Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!pollux.usc.edu!papa From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Patents... Message-ID: <25297@usc.edu> Date: 14 Jun 90 19:07:04 GMT References: <26765a47-21a9.3comp.sys.amiga-1@tronsbox.xei.com> <25284@usc.edu> Sender: news@usc.edu Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA Lines: 34 In article mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) writes: >In article <25284@usc.edu> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes: > > 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). > >Um, I think that for a patent, you're required to have a working >implementation to obtain the patent. This is slightly different than >being able to patent an idea. This is absolutely true, though today is much easier to patent inventions that are embedded in computer programs (this is the result of the court decisions during the '80s). This is pretty much what the RSA people and others did. [see the details on what makes something "patentable" in my reply to the other fellow]. >Which is why Clark didn't make any money >off of geosync communciation satellites, and RAH didn't make any money >off of waldos or waterbeds (though he did get one free waterbed - that >he didn't use). While I believe the effort to build a geosync commmunication satellite was out of the question for a single individual like Arthur Clarke, I see no reason why RAH could not have built a working implementation of a waterbed. He just chose not to do it. -- Marco -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "Xerox sues somebody for copying?" -- David Letterman -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=