Re: software patents

[David Kastrup]

rjack <rjack@ixwebhosting.com> writes:

> Can someone explain how a copyrighted computer program can infringe a
> software patent ?
>
> 17 USC 102(b) states:
>
> “In no case does copyright protection for an original work of
> authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of
> operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in
> which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such
> work.”
>
> So any source code that implements the method or procedure of a
> software patent cannot be copyrighted.

How so?  The copyright does not cover the idea, but it certainly can
cover the implementation.

> Therefore no copyright license can ever effect the code implementing
> a software patent.

Uh what?  The code is not the same as a single patented idea.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum