only pertains to the expression of
>an idea, not the idea itself.

True, but many (most?) algorithms are expressions, not ideas, or at least could
be looked at that way.  For example, sorting is an idea, while quicksort and
heapsort are two ways of expressing that idea in a computer program.

Charlie