Re: [OT] Patent protection

["Eric M. Hopper" <hopper@omnifarious.mn.org>]

On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 11:29:33PM -0500, Ethical at One of One dot Net wrote:
> In <19991214210854.A31727@omnifarious.mn.org>, on 12/14/99 at 10:15
> PM,
>    "Eric M. Hopper" <hopper@omnifarious.mn.org> said:
> 
> |	This is one of the reasons I find patent and copyright law to be
> |somewhat disturbing, and in need of some rethinking.  What would've
> |happened if Einstein had tried to patent General Relativity, or had
> |copyrighted the formula 'E = mc^2'?
> 
> Not possible.
> 
> Patents are not available for "algorithms" or for discoveries as
> opposed to inventions.

	*nod* But people patent algorithms every day.  They just
describe them as computer programs.  If Einstein had created a program
to simulate the effects of general relativity, and then patented that
algorithm, wouldn't that have much the same effect?

> The formula E=mc^2, likewise, is too short (the courts use the Latis
> phrase de minimis) to be subject to copyright protection.

	*grin* Well, at least that one's safe.  How about the proof of
that one conjecture involved in the proof of Fermat's last theorem?  I
hear that covered pages.  Do we really want that to be protected for
over a hundred years?

> No "rethinking" of the current state of the law is necessary to allay
> your concern.

	I find a worrisome crop of things currently being patented and
copywritten.  I was merely trying to find a way to articulate my concern
in such a way as to make the problem that concerns me obvious.

	Oh, well.  Here is probably not the place for such a discussion.

Have fun (if at all possible),
-- 
Its name is Public Opinion.  It is held in reverence. It settles everything.
Some think it is the voice of God.  Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet
broke a chain or freed a human soul.     ---Mark Twain
-- Eric Hopper (hopper@omnifarious.mn.org
                http://ehopper-host105.dsl.visi.com/~hopper) --