Re: software patents

[Richard Tobin]

In article <ttGdnQgUVfs7tMbYnZ2dnUVZ_s-dnZ2d@insightbb.com>,
rjack  <rjack@ixwebhosting.com> wrote:

>  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.

No.  The quoted paragraph says that copyright protection does not
extend to the idea, procedure, ... itself. It doesn't say that it does
not extend to the source code that implements it.

So (in the absence of patents) you can copy the method but not the
code.

Of course in many other countries there are no software patents.

-- Richard
-- 
"Consideration shall be given to the need for as many as 32 characters
in some alphabets" - X3.4, 1963.