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Authored by: mrisch on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 02:52 PM EDT |
<blockquote>But just because I had to do hard work, and
discover novel algorithms or think up new ideas, in order to
come up with a sequence of instructions that make the
computer do what I wanted -- that doesn't mean my
instructions should be patentable. They are copyrightable.
And it also doesn't mean my computer has a new "capability".
It means I have discovered a set of instructions that makes
it exercise a capability it always had.
</blockquote>
I agree with you on all of this - to this point: "that
doesn't mean my instructions should be patentable." I won't
rehash why, that's been covered.
<blockquote>
Even after decades, those crazy programmers are still
discovering new things they can do with old machines like
the Commodore 64 and Nintendo Gameboy. The machines were
always capable of doing these things, but it took *decades*
of effort by the programmers to discover how to instruct
them to do it!
</blockquote>
But maybe it wouldn't have taken decades if we gave them a
patent. Maybe they would have done it 30 years ago, and the
patent would have expired after 20 years, and we would have
had the results 10 years earlier than we do now. :)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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