Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!granite.pa.dec.com!mwm From: mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Patents... Message-ID: Date: 14 Jun 90 15:09:00 GMT References: <21774@snow-white.udel.EDU> <25270@usc.edu> <26765a47-21a9.3comp.sys.amiga-1@tronsbox.xei.com> <25284@usc.edu> Sender: news@wrl.dec.com (News) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 28 In-Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu's message of 14 Jun 90 06:38:42 GMT 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. 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). For an interesting look at all this, you might check out the early patent on the automobile. For an even more interesting analogy with the software market, check out the early autmobile manufacturers association which freely shared nearly all inventions, and the exceptions were only exceptions for a few years.