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From: hoey@NRL-AIC.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Software protection misinformation
Message-ID: <12674@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Apr-84 03:32:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12674
Posted: Tue Apr 24 03:32:00 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Apr-84 05:26:26 EDT
Lines: 23

From:  Dan Hoey <hoey@NRL-AIC.ARPA>

Bill McKeeman of Wang Institute, ``speaking as a non-lawyer,'' has
provided us with a startling collection of non-law.  I am not a lawyer,
either, but my strong recollection is that:

    * A patent is not given ``in trade for ... disclosure.''  It is
      given to the inventor, and the justification is to foster
      invention.  Calling a patent a ``contract'' is at best
      metaphorical.

    * Patenting is not a popular method of protecting software, but the
      reason is not that 17 years is not a long time.  The reason is
      that the Patent Office does not issue patents for software.  Thus
      it is not true that ``some people patent software....''

    * The 1978 copyright law protects works for the life of the author
      plus fifty years.

Given these inaccuracies, I am inclined to take the entire article with
a substantial amount of salt.

Dan Hoey