Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 06:44:04 01/08/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 07, 2004 at 23:01:58, Russell Reagan wrote: >On January 07, 2004 at 09:59:48, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>No. You can write anything you want. You simply can't sell it or give it away. > >I hate to disagree with you Bob, and I find this whole thing to be very silly, >and while I did have an interest in creating a Gothic Chess playing program (or >at the very least a perft calculator for the game), I would not even consider it >anymore because of this ridiculous pattent nonsense, but, here is what the U.S. >Patent Office defines a pattent to be: > >"a property right granted by the Government of the United States of America to >an inventor “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling >the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the >United States” for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the >invention when the patent is granted." > >http://www.uspto.gov/main/glossary/#p > >They key phrase being, "to exclude others from making..." I believe the key phrase is "offering for sale, etc." An example is a "cable black box". You can build one. You can use it. The FCC has already included the statement "the airways are public". But you can _not_ sell a descrambler to someone else. While that is not patent law application, attorneys that handle such cases have always used that concept. The _purpose_ of a patent is to protect a unique idea so that you can market it without fear of others putting you out of business by duplicating your product without the R&D costs. But I know of no law that says that _I_ can't build anything I want so long as it is not illegal to do so where I live. For example, I can build a fully-automatic weapon even though I don't hold the Browning patent. I might not be able to legally own it without the proper FFL forms being filed, but that is a different issue. I have to sit through one of these "patent discussions" every few years as that is a common practice at most universities. And the idea of the patent has _always_ been about finances, selling, profit, etc. IE I work in my shop and I develop something that has already been patented. Did I break the law? Not according to case law. If I try to sell it, I may or may not have crossed the line as nothing requires me to do a patent search. It is up to the patent holder to notice what I am doing and cause me to stop selling it. But if I am not selling it or giving it away, I am just using it myself, there's no action that can be taken, because there is no "damage". At least, that is how it has been explained to me multiple times. Not that I have patented anything, because patent law is very vague when it is applied to computer software and the US patent office has taken a position there that makes little sense. Copyright law seems more applicable and has been upheld, however. > >To me this says that if someone has a pattent on something, you can't even make >it in your basement even if you only use it for yourself. Personally I think >that's a load of cow dung, that I as a programmer am apparently supposed to know >every pattent by heart before I write any piece of code for fear it may violate >someone's pattent, but that is what the law appears to say...
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.