Andross <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Dec 1999, Nicole Zimmerman wrote:
>
> > If you were developing software for someone, and decided to patent the
> > idea, yes, I think they could claim a right.
>
> <back up, more info here>
>
> there are a lot of legal options here... most employees sign a contract
> that diverts all their IP to their employer (remember Woz in Pirates of
> Sillicon valley?), and then the employer can be the patent holder, but not
> the signee (i think those are the terms)... so the author gets verbal
> credit, but not rights to license...
>
> but for the corporation to be the patent holder it costs over $10k ($30k
> or so if memory serves), whereas for an individual it's only $500 to a few
> k...
>
> but the lawyer fees would kill me... it's been estimated at around $10k to
> get adequate legal personnel... fortunately the school offers a few of
> these services for reduced prices (simple stuff like patent searches and
> free advice - the school doens't resere any rights to the inventions)
Really? I'm not sure they do that around here. I thought all they
were good for were landlord-tenant things.
> > But, this is an independent project... has not been brought up but to a
> > few professors (as consultants) and they have actually warned him of
> > this possibility.
>
> yup, fairly simmilar things have come up in class, but there are subtile
> modifications and some very tricky logic to get the thing moving right...
There was a IP case here about lecture notes being posted on the net.
If the source material came from lectures, then the professors might
have a different attitude about using it than if it were
published... you would be able to give credit much more easily, and
it would be significant. If you've explained how your work differs
from theirs, I don't think your consultants would necessarily
consider you to be in competition.
> > It (the ADT in question) probably will not be *finished* until after
> > he's out of school anyway.... at least not into the patent-able market
> > (and it could be very different by then).
>
> right now I'm going into a finite automata and advanced descrete math and
> some statistics that will really help me finalize the algorythms involved,
> it might not even be until sometime next year before I have a primitive
> demonstration that procuces any real results
>
>
> > > I think the whole subject of the debate is paternalistic and
> > > big-brotherish, personally,
>
> big-brotherish maybe if you don't realize that this is in support of the
> acedemic freedom of knowledge... ie I can procuce my invention, sell it,
> make money, and still give it back to the general public to further
> research into data structures, at the same time protect my investments of
> time and skill...
>
> paternalistic: yes, the US is in part a welfare state... it's possibly a
> contradition from it's individualistic roots, but not one that I disagree
> with... honestly I think a more socialist system like Canada's or the
> scandenavian nations' make perfect sense...
The idea of patents and IP is exactly _not_ complete freedom of
knowledge. Also, I think that a lot of academics would dispute that
knowledge has value of its own, but rather that the value of knowledge
derives from its uses.
The semantic differences between knowledge and information are
probably 'way beyond most patent lawyers. Even the legal system
is a bureaucracy, just like a university, and so the politics that
skew the way knowledge is viewed doesn't even need to be anything
as abstract as a government.
> -andross (karl)
>
> p.s. i love dselect and my connection speed
> (ethernet seems to work faster under debian and 2.0.36, maybe it's just
> that "new OS" smell)
And I like apt-get, because of how easy it is to find an on-line
package archive.
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