Xref: utzoo gnu.misc.discuss:1691 trial.misc.legal.software:62
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,trial.misc.legal.software
Subject: Re: Patents (was Re: Copyrights)
Message-ID: <5819:Sep122:29:1590@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 1 Sep 90 22:29:15 GMT
References: <MIKE.90Aug23152322@turing.cs.unm.edu> <67638@sgi.sgi.com> <1990Aug27.222359.4398@sco.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: IR
Lines: 17

In article <1990Aug27.222359.4398@sco.COM> seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) writes:
> In article <67638@sgi.sgi.com> karsh@trifolium.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes:
    [ basically claims that if you don't have a patent or a ]
    [ user-interface copyright, you'll find it difficult to ]
    [ get a loan for software development and marketing ]
> Software companies (off the top of my head) that were founded without
> requiring a software patent or user-interface copyright:  Microsoft, Lotus,
> the Dbase people, Borland Int'l, SCO (yep), ISC, Locus, the FSF (yep),
> Cygnus Corp.

Not to mention the many hardware companies that offer to market your
software---hence reducing your real costs nearly to zero. It's entirely
safe for the author, who gets royalties that are often more than the
profits he'd get if he marketed without support. Patents and
user-interface copyrights have always been irrelevant to such deals.

---Dan