"Lee Hollaar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Actually, much much earlier than that. See United States patent > 3,568,156, "Text Matching Algorithm," granted on March 2, 1971, > to Kenneth Thompson (who went on to write an operating system of > some repute).
There were also software patents long before that. Samuel F. B. Morse got US Patent 1647 in 1840 for the Morse Code. Its reissued version included: Claim 5. The system of signs consisting of dots and spaces, and of dots, spaces, and horizontal lines, for numerals, letters, words, or sentences, substantially as herein set forth and illustrated, in combination with machinery for recording them, as signals for telegraphic purposes. http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATRE117 The US Supreme Court upheld that claim in 1853. http://www.law.pitt.edu/madison/patent/supplement/oreilly_v_morse.html You can also read Morse's original claims here. http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT1647 _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
