[8500] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Multimedia has been patented
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tansin A. Darcos & Company)
Sun Nov 21 07:53:47 1993
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1993 07:30:54 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
Reply-To: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
To: Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>,
>From: Paul Robinson <TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
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Barry Shein <bzs@WORLD.STD.COM>, writes:
> I think I'm fairly aware of the patent system and its history, tho
> don't claim to be expert I don't know that you are either. I really
> don't like these glib "you think that's new?" sort of responses,
> it's rude and patronizing.
Well, your comments seemed to indicate you were not familiar. The
common reaction for most people on the idea that there are some
things that someone can know, but that someone else can own the
right to make, seems to be a concept that is hard for people to
be able to handle.
A lot of people were upset over the Quarterdeck patent on the switching of
the display of a running program, but probably not 1% bothered to read the
patent itself or the description and claims, had they read it they would
have discovered that the only applications it applied to were those that
ran other programs; if a program does its own display swapping it does not
infringe upon the patent. And there are several other requirements, that
in short meant you'd have to be writing a task switcher for you to
infringe upon their patent.
Some people have been upset over what is referred to as the "patenting of
mathematics" with the PKP patents on public-key cryptography. If these
men invented the particular means of doing this, they are entitled to
protection. I'd be more concerned with the (IMHO) unconstitutional stand
of the U.S. Government that one needs a license to export computer
programs (which are a form of writing) which do cryptography, in a clear
violation of the 1st Amendment. The Securities and Exchange Commission
had the same unconstitutional stance on newsletters until a court told
them they can't do that.
> That [the PTO has] screwed up before provides little comfort.
>
> And it's all the more urgent, in this era of fast-paced global
> technological competition, that they don't do it again and in a big
> way with software.
Someone here asked me why I said that if there is an issue involved, the
place to argue it is in the courts, with congress, or with the PTO's
administration; I'll say that arguing it here is an easy way to vent
one's spleen but is an exercise in futility. If the laws are so
intolerable that they are damaging to society, then the laws need to be
changed.
I have yet to see anyone who has given a really valid reason why patenting
of industrial articles is acceptable, but patenting of software is not.
What does a new and improved paint have that entitles it to patent
protection, but that a new and improved sort routine does not?
If you want to fight something, it's time to fight the implementation of
"first to file" where the first person to file an application for a patent
owns it even if someone else developed it before them. I think that
basing who owns an invention on the time of filing of the application
changes the scene too much, as it changes the situation of a slow, careful
inventor who takes two years to fully develop his concept, against someone
who gets the same idea 6 months later and throws it together fast.
It may be time for someone to start a newsletter on "developments in
software" including listing relevant patent applications so that other
people don't have to wade through the Gazette every week to find the wheat
from the chaff.
Perhaps we need to argue that secrecy be removed on patent applications;
or that compulsory licensing be introduced on some classes of concepts.
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Paul Robinson - TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
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