[plug] [Fwd: Re: David Conran's talk]

[Colin Muller]

Peter Wright wrote:

> *blinks* Sorry if my head's been stuck in the sand for too long - it's
> possible to patent something without actually _implementing_ it???
> Even just a proof-of-concept implementation?

It has to be so - the point of patents is (supposedly) to protect
someone's investment in the *development* of an idea. If you grant the
patent only after the development is done, they have no guarantee of the
patent while spending vast quantities of money deveoping it (think of
one-click ordering  - that would surely take at least, ummm ... one day
to implement from the time you first had the idea). So the idea is first
patented, then developed/implemented.

More seriously, for a complex idea and development process, this is not
unreasonable - assuming, of course, that you think software should be
patentable as opposed to simply copyrightable. I don't.

Colin