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From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Tetris variants
Keywords: justifications for ripoffs all = greed
Message-ID: <25284@usc.edu>
Date: 14 Jun 90 06:38:42 GMT
References: <21774@snow-white.udel.EDU> <25270@usc.edu> <26765a47-21a9.3comp.sys.amiga-1@tronsbox.xei.com>
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In article <26765a47-21a9.3comp.sys.amiga-1@tronsbox.xei.com> dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Francis Heffernan) writes:
>	You can neither copyright *nor patent* ideas.  If you could patent
>ideas, we'd have some rich SF authors floating around. 

Tell that to Rivest, Shamir and Adleman :-) They'll tell you that you CAN
patent ideas (i.e. inventions). [see the details on my other reply to a
similar wrong assumptions by a fellow netter].  Get any recent book on
patents: they'll list the most recent decision on patentability of inventions
like the RSA crypto system, the Merril-Lynch Cash Management Program,
the Russian-English translation program, among many others.

> Bob Heinlen invented
>the waterbed, the waldo, and a few other goodies in his stories; Arthur C.
>Clarke invented geosynchronous satellites.

I guess they were not interested in the often grusom, lenghty and COSTLY
process of applying for a patent.  All the items you mention certainly
would qualify as "patentable".

-- Marco
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