Re: The GPL and Patents: ROFL

[David Kastrup]

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.  You can express the same idea in 10 different
ways, and the idea is not protected by copyright.  But the 10 different
ways are.

> Hyman says that the statute is *not true*.

Not at all.

> Hyman is telling Congress and you and me that copyright protection
> *does* extend to works that embody a patentable idea in source code
> form. End of story.

You are getting more and more clueless the more you read.  With sane
people, it should be the other way round.

-- 
David Kastrup