Xref: utzoo comp.misc:12656 comp.dcom.modems:9907 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!samsung!olivea!tymix!cirrusl!sunstorm!dhesi From: dhesi%cirrusl@oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: hayes lawsuit Message-ID: <3152@cirrusl.UUCP> Date: 22 May 91 17:09:50 GMT References: <14833@ulysses.att.com> Sender: news@cirrusl.UUCP Reply-To: Rahul Dhesi Distribution: usa Lines: 55 In <14833@ulysses.att.com> smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes: If software patents are to be disallowed, what alternative mechanism would you propose to encourage people to publish new algorithms? In general, there is no need special to encourage people to publish new algorithms. For many centuries they have been happy to do so. Some algorithms (e.g. RSA) are worthless if they are not publicly available, so their inventors would have no incentive to keep them secret -- either they get famous for inventing them and they can use them, or nobody knows about them and nobody (not even the inventors) get to use them. There would be some limited cases of algorithms being used secretly -- but reverse engineering will soon ferret them out for the rest of the world to use. There are two big problems with software and algorithm patents. (a) It is hard to be clear about the scope of such patents. When is a new algorithm completely distinct from an older one? Could the person who invented bubblesort (if he had been granted a patent) claim a royalty from everybody else using any sort technique at all for 17 years? Very likely. (b) Many algorithms are invented not because they are inherently new and unique, but because nobody needed them before. For example, the Hayes pause-sequence-pause technique was probably invented many times over previously in other contexts, and *would have been invented many times over again* had Hayes not patented it and created a big hullaballo. Something that is invented over and over again is obviously not new and "unobvious" and does not deserve patent protection. *This seems to happen much more with software patents* than with hardware patents. By the way, you cannot separate the issue of software patents from copyright protection. They ought to be both designed to go hand in hand. My proposal: 1. Define 'software' and 'hardware' more clearly. 2. Either completely disallow software patents, or make them expire in about two years. 3. Change copyright law so no protection is copyright given to any software which is not published in its original source form. This will result in more innovation and sharing of ideas. No more mixing of trade secrets and copyright by distributing binary-only software! The vendor must either confidentially license software and preserve trade secrets but not rely on copyright law, or rely on copyright law and expect no trade secret protection. This is the only way the constitutional goals behind copyright law can be achieved. -- Rahul Dhesi UUCP: oliveb!cirrusl!dhesi