On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:10:10 +0800, Ricky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > So whereas patents protect ideas, the investment in formulating the idea is > what is being protected, not the idea itself.
Ever wondered why newspapers or books aren't governed by patents? Surely the authors invested a lot of man-hours perfecting their craft and arranging the words, researching the right words, placing the right phrases and turning seemingly unrelated words into a readable, and sometimes expressive, avenue of information. Surely anyone who poured a lot of toil and money would want to protect the investment done. But why aren't they covered? Why can't news be patented? Why can't books undergo patents to protect the authors' investment? In these cases - copyright is sufficient. Since you can't patent the methods intrinsic to language, a different system needs to be employed to prevent plagiarism - which is answered sufficiently by the enforcement of copyright. Software falls under the same category. Since you can't patent the methods intrinsic to mathematics copyright would be employed to prevent people from claiming software as their own without making the investment in making the software. -- Paolo Alexis Falcone [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
