a computer program is not a patentable invention

Hans-Bernhard Br=F6ker wrote:
<big snip>
> After all, why=20
> put work into testing, and possibly rejecting a patent application=20
> (little or no fees), when instead you can blindly accept it first=20
> (fee!), then handle the rebuttal process (more fees!) and ultimately=20
> leave all the actual hard work to the courts?

I see nothing to disagree, excellent points again.
Sadly, it will be hard to sustain an interesting
discussion if we always agree ;-)

yg
--=20
http://ygdes.com / http://yasep.org

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:21:01 -0400, Walter Banks
<walter@bytecraft.com> wrote:

>"tim...." wrote:
>
>> "David Brown" <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote in message
>> news:4bc84f50$0$1993$8404b019@news.wineasy.se...
>> > People can license all or part of code under whatever terms they want -
>> > patents don't have to be involved at all.  Copyright is what gives you
>> > protection and lets you enforce these licenses.
>>
>> You cannot copyright a "method" only the exact textual solution is
>> copyrightable,
>>
>> for example: if it were possible to patent your "code" for addition then
>> x = a+b and x = b+a would be covered by a single patent.
>>
>> but if you copyrighted it and you code was
>> x=a+b
>>
>> then someone else can write x=b+a and would not be in breach of your
>> copyright
>
>This is a common misconception I think that if you intended get
>around a copyright you will probably find that the copyright was
>violated.
>
>A common copyright violation in the early days of personal
>computing was to recompile the PC's Boot ROM's (IBM
>published the source) with the functions in a different order
>and the memory tests deleted. This was found to be in
>violation of the copyrights.

Any substantial copy ot it should be in violation, unless it
is for educational research purposes or personal use.  So I
guess it is good it worked out that way.

>You can violate the copyright of a novel just by using the
>same plot lines.

The same plot lines are reused over and over again.  It's
been said that there has been nothing new under the sun for
many centuries, now.  Probably true.

So far as I'm aware, only a particular expression of an idea
can be protected.  Not the idea itself.  Case law examples
I've see consistently hold that basic plot, settings and
stereotyped characters are not protected.  Various story
devices are not and cannot be protected by copyright as they
are in a public commons of literary techniques.

Spielberg's Amistad and the ensuing plagiarism law suit
illustrates a boundary.  An author, Chase-Riboud, was flown
to LA to discuss the optioning of her novel, Echo of Lions.
The court determined that DreamWorks didn't violate her
copyright, though, and that the plaintiff couldn't 'sustain'
her burden of proof as the book contained a love story that
was different from Amistad.  They were quite similar on most
other accounts, though, according to what I've read about
this case.

Software is a different medium, though.  The plot devices
used in novels, such as "the butler did it" or a "sympathetic
mobster", etc., that aren't protected are quite general and
probably not protected at all with books, even if the story
had the butler do it _after_ meeting the sympathetic mobster
just like another story did.  Yet, in software, perhaps the
use of a standard deviation algorithm right after the use of
a sort routine _might_ be protected?  Or not?  I don't know.
But I think the courts did, and my still, have some trouble
parsing all this, correctly and well.  I doubt they are in
nearly as good a position to make judgments on these topics
and I suspect that law here is less well controlled by the
judges and more controlled by the money funding the cases.

>You can violate the copyright of a
>photograph by using similar composition.

Example, please.  This sounds almost crazy to me and I'd like
to see just how "similar" you mean to suggest here.

>There are real teeth in copyrights if they are exercised. Look at
>some of the judgements in the music and movie industry. It
>is not just a copy and on line distribution it extends to music and
>musical arrangements.

But you just gave a case, Walter, where copyrights __were__
exercized.  The BIOS case you talked about.  So your _if_ is
already in hand.  Your implication is that they aren't, yet
you provide your own contrary evidence.

>The screen play for Avatar is on line. Completely re-writing
>the dialogue into gaelic and changing the location to Greenland
>using snowmobiles for transportation would probably be a
>copyright violation.

Hmm.  Considering Amistad and Echo of Lions, I wonder.  I'm
not sure I fully take your assertion, just yet.

Jon

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:18:39 -0400, Walter Banks
<walter@bytecraft.com> wrote:

>Jon Kirwan wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:22:46 -0700, I wrote:
>>
>> >I wasn't thinking so much about analogy to other business
>> >areas _within_ the North American continent, but to the same
>> >business areas outside of it.  Which is why I asked though
>> >you had provided such examples.
>
>Your questions caused be to think about the differences between
>software patents and copyrights. To use a clearer example.
>Remember I am not a lawyer but this is the way I understand
>it.
>
>Assume that while writing a math package you discover a
>completely new new way of doing a square root. You register
>the copyright for the math package and you patent the method
>you used to do the square root.
>
>You now have full control of the duplication and distribution
>of the math package and if anyone copies it in whole or in part
>you have various legal recourses including damages.
>
>The square root patent  on the other hand could be used in many
>math packages and applications. You could then license individual
>companies to use it and by agreement receive compensation.
>
>Where this gets murky is what would have happened if you only
>copyrighted the math package. After 15 or 17 years you would
>still have the copyright and presumably be able to enforce the
>distribution in whole or in part. That would mean someone
>who only wanted to use the square root part would need to
>come to an agreement with you to be able to do so.
>
>That is why I made the comment about "protection with teeth"
>it takes a long time for the material that is copyrighted  to
>be in the public domain. The damage awards in the music industry
>are examples of just how significant copyright violations can be.
>
>Software patents started to be issued at a point when the software
>industry was very young and it wasn't clear if what was important
>was process pieces which could be bought and sold like the
>components of a library or the complete works like na spreadsheet.

I remember the period and some of the debates that raged at
the time and, vaguely, the reasons why some software vendors
wanted control.  At least, what hit the general newspapers at
the time.  What I saw in the papers was that end users sold
their software to someone else when they didn't want the
software anymore, or rental companies would buy the software
and rent it out, and the vendors wanted to make both
situations impossible, somehow.  In fact, it was especially
in the case of rentals that there was a LOT of argument going
on at the time.

>As recently as the mid 80's software tools commonly licensed
>libraries as a separate document from the translation tools. There
>are still some library only companies out there.

None of this yet addresses itself to situations where the
lack of software patents has led to "protection with teeth"
in the specific case of software.

And you cannot seem to avoid hauling in the 'music industry'
when struggling to press your hypothesis.  I don't mean that
negatively, but I am simply unable to port that into this
sphere of seeing this in terms of software.  That may be my
own lack of imagination.  But there it is.  There are too
many differences in medium, market and market history, and
I'm sure this lack of similarity also applies to past case
history, contract law, and torts, and the preparation of
courts and judges to make well-informed findings, as well.

In any case, I just can't get see your assertion regarding
software protection getting stronger by removing software
patents.  Copyright already exists in the US.  It is also
enforced, as well.  You, yourself, gave an example of this in
another post.  Patents are, as another poster mentioned, a
veritable mine field (and besides that, I already have taken
the opinion that patents no longer have much value to anyone
other than large companies, anyway, these days.)

What would help is a showing from a developed country (in the
EU?) where a similar outcome followed as you say it would,
with details in evidence, as you assert would occur here in
the US.  Namely, where the lack of patents there has led to
_stronger_ protections with more teeth in them than here in
the US, as a total picture.

To be frank, I think the combination of patents AND copyright
in the US has more teeth than copyright only and I cannot see
how the removal of software patents would put MORE teeth into
a situation.  Copyright is one method for some domain,
patents are another method of another domain (possibly
overlapping in areas) and the two, combined, is more than
either alone.  Even after the courts have a hand in it.

Perhaps I'm not communicating well and am just blind enough
that you cannot seem to reach me, either.  It's a chasm I can
clearly notice, but cannot clearly see how to bridge.  I know
you were trying to make a clear point that others would
understand well enough.  Maybe others got it and I am just
not smart enough to do so.  I wish I were better able to
follow your point.

Jon

Walter Banks wrote:

> That is why I made the comment about "protection with teeth"
> it takes a long time for the material that is copyrighted  to
> be in the public domain. 

Actually, there's a strong on-going campaign by movie studios and music 
publishers, particularly in the USA, to change that "long time" into 
"forever".  And if they ever get their wish, that'll be an outright 
disaster.

Walter Banks wrote:

> You can violate the copyright of a novel just by using the
> same plot lines.

If that were actually true, pulp fiction wouldn't exist.

Hans-Bernhard Br�ker wrote:
> Walter Banks wrote:
> 
>> That is why I made the comment about "protection with teeth"
>> it takes a long time for the material that is copyrighted  to
>> be in the public domain. 
> 
> Actually, there's a strong on-going campaign by movie studios and music 
> publishers, particularly in the USA, to change that "long time" into 
> "forever".  And if they ever get their wish, that'll be an outright 
> disaster.

Copyright in the USA (with other countries following on obediently) gets 
extended every time Mickey Mouse is nearing the public domain. 
Copyright lengths (and patent lengths) are already a disaster - it's 
just a question of how much worse they can get.  I don't really object 
to people having rights over their creations and who can copy them - I 
can't see how there is any moral or ethical justification for these 
rights being valid 70 years after the author/creator is dead.

David Brown Inscribed thus:

> Hans-Bernhard Bröker wrote:
>> Walter Banks wrote:
>> 
>>> That is why I made the comment about "protection with teeth"
>>> it takes a long time for the material that is copyrighted  to
>>> be in the public domain.
>> 
>> Actually, there's a strong on-going campaign by movie studios and
>> music publishers, particularly in the USA, to change that "long time"
>> into
>> "forever".  And if they ever get their wish, that'll be an outright
>> disaster.
> 
> Copyright in the USA (with other countries following on obediently)
> gets extended every time Mickey Mouse is nearing the public domain.
> Copyright lengths (and patent lengths) are already a disaster - it's
> just a question of how much worse they can get.  I don't really object
> to people having rights over their creations and who can copy them - I
> can't see how there is any moral or ethical justification for these
> rights being valid 70 years after the author/creator is dead.

The simple answer would be that the copyright ceases on the death of the
originator.  That would certainly put a dent into Disney and Elvis...

-- 
Best Regards:
                     Baron.

In article <hqfck1$jmo$3@news.eternal-september.org>,=20
baron.nospam@linuxmaniac.nospam.net says...
> David Brown Inscribed thus:
>=20
> > Hans-Bernhard Br=F6ker wrote:
> >> Walter Banks wrote:
> >>=20
> >>> That is why I made the comment about "protection with teeth"
> >>> it takes a long time for the material that is copyrighted  to
> >>> be in the public domain.
> >>=20
> >> Actually, there's a strong on-going campaign by movie studios and
> >> music publishers, particularly in the USA, to change that "long time"
> >> into
> >> "forever".  And if they ever get their wish, that'll be an outright
> >> disaster.
> >=20
> > Copyright in the USA (with other countries following on obediently)
> > gets extended every time Mickey Mouse is nearing the public domain.
> > Copyright lengths (and patent lengths) are already a disaster - it's
> > just a question of how much worse they can get.  I don't really object
> > to people having rights over their creations and who can copy them - I
> > can't see how there is any moral or ethical justification for these
> > rights being valid 70 years after the author/creator is dead.
>=20
> The simple answer would be that the copyright ceases on the death of the
> originator.  That would certainly put a dent into Disney and Elvis...

I beleive the longest Copyright period by special Act of Parliament is
for Peter Pan, all royalties have been set to go to Great Ormond Street
Children's Hospital in London. The most recent Act set this for=20
impertuity, except for school 'plays'.=20

The song Happy Birthday had special copyright conditions as well.

--=20
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/> Timing Diagram Font
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>  GNU H8 - compiler & Renesas H8/H8S/H8 Tiny
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate

Hans-Bernhard Br�ker wrote:

> Walter Banks wrote:
>
> > You can violate the copyright of a novel just by using the
> > same plot lines.
>
> If that were actually true, pulp fiction wouldn't exist.

This is how the business plan for example romance novels
works. The publisher owns the copyright for a particular
story formula and hires authors to write novels using the
formula. Copyrights keep others from duplicating the
story lines.

w..




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Jon Kirwan wrote:

> >You can violate the copyright of a
> >photograph by using similar composition.
>
> Example, please.  This sounds almost crazy to me and I'd like
> to see just how "similar" you mean to suggest here.

One that I am personally familiar with is the owner of a
software games company had a very leather jacket that
made him look like Indiana Jones and was successfully
sued for having his own image on his product with a generic
background of a central American jungle scene.

Search for details on some of the Getty Museum
copyright suites. Not all of them are exact images.

Walter..


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