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

[Peter Wright]

On Mon, Jun 12, 2000 at 10:54:11AM +0800, Colin Muller wrote:
> 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.

This is a bit of a risky notion - I wonder how many patents are on the
record, but are literally not possible (at least using current
technology) to implement? 

> 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.

I'm not quite sure on this area. I certainly think the bar needs to be
lifted a _hell_ of a lot higher on patents in general, especially
software patents, but I'm not entirely convinced that all patents
specifically dealing with what we call "software" should be wiped out.

I guess it comes back to what you think of patents in general.

> Colin

Oh well, I suppose I shouldn't waffle on about this any more without
doing a bit of actual research. :)

Pete.
-- 
http://cygnus.uwa.edu.au/~pete/

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