Re: The GPL and Patents: ROFL

[David Kastrup]

RJack <user@example.net> writes:

> On 8/20/2010 2:15 AM, David Kastrup wrote:
>> RJack<user@example.net>  writes:
>>
>>> On 8/19/2010 11:57 AM, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hyman Rosen wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 8/19/2010 11:39 AM, RJack wrote:
>>>>>> No court case is required:
>>>>>
>>>>> Is that like "show me the settlement agreements"?
>>>>
>>>> Not at all stupid Hyman.
>>>
>>> Alex, Hyman's not stupid -- he is playing deliberate rhetorical
>>> games.
>>>
>>>
>>> "17 USC § 102. Subject matter of copyright: In general.
>>>
>>> (b) 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...
>>>
>>> "In no case does copyright protection... extend to... *regardless
>>> of the form* in which it is described... or embodied in such
>>> work."
>>
>> Sure.  But the form in which it is described is, individually,
>> copyrightable material.
>
> Not in the *context* of patent rights. GNUtians hate the word
> *context* and always pretend it doesn't exist.

If you mean that the exact text of a granted patent application is not
copyrightable, that may be correct in some jurisdictions.  But any
implementation of the patentable idea that is not a straightforward copy
is again subject to copyright by its respective author, even though he
might not make use unencumbered use of it in disregard of the patent.

You really should do something you understand.

-- 
David Kastrup