26 Dec
2019
26 Dec
'19
6:25 a.m.
I?m not familiar with U.S. law but didn?t Xerox ?own? the patent(s) to GUI
technology? Again to my knowledge Microsoft and Apple both ?appropriated?
and/or ?misapproriated?, depending on your point-of-view, this exact
technology! Does commercial-use, read profit, subsume legal rights
eventually in the U.S. and I suppose elsewhere in the capitalist world?
Given what has happened in the past 45 yrs. or so, and the almost equal
value of Microsoft and Apple(determined by the stock exchange), has the
marketplace prevailed? Have we the consumer benefited the most or more
accurately the 2 richest high-tech, transnational corporations?
Happy computing - and best wishes for a prosperous New Year for all.
Murray ?
26 Dec
26 Dec
9:23 a.m.
And, a Happy Humbug to you, too!
Fleas Navy Dad and Yo new huevo! spellling?
I^@^Ym not familiar with U.S. law but didn^@^Yt Xerox
^@^Xown^@^Y the
patent(s) t$ technology? Again to my knowledge Microsoft and Apple both
^@^Xappropriated^@^Y and/or ^@^Xmisapproriated^@^Y, depending on your
point-of-view, this exact technology!
Xerox took the position that ideas like that were not patentable, and
could not be hoarded for financial gain. It is not clear to me whether
that was a truly altruistic position, or a tacit acknowledgement that it
was resistance is futile.
______________________
| |
________|_____/\/\/\/\/\/\_____|__________
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!
Does commercial-use, read profit, subsume legal
rights
eventually in the U.S. and I suppose elsewhere in the capitalist world?
Not OFFICIALLY.
However, those with more money have more and better lawyers.
"Justice is not for sale". But it can be bought.
Given what has happened in the past 45 yrs. or so, and
the almost equal
value of Microsoft and Apple(determined by the stock exchange), has the
marketplace prevailed? Have we the consumer benefited the most or more
accurately the 2 richest high-tech, transnational corporations?
Wouldn't it be nice if we, the consumer, would benefit?
Apple, having copied the technology brought legal actions against
Microsoft and Digital Research (GEM). Apple and Microsoft made some
unpublicized deal(s).
Maybe I'm cynical, ("MAYBE??!?")
but I interpret it as "We stole it FIRST" (much like the battles between
the european interests over America).
Xerox did not assert ownership of the ideas.
Analogously, a story from the usual unreliable source:
In 1946, "It's A Wonderful Life" seemed to be a failure at
the box office. In 28 years (the duration of USA copyright in those
days), 1974, it hadn't even broken even, so they didn't bother to renew
the copyright, although they said that that was due to "a paperwork
snafu".
BTW, Disney et al lobbied for extremely extended copyright duration; the
motto of the intellectual property lawyers is "Don't mess with the
mouse!".
When "It's A Wonderful Life" became public domain, independent TV stations
and small networks had a grand opportunity to have something that they
could play without royalties. So, they played it. A LOT. It saturated
the playlists.
The public got used to it, and it became "a Christmas Tradition".
It became the most popular home video of all time (even more than porn)
In 1993, Republic Pictures cited Steward V Abend (SCROTUS 1990), and
re-acquired the sound rights, and re-asserted ownership of the picture!
So, now that the movie was an enormous success, the TV stations HAD to
continue the holiday tradition, but now had to pay royalties!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
On Thu, 26 Dec 2019, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote:
> I???m not familiar with U.S. law but didn???t Xerox ???own??? the patent(s) to GUI
> technology? Again to my knowledge Microsoft and Apple both ???appropriated???
> and/or ???misapproriated???, depending on your point-of-view, this exact
> technology! Does commercial-use, read profit, subsume legal rights
> eventually in the U.S. and I suppose elsewhere in the capitalist world?
Given what has happened in the past 45 yrs. or so, and
the almost equal
value of Microsoft and Apple(determined by the stock exchange), has the
marketplace prevailed? Have we the consumer benefited the most or more
accurately the 2 richest high-tech, transnational corporations?
>
>
> Happy computing - and best wishes for a prosperous New Year for all.
>
>
>
> Murray ???
2:09 p.m.
On Dec 26, 2019, at 12:23 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
And, a Happy Humbug to you, too!
Fleas Navy Dad and Yo new huevo! spellling?
The rules have changed over time. Whether that's by bureaucratic fiat or by changes
to the law I'm not sure.
For example, at one point software wasn't considered patentable, which meant Rivest,
Shamir, and Adleman had to twist themselves into some contortions to patent the RSA
algorithm. It was done by describing it as a device, I think. Not long afterwards,
software patents became possible. The Xerox work may have been in the earlier period.
Some companies weren't as serious about patents as others; I worked for a startup
around 1997 that didn't care to patent anything, which was really rather stupid of
them. But large companies like Xerox do tend to understand their options here.
paul
I^@^Ym not familiar with U.S. law but didn^@^Yt
Xerox ^@^Xown^@^Y the patent(s) t$ technology? Again to my knowledge Microsoft and Apple
both ^@^Xappropriated^@^Y and/or ^@^Xmisapproriated^@^Y, depending on your point-of-view,
this exact technology!
Xerox took the position that ideas like that were not patentable, and could not be
hoarded for financial gain. It is not clear to me whether that was a truly altruistic
position, or a tacit acknowledgement that it was resistance is futile. 
27 Dec
27 Dec
6:07 a.m.
tor 2019-12-26 klockan 17:09 -0500 skrev Paul Koning via cctalk:
Patent's is an invention in itself, including the idea that you can hit
someone on their head (or threaten them with shutting them out of of
trading with you or your allies) until they agrees to accept your idea
of what a patent is and what is patented.
It is political idea which is necessary in an industrialised world
while it is a a not so liberal idea.
Remember the navigation laws and how they could be used against someone
? The british government used navigation laws against indian cotton and
weaving industry in the 1700 and 1800s so that Manchester woven cotton
and wool became cheaper on the world market than indian products even
in india. American controlled media today decides what is viewable on
the world markets cinemas - producers of american controlled film
productions pays cinema owners to get their films showed (and
preventing the competitiors.)
On Dec 26,
2019, at 12:23 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
And, a Happy Humbug to you, too!
Fleas Navy Dad and Yo new huevo! spellling?
The rules have changed over time. Whether that's by bureaucratic
fiat or by changes to the law I'm not sure.
For example, at one point software wasn't considered patentable,
which meant Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman had to twist themselves into
some contortions to patent the RSA algorithm. It was done by
describing it as a device, I think. Not long afterwards, software
patents became possible. The Xerox work may have been in the earlier
period.
Some companies weren't as serious about patents as others; I worked
for a startup around 1997 that didn't care to patent anything, which
was really rather stupid of them. But large companies like Xerox do
tend to understand their options here.
paul I^@^Ym not familiar with U.S. law but didn^@^Yt
Xerox ^@^Xown^@^Y
the patent(s) t$ technology? Again to my knowledge Microsoft and
Apple both ^@^Xappropriated^@^Y and/or ^@^Xmisapproriated^@^Y,
depending on your point-of-view, this exact technology!
Xerox took the position that ideas like that were not patentable,
and could not be hoarded for financial gain. It is not clear to me
whether that was a truly altruistic position, or a tacit
acknowledgement that it was resistance is futile. 
30 Dec
30 Dec
3:43 a.m.
software is currently non-patentable. Not sure the order of when it was/wasnt but
currently is not.
________________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Paul Koning via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2019 5:09 PM
To: Fred Cisin; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: First Internet message
On Dec 26, 2019, at 12:23 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
And, a Happy Humbug to you, too!
Fleas Navy Dad and Yo new huevo! spellling?
The rules have changed over time. Whether that's by bureaucratic fiat or by changes
to the law I'm not sure.
For example, at one point software wasn't considered patentable, which meant Rivest,
Shamir, and Adleman had to twist themselves into some contortions to patent the RSA
algorithm. It was done by describing it as a device, I think. Not long afterwards,
software patents became possible. The Xerox work may have been in the earlier period.
Some companies weren't as serious about patents as others; I worked for a startup
around 1997 that didn't care to patent anything, which was really rather stupid of
them. But large companies like Xerox do tend to understand their options here.
paul
I^@^Ym not familiar with U.S. law but didn^@^Yt
Xerox ^@^Xown^@^Y the patent(s) t$ technology? Again to my knowledge Microsoft and Apple
both ^@^Xappropriated^@^Y and/or ^@^Xmisapproriated^@^Y, depending on your point-of-view,
this exact technology!
Xerox took the position that ideas like that were not patentable, and could not be
hoarded for financial gain. It is not clear to me whether that was a truly altruistic
position, or a tacit acknowledgement that it was resistance is futile. 
2 Jan
2 Jan
3:57 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 4:44 AM W2HX via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
software is currently non-patentable. Not sure the
order of when it
was/wasnt but currently is not.
I don't know anything about patents in other countries, but in the USA,
software is _definitely_ patentable, and has been since the 1970s. It was
ruled in 1853 that an abstract idea apart from its implementation is not
patentable (O'Reilly v. Morse). However, it has later been considered that
software is (or at least can be) more than just an abstract idea (Diamond
v. Diehr 1981).
What changed recently is that SCOTUS ruled in Alice Corp. V. CLS Bank
International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014) that taking some existing process or
business practice and doing exactly the same thing with a computer or
software involved is NOT a new patentable invention.
7:38 p.m.
Another only partially related issue was copyright moving from the code
itself to the "look and feel" of the finished product.
Am I correct that it used to be possible to write a Puck-boy game that was
hard to tell from it, IF the code was original. Hence lots of
"clean-room/double-blind reverse engineering", to produce identically
functioning products without using, or even seeing, the source code.
I doubt that it was the ONLY case, but that was the issue for Adam
Osborne's Paperback Software, which made a Lotus clone.
Since then, it has to look different also.
Lotus did not like that the menu choices in Paperback's products were the
same ones.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
On Thu, 2 Jan 2020, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
On Mon, Dec 30, 2019 at 4:44 AM W2HX via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
software is currently non-patentable. Not sure
the order of when it
was/wasnt but currently is not.
I don't know anything about patents in other countries, but in the USA,
software is _definitely_ patentable, and has been since the 1970s. It was
ruled in 1853 that an abstract idea apart from its implementation is not
patentable (O'Reilly v. Morse). However, it has later been considered that
software is (or at least can be) more than just an abstract idea (Diamond
v. Diehr 1981).
What changed recently is that SCOTUS ruled in Alice Corp. V. CLS Bank
International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014) that taking some existing process or
business practice and doing exactly the same thing with a computer or
software involved is NOT a new patentable invention.
1814
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6 comments
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participants (6)
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c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
spacewar＠gmail.com -
stefan.skoglund＠agj.net -
w2hx＠w2hx.com