Re: FAT patents. Do we need to revive non-US?
On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 14:09:07 -0600
Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Jochen Schulz wrote:
> > Andrew Sackville-West:
> >
>
> [snip]
>
> >
> >>If it applies to drivers, I think that linux FAT system is a
> >>clean-room creation and would probably be okay.
> >
> >
> > No, you are confusing the patent system with copyright. A patent covers
> > *an idea*, not an implementation.
>
> IANAL, but I did take a course in "intellectual property rights"
> once upon a time.
>
> Patents cover (in the USA) four things exactly, viz. (1) processes,
> (2) improvements to processes, (3) devices, and (4) improvements
> to devices. The words "process" and "device" are very generously
> interpreted. A mouse with special genes may be, for example, a
> device.
>
> I have an idea for a time machine. But that idea is not patentable.
> A time machine *device* would be patentable. So would special
> processes for manufacturing key parts of the device, if there
> were some.
>
> At least one patent has been retracted due to someone later showing
> that a device constructed on the principles claimed in the patent
> would not work as described.
>
> Ideas are not patentable (in the USA).
>
> > Say, you are Shakespeare and hold a patent for a story about a girl and
> > a boy whose friends/families don't like each other. In the end, both of
> > them commit suicide. Now, only two years after your patent has been
>
> No such patent could be granted in the USA. (I realize that you are
> speaking hypothetically.)
>
> > granted, Leonard Bernstein comes along and produces the West Side Story.
> > Since you have the patent, you can sue Bernstein and in the end he would
> > have to pay a license fee to you. If you didn't have a patent on the
> > story, but only the copyright, you had no grounds to sue Bernstein
> > since he only stole the *idea*. not the "implementation".
>
> What you say about copyright is correct as far as it goes. Copyright
> protects the actual words used to tell a story. If you and I go
> on a boating trip, and come back and write about our adventures,
> even though we tell the same story, we do not infringe on each
> other's rights.
>
> Likewise, the "clean room" argument made above by Andrew is
> inapplicable to a patent. What is covered by the patents I
> read would (IMO) preclude anyone from creating LFN entries in a
> FAT style directory without license from MicroSoft. (Using the
> technique described in the patent, that is.)
my clean-room point is that perhaps the technique, being independently arrived developed, could be different, though the result would be the same. If I patent a method to make widgets and as a result those widgets come out in a particular shape does that prevent somone else from using another method to make identical, in every respect, widgets?
A
>
> Mike
> --
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>
>
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