*BSD News Article 7314


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From: mcgregor@netcom.com (Scott Mcgregor)
Subject: Re: Patents:  What they are.  What they aren't.  Other factors.
Message-ID: <1992Nov2.194920.29854@netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
References: <1992Oct27.172831.22782@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <id.SSJU.KXL@ferranti.com> <1992Oct31.043526.11350@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1992 19:49:20 GMT
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In article <1992Oct31.043526.11350@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes:

>Look-and-feel suits are based on a platform of copyright infringement, not
>patent infringement.  This is the type of "software patent" I'm against, since
>copyright protection can be maintained *much* longer than patent protection.
>
>The benefit of a patent-like mechanism with copyrights disallowed in this case
>is disclosure; it's not always possible to reverse engineer, and trading the
>authors disclosure for a time-limited monopoly is a fair trade.

Would a design patent (as opposed to utility patents we have been
talking about here) suit your objectives?

-- 

Scott L. McGregor		mcgregor@netcom.com
President			tel: 408-985-1824
Prescient Software, Inc.	fax: 408-985-1936
3494 Yuba Avenue
San Jose, CA 95117-2967