And all this because I hit the wrong button on Ximan Evolution :-). If anyone want to chat about this further they'll have to email me directly. I don't want to turn cocoon-dev into a big political discussion room. :-)
On Sat, 2002-01-19 at 11:49, Roger I Martin PhD wrote: > Just my two capitalistic cents: As I understand it, the patent office was > not set up to only provide protection of inventions for would-be > manufacturers but to get all ideas and inventions into the hands of the > military as quickly as possible so they can pick through 'em(I happen to > agree with this. It "wouldn't be prudent" having US citizens selling > military ideas to the country with the highest bid!). Therefore what is > considered patentable has been kept very broad to give people an incentive > to submit their ideas. For example, if you figure out how to make a bullet > travel further and more accurately by "rifling" a gun barrel, they want to > know about it and "convince" you to keep it a US military secret! You get > patent protection for civilian and commercial applications and if it has > miltary significances, a fat contract. If you can't manufacture in a timely > fashion the US military has the right to get it done. > > I agree that software and algorithms don't patent well. Mostly because of > lawyers (this is not proverbial lawyer bashing) just a fact. Code blows 'em > away. It's too much for 'em. They can't handle patenting something > progressively changing with more words than the patent. Try explaining to a > lawyer what a reserved word is or all the "prior art"! I had to write a > patent for one .com and by the time management and the lawyers were > satisfied with the patent prose, .coms were no longer getting VC money for > fledging ideas. Since this experience I've stayed away from patenting > software alone! > > Why deal with gif? Why not jpg, png, etc? > > Blame this OT continuation on it being Saturday morning. > > -Roger > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- www.superlinksoftware.com www.sourceforge.net/projects/poi - port of Excel format to java http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4487555.html - fix java generics! The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. -Ambassador Kosh --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
