Re: RAR under linux: any alternative?
Gene Heskett wrote:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html
I see, and many thanks for the link. The one thing it doesn't explain
however, is why the USTPO allowed 2 different entities to patent the
lzw algorythm. That is still a puzzlement to me, but what do I know.
Umm, I haven't read them, nor am I a lawyer. However, I took a short
course in "Intellectual Property Law" a few years ago, and learned a
little something, and this is my understanding.
One does not patent algorithms, whatever you may have read or
heard. Patents are issued for exactly two things: processes and
devices. Now these terms are pretty broadly interpreted. For
example, a mouse with a particular set of genes may be a device.
So, the mathematical algorithm, in the sense of means of computation
of a given result, is not patentable. What is patentable is the
application of a given algorithm to create a process. For example,
the computations involved in computing the LZW compression of any
given stream is not patentable. But the application of that
computation to the compression of a video image *is* patentable.
So the same algorithm, if it is applied in different ways, may
result in more than one patentable process.
So this may be an answer to your question.
Mike
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