Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!thor!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Patents and Architecture Message-ID: Date: 25 Jul 90 16:15:24 GMT References: <40193@think.Think.COM> <40965@think.Think.COM> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 62 In-reply-to: barmar@think.com's message of 24 Jul 90 02:39:17 GMT In article <40965@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: [ ... an exchange between me and Margolin as to what is the patentable subject matter of the setuid patent ... ] >* None of the above? What then? None of the above. What was patented was presumably the particular use of an owner-settable flag (the setuid bit) in combination with the automatically-set owner field of the file to permit users to implement gates into their personal domains. I have never seen the dreaded patent myself, but I have just received a message saying that apparently the patent describes an hardware circuit that implements the domain crossing. Well, well. Funnier and funnier. >A remark: note that patents do not encourage *inventions*; an inventor >can always resort to the more complicated trade secret route if he/she >wants to keep the invention proprietary (e.g. AT&T with the >better-than-simplex method). Patents encourage *publication*, in >exchange for the otherwise unavailable protection against independent or >subsequent reinvention. Well, most of Unix is protected by trade secret. I can't imagine how setuid could be kept secret, though, as the design is apparent to the user. For a chip, you might protect the circuitry by trade secret, but you would patent a novel pin design because the pins cannot be hidden. Ah, but the Unix manuals were licensed and secret, until they decided to publish them via P-H. And if you want to keep a novel pin design secret, you just sell it, or lease or license it for use, with the opportune conditions. After all, so is protected virtually all IBM software. Naturally this means that trade secret protection is always there, and it is an hassle for both inventor and user. The problem with designing a system to grant temporary monopolies is to balance the incentive to the inventor with the desire for circulation of technology. My example with the setuid bit patent h the aim that for software this is exceptionally hard, and with architectures even harder, as if hardware (the claimed token ring patent for example) were easy. Naturally *entrenched* inventors want to be able to claim monopolies on everything remotely related to their work, past and future, as if technological progress did not develop from a huge past base of knowledge. In architecture, back to our newsgroup's topic, nearly everything has been invented and reinvented again and again in endless variations. Setuid is a variation of the PDP-1 protected procedure invocation, or on Multics rings, or whatever else. It is appropriate IMNHO to grant, if thought worthwhile, a very narrow and limited, in scope and time monopoly, and maybe. Those that think otherwise always have the example of IBM before their very eyes. They try to patent everything they "invent" (of course IBM invent everything...), and then the other guy has to contemplate the chances of a legal battle with IBM. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk