If you think patents are easy to get you should try applying for one. I have.
Seriously, whatever one's criticisms of the USPTO, it is indisputable that patents are a lot harder to get than copyright. Copyright is trivial. You write something, you "fix it in a tangible medium" (which includes, by statute, keying it into a text editor) and voila! you own the copyright on it. That's it! Patents involve applications, years, at least a plausible claim of novelty and usefulness, and non-trivial fees. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Shmuel Metz (Seymour J.) Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 6:18 AM To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu Subject: Re: Programming languages can't have copyright protection, EU court rules In <14d901cd2887$312cfba0$9386f2e0$@mcn.org>, on 05/02/2012 at 10:15 AM, Charles Mills <charl...@mcn.org> said: >Patents are very hard to get Would that that were true. USPTO fails to exclude patents that should be invalid due to, e.g., prior art. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
