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| Authored by: Kilz on Wednesday, April 18 2012 @ 11:57 PM EDT |
Ok, while I am not a lawyer perhaps I can make sense of it
for you.
1. architect's blue prints would be covered by copyright. No
one could take the blueprint and make a copy of it. But if
the blueprint was made from a list of specifications, say
the house in the blueprint should have 3 bedrooms, 2
bathrooms and a large kitchen, anyone could draw up
blueprint of a house to those specifications. The person who
makes the first blueprint of a house to those specifications
cant stop other architects from making blueprints of houses
with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a large kitchen.
2. Coca-Cola's secret formula could be protected by
copyright, but is better protected as a trade secret. If the
secret formula was on a piece of paper being sold, Coca Cola
could stop others from making copy's of it and selling
similar writings. But the fact that Coca Cloa wants to keep
it a secret would stop them from doing that. They couldn't
stop other soda companies from making something to the
specifications of a dark citrus flavored pop with caffeine.
Thats why we have Pepsi and RC cola.
3. The design of a microprocessor would best be covered by
patents, but copyright could also be a factor for the design
of the layout of the chip. But you couldn't stop someone
from making a different chip to the specifications that it
has 410 million transistors and a clock speed of 2 GHz with
64 GB of memory.
I think you are confusing the concept or specification with
a specific implementation or design. I hope the above
examples help.
Oracle is saying that you need a license to read the
specifications. But that isnt true. Harmony has the same
specifications and it has no license.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: cjk fossman on Thursday, April 19 2012 @ 01:06 AM EDT |
'Software design' is vague.
You cannot protect look and feel (Apple v. Microsoft).
You can copyright your source.
You can copyright your logo.
You can copyright fonts.
You can't protect the 'idea' behind the software because you
can't protect the idea behind anything.
You can't protect the structure and arrangement of the
software, whatever that means, because it's an abstraction.
Many development frameworks use a specific directory structure,
for example. Can't protect it, even if the directory names are
identical.
You can't protect something just because it's done with a
computer, even if you're the first one to do it.
You can patent equipment that includes a special purpose
computer and the computer is also covered. Use the computer to
play Quake, though, and it's not protected until you return it
to its intended use, because it was acting as a general purpose
computer during the game.
You can copyright documentation that describes the Jave APIs,
but you can't copyright the APIs as others have explained at
length.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: s65_sean on Thursday, April 19 2012 @ 07:26 AM EDT |
It is very obvious what the difference is between the java API and the Coca-cola
secret formula. The Coca-cola company has spent many years and dollars making
sure that their secret formula remained secret. Sun/Oracle published their API
for all to see, specifically to entice programmers to write programs in java and
for others to write alternate implementations, so it was no longer a secret. If
they had kept it a secret, then no one would have known how to write programs
that used their API's, and so once it is no longer a secret, it can be reverse
engineered without Sun/Oracle having any recourse available related to violating
a trade secret.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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