On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:27:30PM +1000, Da Rock wrote: > > If you have done your own research then the algorithms wouldn't > necessarily be the same- they'd nearly certainly be different, wouldn't > they? So isn't that the basis for the patent? A patent is a registration > of an idea. Two different ideas can still arrive at the same conclusion.
Patents are often about methods, not algorithms. In fact, there's supposedly a restriction against algorithms being patented -- though of course lawmakers and people working at the patent office don't seem to know what an algorithm is, so algorithms do get patented all the time. Anyway . . . as it happens, patenting a "method" provides far more broad power than patenting an algorithm, anyway, in practice. That's one of the reason (software) patents are so damaging. -- Chad Perrin [ content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] Quoth Reginald Braithwaite: "Nor is it as easy as piling more features on regardless of how well they fit or whether people will actually use them. Otherwise Windows would have 97% of the market and OS X 3%. (Oh wait.)"
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