On 4/12/2011 4:15 AM, harrismh777 wrote:
Anyone here who does not understand how absurd software patents can get
should contemplate the following (based on a real patent from about 20
years ago, when CDroms were new.
A Methods for Ensuring that the Correct CDROM is in the CDROM drive.
While the correct cdrom is not in the drive:
Display a message asking the user to insert the correct CD.
Buried in a page of verbiage, that was it, completely obvious and
unoriginal.
That is what made the last Supreme Court decision (from this argument in
part) so important... because for the first time the U.S. Supreme Court
is beginning to buy it ... in part.
What might help lawyers understand the obsurdity of software patents
would be to have them contemplate the possibility of patents on laws and
legal arguments, so that a legislature could not write a law, nor a
lawyer submit a legal brief, without possibly having to pay royalties or
violate a patent.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
--
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