Re: The GPL and Patents: ROFL

[Hyman Rosen]

On 8/19/2010 11:39 AM, RJack wrote:
> No court case is required:

Is that like "show me the settlement agreements"?

> "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."
>
> Which part of "... regardless of the form in which it is described,
> explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" don't you understand?
> If you can't understand the plain teaching of the statute as written
> then all the court cases in the world won't help.

Again, it seems you cannot read English. The law says that
copyright protection does not extend to the idea. But copyright
does extend to the expression of that idea. The only time it
does not, as the court in Atari vs. Nintendo said, is when the
idea is inextricably bound to the expression.

The reason you claim that "no court case is required" is because
no such court case exists, because you are wrong. You should feel
comfortable there though, since anti-GPL cranks are nearly always
wrong.