How come include file patent isn't mentioned in position paper?

drake at drake.almaden.ibm.com drake at drake.almaden.ibm.com
Sun May 12 18:20:16 AEST 1991


In article <27383 at drilex.UUCP> dricejb at drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1) writes:
>                                   If somebody really comes up with a way
>to do it in 10 lines of code, maybe they should get a 7-year patent on it or so.
>However, if a large company merely throws programmer time at something
>and implements something brute-force that should not be patentable.

Hmm, I disagree with this on 2 levels.

First, what you said seems to boil down to:

	If I invest $20.00 in an idea, I should get fully exclusive 
	use of it for 7 years.
	If I invest $1,000,000 in an idea, I should get nothing in return.

Come again?  

If what you really meant was that short, elegant algorithms should get
preferential treatment over expensive, ugly ones, well, they do.  If I
figure out an expensive way to do something, I can patent it.  If you
then come out with an elegant and cheap way to do it, you can patent THAT.
My guess is that your patent will be more in demand than mine.

Second, I don't see how programmer time relates to whether something's
patentable.  To get a patent I don't have to have a working (coded)
system...just a new idea.

Standard disclaimers go here.


Sam Drake / IBM Almaden Research Center 
Internet:  drake at ibm.com            BITNET:  DRAKE at ALMADEN
Usenet:    ...!uunet!ibmarc!drake   Phone:   (408) 927-1861



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