Author: Keith Evans
Date: 23:15:43 01/08/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 08, 2004 at 21:51:06, Amir Ban wrote: >On January 08, 2004 at 13:58:01, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On January 08, 2004 at 12:37:18, Ed Trice wrote: >> >>>Hello Dr. Hyatt, >>> >>>> >>>>Your _game_ is somewhat different than normal chess, although I don't believe >>>>it meets the criteria for "no prior-existing art" in patent law. I am talking >>>>about _playing_ your game, not building a chess board and pieces for your game >>>>and selling that. Patent law does not go there. >>> >>>A ha! >>> >>>You think I am trying to control who plays the game? >>> >>>No no no, not at all! >>> >>>You can play it all you want! >>> >>>1. You can't sell it. >>>2. You can't give it away. >>> >>>Sure you can make your own pieces and set them down on an 80 square board, that >>>is not what is being claimed as something prohibitive. >>> >>>Playing the game is not an infringement. >>> >>>Making a program is. >> >>There I am absolutely, 100% sure, you are wrong. You can _not_ patent something >>from that perspective. It was already done for the music transposition >>algorithm. It was kicked out by the courts. >> >>you can patent a "thing". You can not patent a "subject". IE you can not >>patent an "airplane". You can patent a _specific_ design, with two wings, >>engine in the front, rudder/elevator in the rear. Along comes someone with >>two wings but elevator in the front and they patent that. >> > >You can patent procedures. There are thousands of patents that do that. I have >several of those to my name. > >E.g., recently Microsoft announced it will start licensing the FAT file system. >This was a surprise because that dates from 1975, was never patented, and if it >were it would expire by now. It turns out that Microsoft are trying to get >royalties out of the long filename variation of FAT. Specifically their patent >claims to invent a file system organization holds both a long filename and a >short version, as is done in Windows and MS-DOS 6. > >Ten years ago Stac nailed Microsoft for $40 million on their patent for >Lempel-Ziv 77. Sperry have the patent for Lempel-Ziv-Welch, and routinely >license it. Now I believe that Hifn (a spin-off of Stac http://www.hifn.com/) owns the LZS (Lempel-Ziv-Stac) patent and they actually managed to get it into a number of the Internet RFCs as an optional feature. Anyways it's a huge patent for them - many multi-millionaires were created because of this one patent. Obscure trivia is that Stac actually started as a chip company. > >You can't get around a patent by making an arbitrary variation. If you do ALL >the steps in ANY of the claims, you are in infringement. > >Amir > > >>Just try to patent "a machine that flies" to see what I mean. That's why you >>have to supply all the ancillary stuff, such as drawings, specifications, >>details about operation, etc. >> >>I could never (probably) build a chess set for your game and sell it. But I >>can certainly write a program that plays the game, because you have made the >>rules _public_. And my program that plays the game is mine to sell or give >>away. Just as surely as I can write a program that _designs_ airplanes, and >>sell it, even though the aircraft designs are already patented. >> >>Someone is giving you _bad_ advice when they tell you that you can prevent >>someone from writing a program to play a game you have patented. >> >>> >>>Now I know what you are going to say: "How is writing a program to play the game >>>different from any other representation?" >>> >>>We sell a Gothic Chess program. We sell boards and pieces. >> >>you can sell a chess program. You can copyright one. But you can't prevent >>me from writing one myself. If you believe so, you are in for a lot of grief >>later when you spend a fortune and lose when you challenge someone. My chess >>program is copyrighted, because I wrote it. You can't take it and use it as >>you want without my permission. But you _can_ write one of your own. BTW you >>can _not_ patent a computer program. The only exception that has been granted >>was when the program was a hard-wired design where the chip itself (containing >>the "program) was therefore patentable. >> >>> >>>I think that covers it, in essence.
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