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From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Apple patents
Message-ID: <606@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 19-Oct-85 19:44:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: k.606
Posted: Sat Oct 19 19:44:06 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Oct-85 04:38:52 EDT
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Baloney!  I hope no one took seriously the assertion that you can only
patent physical devices.  In fact, one of the things mentioned in patent law
as patentable is "an art".  You can patent manufacturing processes that
could run on a variety of unoriginal hardware, and other such "ethereal"
inventions.  There is no reason why you could not patent a new approach to
the programming problem of interfacing with the user, just as you could
patent a new approach to factory control.

I wish people who have never studied an issue would refrain from spreading
misinformation on it.
-=-
Tim Maroney, CMU Center for Art and Technology
Tim.Maroney@k.cs.cmu.edu	uucp: {seismo,decwrl,etc.}!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim
CompuServe:	74176,1360	My name is Jones.  I'm one of the Jones boys.