On Sat, 18 Dec 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> copyright to patents (as is in the US). Well, patents are not a good
> thing, you can tell from the amazon story (and the unisys/gif one, you
not a good thing?
tell me, if you were a struggling college student who is developing an
original data structure that has a chance to be in demand what can you do
to proffit from your idea other than to patent it?
sure, develop it... even try to make your own database software, competing
with the big boys when you've only got a small advantage... or try to sell
it to them and allong comes someone who doesn't respect intellectual
property and somehow your source is leaked to the guys you try to sell it
to...
patents can be a good thing too...
but as it stands the patent market is so crazy with BS like amazon's claim
(which are in fact obvious modifications to an existing system, which
*should* have kicked them out of the application process pretty
early) that I don't want to risk getting a weak patent just to have it
challenged and tossed out with all the other lame brained patents of the
late 90's... I sense a movement going on and I don't wanna get crushed by
it...
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[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
