Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!know!slug!wex From: wex@sitting.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Legal Question Message-ID: Date: 13 Jul 90 15:25:27 GMT References: <191100007@trsvax> <1990Jul9.164219.27369@siia.mv.com> Sender: news@pws.bull.com Organization: Bull Worldwide Information Systems Inc. Lines: 30 Nntp-Posting-Host: sitting.pws.bull.com In-reply-to: drd@siia.mv.com's message of 9 Jul 90 16:42:19 GMT In article <1990Jul9.164219.27369@siia.mv.com> drd@siia.mv.com (David Dick) writes: In <191100007@trsvax> reyn@trsvax.UUCP writes: >Can the rules of a game be copyrighted or patented? >The rules of a game could be considered to be the algorithm by which it is >played. Algorithms, as such, are not patentable. Unfortunately, the Patent Office seems to have forgotten this recently. The first example, I think, was the patent granted to Merill-Lynch for the way their "Cash Management Account" (a scheme for automatically sweeping money into interest-bearing accounts, etc.) worked. Another example may be the patent Apple has on the way their graphic "regions" work. Well, yes and no. Algorithms, as such, are not exactly patentable. However, *processes* are patentable. It may be argued that an algorithm is an embodiment of a software process*. That way one can apply for (and sometimes get) a patent on such a process. [*I know - process has a specific meaning in software. What I mean here is "a series of steps used to accomplish something." Most process patents are on manufacturing processes.] -- --Alan Wexelblat Bull Worldwide Information Systems internet: wex@pws.bull.com phone: (508) 294-7485 (new #) Usenet: spdcc.com!know!wex "The aim of life, its only aim, is to be free. Free of what? Free to do what? Only to be free, that is all."