From: Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko (sasha1@netcom.com)
Date: Tue Jan 12 1999 - 13:57:05 MST
Just read in Edupage:
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COMPUTER ALGORITHMS CAN BE PATENTED
The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that mathematical
algorithms used in a computer program may be given intellectual property
protection as long as they produce "a useful, concrete and tangible result."
The case in question concerned a program that allowed financial managers to
pool and calculate mutual fund investments in a way that let them to avoid
certain kinds of regulatory review. (New York Times 12 Jan 99)
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While this ruling looks like a long-overdue realization that algorithms are
a natural extension of physical technologies, patentability of algorithms also
promises to extend the legal can of worms that the intellectual property laws
have become, to [further, should I say?] corrupt the academic spirit of many
fields of applied mathematics and computer science, etc. - but then, maybe,
it will bring the IP laws to such a confused state that they will be entirely
abandoned... (I am not holding my breath here - lawyers can make much more
money if the cases are confusing and controversial, and the legal process in
the U.S. is driven by power clashes rather than desire to provide visionary
guidelines for social behavior that could make further development more smooth
and peaceful).
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Alexander Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
<sasha1@netcom.com> <sasha@media.mit.edu>
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