Re: Attribution is not required in public domain materials

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, Gregory Aharonian <srctran[_at_]world.std.com> wrote:
>
> Wrong. Many ideas are protectable, using the patent system. ...

Needless to say, that statement is totally wrong. It is not the ideas themselves that can be patented. Only the embodiments of the ideas can be patented. The patent system does not have the Merger Doctrine that is in the copyright system. This is one reason why some people are easily tricked in thinking that ideas are patentable because the embodiments and ideas are very close. But until more concrete form is given to an idea, the idea alone is unpatentable.

See also:

     Excluded from such patent protection are laws
     of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas.
          Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175 (1981)

     An idea of itself is not patentable.
          Rubber-Tip Pencil Co. v. Howard, 20 Wall. 498, 507 (1874)
          (quoted in the above decision)

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>
http://www.boycottcopyright.com

Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the land of the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 5,675

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this post in the public domain. Received on Thu Jun 19 2003 - 21:07:45 GMT