On Monday 19 March 2007 12:37, Ted Harding wrote: > > I absolutely agree that it's an obvious generalisation, and I'm > pretty sure that it's been used many times. But the "trick" when > making a claim for novelty is to isolate, abstract and identify the > concept as adapted to a class of purposes, and give it a name. > So what I was after is whether there exists such an identification of > this technique that has been around long enough to well-established > prior art. > > That has certainly been the case for > > struct foo *next *prev > > (see good books on C programming from 20 years ago) but what about > the other? > > And, just to make it clear, I oppose the whole concept of patentability > of programming techniques, since in principle -- given the abstract > definition of any given programming language -- all constructs > stateable in the laguage are implicit in its definition; and > therefore to anyone "skilled in the field" they should be available > as an inspirational mental perception that "this is how to solve this > problem". To inhibit this by patent is to inhibit thought itself. > > On the other hand, I think the concept of copyright in a publication > of a programming technique can be defended. What is then prohibited > is the unauthorised deliberate copying from the publication. But > then what has to be proved is the act of copying, not the fact that > it is the same technique. The same technique could arise by mental > inspiration, but then while the program's structures could be > identifiably the same, the precise details would differ (perhaps > in order and detail of definitions, or variable names, etc.). > However, if the copier's code were character-by-character identical > to the original, then this would justifiably be viewed is totally > improbable as an independent creation. > > Thanks Anders! > Ted. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 > Date: 19-Mar-07 Time: 22:37:32 > ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
It's been too long to remember, but, wasn't the patented idea *and* a number of other great list tools all incorporated in LISP? Is there anyone out there still versed in that ancient and most compact language? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
