Please remove PD-YACC sources from your machine IMMEDIATELY

[Simcha Lerner]

In article <4765 at killer.UUCP> richardh at killer.UUCP (Richard Hargrove) writes:
>
>Ditto the above if they think they can copyright (or patent) an algorithm.
>(I think I'll patent addition with carry this week ;-). 
>
>richard hargrove
>...!{ihnp4 | codas | cbosgd}!killer!richardh
>--------------------------------------------

Alas, I must disagree.  Having spent a lot of time on these issues 
with expensive lawyers (thankfully in a preventative, not curative
mode), I have a different understanding.

Algorithms ARE patentable, and not just the hardware implementation,
as Mr. Hargrove felt was "logical".  For example, the RSA public key
encryption algorithm has been patented, solely on a paper based exposition
of its powers and abilities (along with the algorithm, of course).

What would prevent Mr. Hargrove from patenting his "add with carry"
algorithm has nothing to do with its being an algorithm, but rather
with it being "either part of existing art, or obvious from existing
art", which is one (of many) potential disqualifications an
application must face.

NOTE:  I have set the followup to comp.sources.d, since this is
       becoming too general a thread to clutter up the world.

I too must disclaim the above with the fact that I am not a lawyer,
and therefore the above must be treated as hearsay. :-)

Simcha Lerner

...(harvard | talcott)!humming!simcha

disclaimer:  My employer has his own lawyers, his own opinions about
             patents, and his own opinion as to whether I am entitled
             to publicly express an opinion.  Therefore, in accordance
             with section VII, article 3, paragraph 2 of the usenet
             code of ethics, I take full responsibility for the entire
             contents of this posting.

This posting is (not) Copyright (C) 1988 ...   (FYI: do you know that
under International Treaty, the CASE of the "C" in Copyright and (C)
is significant - get the wrong case and you endanger your  international
copyright protection!  (and they recently changed the mandated case 
of the symbol from (c) to (C) (or is it the other way around?).  It
is a lot of fun having to rebuild all your ROMs to change that one
character!)