Stefano Mazzocchi wrote: > I think adding time as a dimension to a scatterplot is a very useful > feature... I really hope they don't start claiming IP rights on those > things or it might be a problem for us (even if, that said Sweden is > very liberal about these things, so I doubt it).
Only relatively few countries around the world are stupid enough to allow patents on algorithms, software and business methods, rather than only on inventions with some physical manifestation. Sweden is not a stupid country. So it is very unlikely that they have a patent on it in Sweden, and thus unlikely that there is precedence established which would allow them to patent it in countries that do allow algorithmic, software and business method patents, such as the US, Australia, Japan and India. But in all of those countries except the US, the idea must not have already been published, and GapMinder has been around and the software downloadable for many years now. In the US, you can file a patent up to a year after you have made an idea public, although you may then need to prove that you thought of the idea and didn't steal it from someone else. However, in the case of the GapMinder displays, that year has well and truly passed. In fact, I have nice wall charts on the outside wall of my office, printed from a downloadable version of GapMinder dated 2004, and that version had identical features to the current Google version. So you are safe to re-implement the GapMinder ideas, I'd say. Although a patent serach fro "gapMinder" and "Rosling" in the US and world patent application databases might be a good idea. Tim C > >> Johan Sundström wrote: >>> On 3/15/07, David Karger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> >>>> looks like someone at google got excited about gapminder. Anybody want >>>> to add this functionality to exhibit? >>>> >>>> http://tools.google.com/gapminder/ >>>> >>> It would technically make more sense exposing that visualization >>> engine to take input from javascript bindings (so we can feed data >>> loaded / imported the Exhibit way) than to copy the functionality in a >>> less responsive and resource efficient DHTML fashion in Exhibit. > _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://simile.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/general
