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Xref: sserve comp.org.eff.talk:9453 misc.int-property:582 comp.unix.bsd:6398 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!ucbvax!virtualnews.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@nyu.edu (D. J. Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,misc.int-property,alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors. Message-ID: <22808.Oct1104.20.0092@virtualnews.nyu.edu> Date: 11 Oct 92 04:20:00 GMT References: <1992Oct6.071314.16966@netcom.com> <id.4EWT.75D@ferranti.com> <1992Oct9.002901.14966@netcom.com> Organization: IR Lines: 74 In article <1992Oct9.002901.14966@netcom.com> mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor) writes: > I don't believe that you can be held to infringe LZW if you > use it to encrypt data Claim 1 of the Unisys LZW patent covers any system which engages in a certain process. That process is LZW. If you somehow use LZW for a different purpose, you will still infringe upon that patent. Scott, you don't seem to realize that the courts have prohibited all patents upon mathematical algorithms, *even when* the patents are restricted to a particular field of technology. You talk about such restrictions as if they make all the difference in the world. They don't. > Thanks for the opportunity, but I'll have to pass on such an > ill-defined objective. I've got a business to run. Ah. You have enough time in a week to write thousands of lines of pro-software-patent rhetoric in a public forum, and you don't have enough time to come up with a single example of a beneficial software patent to contrast to dozens of examples of hurtful software patents. > Because I think that there is a danger in people proposing policy when > there is insufficient or conflicting evidence to support their claims. Fine. If you think that an anti-software-patent policy is dangerous, why don't you point out some of that ``conflicting evidence''? > I agree that the status quo before Diamond vs. Diehr worked. But I see > what the status quo was before Diamond vs. Diehr differently than you. > I see it as allowing algorithms, but requiring them to be tied to > physical implementations. Explain patent number 3380029, then. [ calls the LPF position ``doomsaying'' ] > Will the dangers that have been so > long coming really come so swiftly in the next decade? Okay, Scott, where is Paperback Software? [ trying to explain the epidemic of software patents since 1980 ] > There may just be more people out there now who would want to patent > applications of their software than before. The point, Scott, was that the status quo has changed recently: the LPF wants to change _back_. The fact that people want things is a side issue. > However, I do think that > substantial incentives are necessary if most of these are ever to > become available to the average everyday consumer or company. Please read prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/lpf/laf-fallacies.texi.Z. Incentives are not the purpose of patent law. > LZW may be a mathematical algorithm. But I don't agree that LZW is > patented. You are, unfortunately, wrong. Two companies own patents on LZW. > As Dan has a personal stake in striking down a patent > involving a compression algorithm patent, perhaps we will get to see > if the courts agree with him. Please retract that offensive statement. I have no financial interest in Storer's patent. I am angry that Storer hid AP coding from the community by failing to publish it properly, and I see the software industry as a whole being damaged by insanely broad monopolies, so I would be happy to testify as an expert witness in any compression patent court case; but I do not have a ``personal stake'' in seeing Storer's obsolete compression patent struck down. ---Dan