John,
Could one conclude then, that inventing a software piece, copyrighting it
(thus on a Govt database thus a public domain), a third party can patent the
invention and you could end up paying the third party to use your own
software?
I read your comments closely and the above cannot happen!+ ..?
Graham
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Gilmore" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibm-main
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: OT: IBM #1 in number of patents for 2012. It's 20th year in a
row to do so.
Graham,
"Prior art" is a lawyer's term, not mine. If, say, I published a
paper in 1977 describing a scheme for extracting the square root of a
non-negative integer by successive subtraction, using the fact that
n^2 is the sum of the first n odd integers, i.e.,
2^2 = 4 = 1 + 3
3^2 = 9 = 1 + 3 + 5
4^2 = 16 = 1+ 3 + 5 + 7
5^2 = 25 = 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 9
. . .
a later attempt to patent such a scheme would [almopst certainly]
fail. This relation is due to Fr Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), but
while no mathematical relation is itself patentable a device based
upon it, which might otherwise be patentable, would not be if my paper
describing such a device were known to the relevant Patent Office.
Thus, while my paper might well be copyrighted (most published papers
are), that is not the point; what is crucial is that the putative '
invention', being already in the public domain, is non-novel and thus
not patentable.
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
