Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!mcnc!ece-csc!jnh
From: jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Virtual, how many megs?
Message-ID: <4005@ece-csc.UUCP>
Date: 10 Apr 89 18:10:36 GMT
References: <10464@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: jnh@ece-csc.UUCP (Joseph Nathan Hall)
Organization: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Lines: 19

In article <10464@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> sidlives@athena.mit.edu (Sid Vicious) writes:
>   ...  Also, it would seem stupid that the idea of virtual memory
>would be patentable.

Just because something is so important and useful that everyone should have
it doesn't mean it can't be patented.  In fact, this is exactly the type of
item patent laws are meant to protect.  What they don't protect is techniques
or products that perform a function that would be "obvious to one skilled in
the art" (to paraphrase).

I believe the patent on the use of CRT displays for displaying characters
generated by raster scanning techniques is still in force.


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