Xref: utzoo gnu.misc.discuss:3052 comp.org.usenix:2062 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!bbn.com!drilex!dricejb From: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.org.usenix Subject: Re: How come include file patent isn't mentioned in position paper? Message-ID: <27383@drilex.UUCP> Date: 10 May 91 22:12:15 GMT References: <1991Apr29.174230.7605@agate.berkeley.edu> <14730@ulysses.att.com> Distribution: usa Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA Lines: 34 In article <14730@ulysses.att.com> smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes: [In response to an article asking about the "include file patent". > >The patent number is 4,674,040, issued on June 16, 1987 to Barbara Barker, >Irene Hernandez, and Rex McCaskill, and is assigned to (blare of trumpets) >IBM. RMS kindly provided me with the number a few weeks ago; I just >got a copy of the patent. > >The essence of what they're saying is new is that they keep a >back-pointer to the include file. If you take the merged file, and run >it through some formatter, and then edit the result, the changes are >fed back to the included files. Interesting... The only product which I've used which has that capability is Microsoft Word for Windows. Of course, they have all sorts of cross-license agreements with IBM. However, my reaction to seeing it was, "Gee, somebody finally went to the work of doing that." I suspect that in software there is a fine line between a new idea, and an idea that everybody has thought of but which seemed too expensive in implementation time. If somebody really comes up with a way to do it in 10 lines of code, maybe they should get a 7-year patent on it or so. However, if a large company merely throws programmer time at something and implements something brute-force that should not be patentable. Claimer: I disagree with RMS on software patents, but feel that 17 years is a longer monopoly than necessary. This probably holds true for many other fields, too. -- Craig Jackson dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com {bbn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}