[plug] Intellectual Property (was Re: [plug] PHP)

[Mike from West Australia]

At 07:37 PM 2/8/2000 +0800, you wrote:
>At 19:31 2/08/00, Alex Polglaze wrote:
>>Interesting concept but wrong.
>>
>>The person who writes the code owns the code irrespective of who paid
>>for it.
>
>My patent attorney begs to differ =).

<hrrm> Your patent attorney is wrong or has the wrong angle or is 'trying
it on' for the client (you).

Copyright is automatically vested in the author unless there is a
contract or assignment otherwise.

For the very simple reason. Contract programmers would be out of a job
after the first contract if the above were not true.

there is however a distinction between industry trade secrets and
ability to sequence logic using a particular programming langauge.

The exception is employees (not under contract)...

Rgds

Mike