how patents work (was: licensing of CIFS standards)

[Jeroen Dekkers]

On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 03:29:12PM +0200, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> 
> Hello Axel.
> Shortly: I think Joerg is right.
> 
> In more detail, let me quote you:
> > No, it's not. Prior art doesn't mean "an example of something having
> > been done before". The question to ask is, "Given the claim in this
> > patent, would it be obvious to a skilled software engineer how to
> > implement it?".
> 
> On the other hand, most software patents and scientific papers do not
> include the implementation. They just describe the idea and some
> information on how it is implemented (papers have much information,
> usually, while patents has almost none of it).

Software patents are just ridiculous to start with, IMHO we can better
put our energy in making sure we can stop those crazy ideas in Europe
and then stop it in the rest of the world instead of talking how they
work. Software patents don't work at all.

Scientific papers don't have to include implementations, they can just
point to the source code. They should discuss the actual idea, how to
implement it can be seen in the source.

Jeroen Dekkers
-- 
Jabber supporter - http://www.jabber.org Jabber ID: jdekkers at jabber.org
Debian GNU supporter - http://www.debian.org http://www.gnu.org
IRC: jeroen at openprojects
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 232 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/attachments/20020410/79f860a0/attachment.sig>