Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: New Macintosh Strategy
Message-ID: <77800060@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 90 16:35:00 GMT
References: <306@cti1.UUCP>
Lines: 27
Nf-ID: #R:cti1.UUCP:306:m.cs.uiuc.edu:77800060:000:1288
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Nov  6 10:35:00 1990


> Bzzt!  Wrong answer!
> 
> Patents ARE issued for computer algorithms.
>
> Parts of the Mac toolbox ARE patented.  Example: "Regions" (by Bill
> Atkinson).  Look it up.

Go directly to Jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars (or a
law degree).  Apparently, you don't know the difference between a
computer algorithm, and the expression of the algorithm in a ROM.  See
the April 1990 and August 1990 issues of IEEE Micro to learn the
difference.  In particular, the articles state, "For all practical
purposes the [invalid patent] claims covered any use of the [BCD]
algorithm in a general-purpose digital computer, so that the effect
would be to give a patent on the algorithm itself".

Also, it doesn't really matter WHAT the patent office issues, but WHAT
is upheld in a court challenge.  According to the April IEEE Micro
issue, the supreme court has never upheld a patent on an algorithm.
Algorithms are in the same class as laws of nature, and pure
mathematics.  The court only upholds patents on devices, of which
algorithms were not the central source of novelty.

Any patents associated with the Mac are patents on the expression of
the algorithm in the ROM, not on the expression of the algorithm in a
general sense (i.e. reimplemented from scratch and stored in RAM).