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From: george@mnetor.UUCP (George Hart)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Re: patent office closure
Message-ID: <917@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 09:19:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.917
Posted: Mon Jun  3 09:19:33 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Jun-85 10:24:30 EDT
References: <1926@watcgl.UUCP>, <656@lsuc.UUCP> <5652@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 68

> > ...  Say the first word processor
> > package was allowed a patent.  The implication would be that even if you
> > wrote *your own* package you'd be violating an existing patent!  It
> > wouldn't even matter if it was substantially different in approach, if
> > the patent was granted for a fairly general description of what a word
> > processor does.  Is that what you want to see?
> 
> My understanding is that this is *exactly* the idea behind patent law,
> and it's a damn good one:  to give the first person to think of a new
> idea a chance to make some money off it, *without* 10000 ripoff artists
> jumping in and stealing his market.  [flame on]  I realize that this is
> a dirty capitalist notion, and that such people really ought to throw
> their ideas into the public domain out of the goodness of their heart,
> for the good of all mankind -- but somehow you don't get nearly as many
> useful inventions when the inventor is denied the opportunity to profit
> from his ingenuity.  Of course, when we are all living in a happy state
> of socialist bliss, this is utterly inconsequential, since we all know
> that our beloved welfare state is the best of all possible worlds and
> could not possibly be improved (except by the government, of course,
> from which all blessings flow).  [flame off]  ...

What would you have patented, Henry, the algorithm for text replacement,
the user interface, the printer driver, what?  If it had been patented,
what would that have done for pc WP software packages (since the US courts
have decided that a software package running on general purpose hardware
equivalent in function to patentable special purpose hardware is itself
patentable [legal beagles please correct me if I'm wrong]). 
The purpose of patent law is to give the inventor some time to make a
reasonable profit from his invention.  It is not meant to stifle creativity.
This is why patent law expressly forbids the granting of a patent for an idea
(read algorithm).  Very little software is developed that doesn't embody
algorithms developed/conceived of by someone else.

>...What we need is a better patent system,not the abolition of the current one.
Agreed.  But not for software. Both patent law and copyright law had their
foundations laid long ago, their authors had no idea of what was to come.
It's no surprise that software falls into a gap.  What's needed is a new form
of protection that recognizes the special qualities and problems of software.


> Incidentally, I doubt that the first word processor was patentable, since
> it involved no leap of invention, just incremental improvements based on
> things "obvious to one skilled in the art".  So you are raising a false
> bogeyman to frighten us.  Try a better case:  did anyone grudge Buckminster
> Fuller his modest royalties on the Geodesic Dome?
> -- 
> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

Perhaps not the word processor, but how about VISICALC?  How about SMALLTALK
or the software in the XEROX STAR?   and a host of others?
You've mentioned (from what I have been told) one of the biggest 'gotcha's
in Patent law: "obvious to one skilled in the art".  What's obvious? What's
skilled?

Although I have quarrelled with your examples and some of your reasoning,
we are in agreement in principle.  Software needs better protection.
If I were an optimist, I might think that the abolition of the Patent Office
was the first step towards a better I & I Property Protection scheme.

But I'm not and I don't.
-- 


Regards,

George Hart, Computer X Canada Ltd.
{cbosgd, decvax, harpo, ihnp4}!utcs!mnetor!george