Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!psuvm!cunyvm!byuvm!grgref
From: GRGREF@BYUVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: thought Dillon and friends would like to know
Message-ID: <90210.100908GRGREF@BYUVM.BITNET>
Date: 29 Jul 90 16:09:08 GMT
References: <1990Jul27.204559.26305@athena.mit.edu>
 <1990Jul29.024841.1000@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: Brigham Young University
Lines: 26

>>The people who wrote the compress program and put it in the public
>>domain had no way of knowing that a patent was pending for the
>>algorithm.  The patent was later granted, and now Unisys says we're
>>not allowed to run compress without their permission.
>
>My understanding of this was that Unisys had patented a hardware
>implementation of the LZW algorithm.  The important point here is
>that the implementation of the algorithm was patented, not the
>algorithm itself.  I couldn't imagine how a company would be able
>to patent an algorithm, especially one that they did not invent.

Actually, a patent *is* protection for ideas...a copyright is protection
for an implementation.  The QuickSort algorithm (as an example) could be
patented if (a) one specific person or group thought it up completely and
(b) no one else had ever used it or even thought of it before.  (These are
probably not the exact patent "rules", but I know they're pretty close.)

However, I do agree with you in that Unisys probably couldn't hold onto a
general patent on the Compress algorithm (LZW is it?) since it's been
implemented so many times and so many people have used it, and so many
public domain implementations have been written.

>Joon Song
>joonsong@ocf.berkeley.edu

                             Bryan