Lee Hollaar wrote:
[...]
> If there is a single way (or maybe a very, very limited way) of
> expressing an idea, it is said that the idea and the expression
> have "merged" and therefore the expression is not protectable by
> copyright.
>
> That has nothing to do with whether there is a patent that covers
> a method that can be implemented in software. There is, in general,
> a variety of ways to implement ("express") the method, and therefore
> each implementation can have its own copyright.
There is a whole bunch of patents boiling down to just a few tiny
functions. See, for example
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,993,770.PN.&OS=PN/6,993,770&RS=PN/6,993,770
Can you come up with a variety of ways to implement it (variables
names apart)?
regards,
alexander.
_______________________________________________
gnu-misc-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
