...
Rick> I suggest a policy, that patents are for hardware. The Patent
Rick> Office would thank us. If you want a patent on your nifty
Rick> array indexer, put it on a PLD. In which case maybe you can
Rick> do better without disclosure anyway.
That actually was the position of the patent office until sometime in
the '60's. They held that patenting software algorithms was
tantamount to patenting mathematics. The walls were breached when
Marty Goetz was granted a patent for the conservation of opcodes in a
programmed device. His idea was to interpret the meaning of an
opcode depending on the value of the preceding opcode. This was
apparently a subterfuge, because Goetz realized the device as a
software interpreter and claimed the protection of the patent. The
patent office apparently decided to admit that they were unable to
distinguish between hardware and software devices.
That's as much as I remember. Does anyone know any more of the
story?
Mike
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/