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From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Subject: Re: Patents: What they are. What they aren't. Other factors.
Message-ID: <1992Oct27.172831.22782@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu
Reply-To: terry@icarus.weber.edu
Organization: Weber State University (Ogden, UT)
References: <id.R3AU.4ZF@ferranti.com> <1992Oct23.204711.17987@fcom.cc.utah.edu> <id.ZIFU.X4D@ferranti.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 17:28:31 GMT
Lines: 79
In article <id.ZIFU.X4D@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>In article <1992Oct23.204711.17987@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes:
>> By "software patents" I meant "patents on software", not some new form of
>> patent.
>
>Right. A new form of patent.
OK, "process patents" involving software; like Diamond vs. Diehr.
>> For instance, how many clever methods of putting a cursor up have
>> resulted from the XOR patent?
>
>I don't know. The only methods currently in use are hardware that implements
>virtual bitmaps, like on the Amiga, or saving and restoring the underlying
>bitmap. Both of these have reasons for use (higher performance, more
>versatility) that have nothing to do with XOR, and wer developed at around
>the same time.
If you are talking about "Blitter Objects" (BOb's), then I think you have
missed one important one, which is signal mixing -- THe Amiga supports this
too, but they're called "Sprites". Most of the X terminals I'm familiar
with use signal mixing.
>> How many compression techniques have
>> resulted from a company not wanting to license the LZW patents?
>
>So far as I know, only one, and it fell afoul of other patents.
You probably aren't talking about the videophone compression chip here
(see last month's Radio Electronics); this uses a proprietary non-LZW
compresssion technique (not mpeg).
>> How many methods of updating a previously occluded window have come from
>> not wanting to license the backing store patent?
>
>I don't know of any that don't predate Pike's paper.
The point I was trying to make here was that the inability to reuse existing
technology promotes the developement of new technology.
I think that innovation is promoted by making it cost-effective to innovate.
This may take the form of a financial incentive, which is basically the
direction the "patent lobby" has been arguing from, or it may take the form
of negative incentives on reusing old technology (licensing fees to the
patent holder), a direction I don't think has been argued yet. I think
most engineering is basically "use accepted methods if possible", and this
dampens innovation. Restated, people hate to have to think.
Nothing in the patent system represents as large an obstacle to technology
reuse in the software industry, the main "anti patent" platform, as a
copyright... after all, patents are only an obstacle for 7 or 14 years
(usually 7); copyrights are an obstacle effectively forever.
I think the fact that the software industry has been fighting copyrights
with new innovation not covered in previous copyright is the reason the
software industry is so vital (in the sense of "being alive") today.
In one way, my "sheet metal screw" example was a good example, in that it
showed that innovation was not dead in an area covered soley by patent
laws, even if it didn't prove what I was trying to prove with it (that
innovation only occurs where it is forced to occur).
The fact that there are new sheet metal screw designs argues that new
applications will generate new technology; I think it also argues that the
"backpressure" generated by an inability to reuse existing technology for
licensing and legal reasons is as much of a force as new applications.
Terry Lambert
terry@icarus.weber.edu
terry_lambert@novell.com
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
--
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