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From: casey@admin.cognet.ucla.edu (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Some 1987 patents of interest
Summary: Do patents stifle progress?
Keywords: Patents
Message-ID: <16406@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 3 Oct 88 04:46:55 GMT
References: <5511@hoptoad.uucp>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: casey@cs.ucla.edu (Casey Leedom)
Organization: UCLA
Lines: 64


  In article <5511@hoptoad.uucp> John Gilmore (gnu@hoptoad.uucp) writes
about some of the interesting U.S. patents that were granted in 1987.
Some of the patents were very fundamental in nature, addressing points
such as ``how to reduce interrupt latency to 1 cycle'' (Motorola, patent
4,709,324, 24 Nov 87).

  Not being a lawyer, I don't understand what the exact limits of patents
are, but I would guess that if one were to want to incorporate some of
these ideas into a new processor design, you'd have to negotiate a
contract with the patent holder and then pay royalties.  On the surface I
suppose this sounds great, and justly paying others for their creative
work, but it strikes me that we're at a point now where there are a hell
of a lot of good ideas out there (most of which are patented by IBM or
soon will be) and one would be forced to negotiate separate contracts for
each one that you chose to use in your processor (for example).

  Moreover, if a patent holder decided not to allow others to use their
technology, that would give them a strangle hold on a possibly
fundamental idea forcing all others to use a substandard approach.
(Again, not being a lawyer, I don't know whether the anti-trust laws
would apply in this case).

  For example (and I should point out that I don't know about the factual
nature of this, but it still makes a good example), I once heard that DEC
patented the idea of using a general register for the CPU's Program
Counter.  This allowed them to design a very clean orthogonal instruction
set without special purpose instructions to access PC relative
quantities.  I heard further that they refused to license that
``technology'' out to any third parties and as a result all other CPU's
are forced to have the PC set aside as a special register, not accessible
in the same way as their general registers, etc.  As I said, I'm not sure
of the factual nature of this story, so I apologise in advance for any
mis-information.

  But the story demonstrates the point I'm trying to make, which is in
fact simply a question:

	Do patents stifle progress?

  This is not at all a clear question for me.  I won't jump on the Richard
Stallman bandwagon, but on the other hand, I also won't jump on the (pick
your favorite patent pusher) Bandwagon.  My feelings are very ambivalent
about this.  On the one hand I do believe that people should be paid for
their creativity, but on the other, I don't want to see progress stifled
by a greedy individual.

  Note that since corporations are considered to be people, the above is
intended to cover them.  And that brings up yet one more card in the
question game: many patents are granted to corporations for the work of
individuals employeed by the corporations.  Does the fact that someone is
employeed by a corporation justify the corporation claiming all creative
work of the individual?  Certainly I'm less worried about my feeling that
individuals should be paid for their creative work if in fact the
individual at hand is merely a corporation that has completely usurped a
person's creative work ...

  In any case, this is hardly a question for comp.arch, but since it was
inspired by a comp.arch article and since I can't figure out what the
legal questions group is, I'm posting it here ...  Feel free to flame me,
but I do feel it's an important topic and am personally concerned with
the computer technology aspects of the question.

Casey