Patenting Your Computer's Inventions

daghlian writes "Here's a New York Times article (insert free registration comment here) about what to do patentwise when intelligent systems come up with patentable ideas. Interesting quote, in the context of the recent (and justified, IMO) kvetching here, is this: 'A patent is denied when an invention is obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art....'" But what if the 'person' to whom an invention is obvious is silicon-based? Things at the USPTO could get even screwier than they are today.

Comments

Concern for Liability

[debrain]

Sure, silicon can take credit for new ideas and inventions and great advances in our children's understanding of reality. That's fine with me. That doesn't concern me at all. I don't care who or what patents anything, so long as my personal abilities are not intervened on.

When automated drivers start crashing into me on the highway I start looking for liability. And if that automated driver was a self-contained, autonomous being that is otherwise incapable of making a sensible rebuttle in court, what am I to do then? Do I sue the makers? That's like suing parents -- it just doesn't hold for something legally declared a being. But can we punish something that has no real regrets. Cannot sentients decide to kill without us knowing, obviated from liability by the nature of their ability to clone in an electronic existence. And as punishment, should we just switch the power off, that doesn't satiate me very much if I've just lost my family in a car accident to an artificial being. If the sentient was incapable to save lives, I can forgive. If a true sentient is unwilling to preserve life, how am I to correct it?

The ability of our artificial children to procreate, evolve, patent ideas, explore space, or serve up new fancy types of porn, doesn't concern me. My primary concerns are with the liability of sentient artificial entities, as the punishment and recuperate is as likely to work on artificial beings as it is on humans. Throw them in jail with a bunch of other sentients so they learn how not to get caught.

It's safe to presume that anything that can be legally declared intelligent will, on average, be by definition smarter than the vast majority of the human population. How are we to adapt to sentients other than ourselves, that will be created to be intelligent (rather than bred for jollies)?

Re:Concern for Liability

[debrain]

The issue also surrounds the possibility that AI can breed AI, with no similarities or even specifications in common with the original development of a person. Who do we blame then? 500 years from now, do we punish the human children of the dead person who invented the original AI that went awry? Not likely, unless artificial sentients are doing the punishing themselves.

Aside: Contrary to many idealistic axioms, it is impossible for two equal fulcrums to exist in the same system. Coexistence with artificial sentients is only a temporary setting.

Re:Concern for Liability

[Inoshiro]

Perhaps you should think of motivation. Every crime needs three criterea fullfilled: means, motive, and opportunity. Means? Car. Opportunity? Every time it drives. Motive? None. Unlike us biologicals, an AI wouldn't have a lot of our impulses (curiosity, fear, anger, love) that came about because they were important to our survival.
This makes me think that AIs would be reasonably happy (in a sense of them not being sad) bunch. Once we add emotions to them (perhaps a subset of emotions, ie: the ones that are usefull in today's society), they may become "dissfunctional" in the way you specify. How can we punish such a creature? Disolution. EMP will stop any electronic device that hasn't been hardened, and nothing can be hardened enough to deal with multiple, powerful bursts at close range.
But (cue evil music), we must also think of the logic. Have you seen The Matrix? (Who hasn't? :-)).. The AIs sent out to stop "rogues" were programmed with a specific pre-motivations. To them, humans smell. They wish only to do their jobs and be terminated, so they can be away from the smell. That is the kind of urge that would control the AIs we would create. How could this be bad? Well, if the AI is "coldly logical," it could reach the conclusion that the bottom feeders of humanity aren't worth the effort. Robot machines going along the street, culling the homeless. It could happen. However, you would only have to teach it that a single anything does not survive (ie: single genotype crops, single company behind an OS or product). Natural forces (competition, punctured equilibrium, etc), will cause constant change (the universe is entropy). Any intelligent person or creature cannot argue with that.
In the end, the AI will only be as good as the creator. It must be given proper base urges (think Asimov's robot laws), and proper knowledge. After that, it will look after itself. Remember that voice in your head that says, "Ah-ah-ah! Turning your car into oncoming traffic is counter productive!" -- that voice will also be with the AI if it is created correctly, just like it is with children if they are raised correctly :-)
---

Re:Concern for Liability

[debrain]

I think you hit her pretty close to the money there. Except, what happens when an artificial being makes the decisions . . . ?

Sure is something to think about. Hope it comes up at AAAI next year . . .

Re:Concern for Liability

[debrain]

One of the hallmarks of intelligence is the ability to solve problems and adapt to new situations.

Sadly, it mostly, if not always, involves the killing off of competitive species. We even kill off the non-competitive species with our largest discrimination being to protect cute species. Admittedly there are members of our race out there perfectly capable of coexistence with other species, but the vast majority of people are still unable to comprehend the ramifications of alternative ways of life within our own species, much less other species!

Given our current political system, as well, it is far too easy to scapegoat an alien intelligence where ignorance is abound, to political ends. (Much like Communism is the target of American politicians, and Capitalism is the target of mindless scrutiny in Communist countries.)

Pointing fingers and flinging lawsuits only makes lawyers richer and all of us poorer.

Entirely correct. Prevention is the key. After the fact, however, I'm at a loss to moderate the complexities of rebuttles to conscious actions that violate morality by an artificial entity.

Patent Idea.

[viper21]

My computer learned how to blow a power supply last week. Since I have no idea on how to do that by myself, can I patent the technology the computer used? But to do so, I'll probably have to figure out a way to read the smoke signals. Good thing I taped them!

***
Take a look at the website above for a look at my new computer case. The Book-Case =)

-S
Scott Ruttencutter

Chess and patents

[sreeram]

I have always wondered about Chess players patenting some of their moves. To me, it appears that they could satisfy all the requirements for patentability.

(1) Occasionally, a brilliant GM might discover a move that has never been documented before - qualifies as having no prior art.

(2) The move might be sophisticated enough that it is not obvious to a lot of good Chess players, let alone the commoners - qualifies as being non-obvious.

(3) The move is after all a process, a design - qualifies for a "method" patent.

So, what happens then? You can't ever play that move unless you license it? Whoa.

I was thinking about that supposedly remarkable move that Deep Blue played against Kasparov in Game Four of their rematch - which even Kasparov admitted showed signs of the machine's "intelligence". Would IBM have been able to patent it (if they had applied for one before someone documented the game)?

Sreeram.

A Computer's Rights

[retep]

Untill intelligent computers have rights I think the owners of the patents will get to be the owners of the computer. If someone gains great help in creating their invention by their toolset the toolset isn't going to be the owner of the patent no matter how good it is. Likewise the computer will never be the owner of the patent no matter how good it is. Computers don't yet have any rights so they therefor can't own anything or own any patents.

As for liability as far as I know the liability rests with the person manufacturing the product. Not even the patent owner. Let alone the tool that made it.

A good area for the GPL

[paxx]

Here's a good application for the GPL. We already see it applied profusely to software, and books are beginning a tentative move into the realm of the free license as seen in an earlier article and mentioned several subsequent comments. Since the computer is a machine developed over many years by many different people, it seems to me that no one should really own the work they do. Therefore, the work should be "owned" by the community.

Not only would this solve the problem of patent infringement, it would allow needed improvements to be made and implemented by anyone who wished to do so. Any improvements suggested can be used by the manufacturers of GPL'd products, similar to the updates to the linux kernel given by various companies selling distributions of the program.

Re:a problem for the year 3000

[jbuhler]

> judging from the current state of artificial
> intelligence, i don't see a computer coming up
> with an patentable idea any time soon.

I beg to differ.

I once TA'd for an AI professor at Rice U. who worked on automated synthesis of mechanical systems. She did a project with Xerox to design more effective mechano-optical systems for copiers (i.e. the lens/mirror arrangements that get the page image to the reproduction engine). Her software rapidly rediscovered the mechanisms used in all Xerox copiers at the time, then went on to design better ones.

A paper describing the theory behind the software is available at
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~devika/red.ps.gz

The original intent of the patent system

[Gurlia]

Seems that the existing patent system is becoming more and more irrelevent (or hard to apply) in today's fast-advancing technology... However, I like it that the article pointed out the original intention of the patent system:

The patent system itself, conceived to reward human innovation with a limited monopoly, will eventually have to be modified, Dr. Pollack said.

Absolutely so. We have seen many examples of how the current patent system just fails to achieve this goal: ie. to give a limited reward to human innovation. Although it has worked before, it's starting to show signs of becoming decrepit. We've had problems with people abusing the system by patenting, eg., a well-known algorithm, and having the patent go through because of incompetence/ignorance of the people at the patent office. And now we have "inventions" made by computer algorithms, which seems to be a monkey wrench thrown into the patent system.

Rather than try to patch up the patent system and keep it going, perhaps it's time to reconsider the original goals of the patent system. The original goal was to reward the human inventor for his invention. I guess the bottom line is, of what form should this reward be? Under the existing patent system, it is to give the inventor exclusive rights to his invention for a certain period of time, and to give him the authority to allow/prohibit others' using of his invention. But is this still relevant today (and in the future)?

I'm thinking of the difference between the reward given to a patent owner and the reward given (or the gratification experienced) by an Open Source developer who is proud that he can share his ideas and have the community accept them. I don't know how applicable Open Source is to patents in general, but as far as software and software-related stuff is concerned, it seems that the "ego gratification" of developing an Open Source project does not suffer from the same shortcomings as the existing patent system.

Disclaimer: IANAL.

Re:The original intent of the patent system

[mmmmbeer]

"The patent system itself, conceived to reward human innovation with a limited monopoly..."

Actually, this isn't quite correct. In the US Constitution (I don't know the details in other countries, but I will assume similarity, for argument's sake), the phrase regarding patents and copyrights goes:

"Congress shall have the power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for a limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

This implies not a reward so much as an incentive. A person is less likely to share their discoveries, or even go to the trouble of making advancements at all, if they cannot expect to get a certain amount of control over (and, yes, profit from) them.

Let me give an example. Let's say I'm a insomniac techie with too much spare time (entirely true). Now let's say that late at night some time I figure out a revolutionary new data storage method that would make all of today's storage obsolete. If I patent that idea, I can make a bundle, retire in luxury, be surrounded by beautiful women, all the latest geek toys, a Cray supercomputer... Sorry, I got distracted there. But the point is, of course I would patent this, and therefore share it with the world, and improve technology. On the other hand, let's say there are no patents. That means, as soon as I introduce this idea, all of the major data storage companies are going to start making them, too. Not only that, but they're going to be able to make them faster, cheaper, and in larger quantities than I possibly could. I'm not going to get anything from this, except maybe an occasional footnote in a magazine article. So I'm not going to tell anyone; I'm going to hang onto this idea until I can find a way to make money out of it (kind of selfish, maybe, but that's how many people/corporations are). And that might never happen, so this technology might be delayed until someone else develops it.

A good real-world example might be IBM, which (if I have my facts straight - I might be thinking of someone else) has a huge R&D budget, mostly for the purpose of getting patents. They don't use the technology they develop, but they develop it anyways so they can sell it to someone else. If they couldn't patent their discoveries, they wouldn't have any incentive to develop anything they aren't going to use themselves. That would definitely slow down technological evolution.

Although I agree that the patent system needs to be redesigned, but I think the purpose of patents is still clearly needed. I like the idea of GPL and Open Source philosophy, but you can't force it on people. Some people actually do this stuff for a living, and telling them "you should be proud of yourself" just won't feed them very well.

Man, I'm long-winded. Whew! :)

concept already in use without the intelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already being done with the human genetics, that is the computer number cruncher decoding them and then the human owner patenting them.

With the exception of there no longer being a patent system when AI can accomplish this, I am sure the owner or creator will want to reap any such rewards.

Aibo Patents Improved Stretching Method for Dogs

[psin psycle]

... and in a related story Sonys' artifially intelligent dog, Aibo, patented a new stretching maneuver that will allow dogs to have a more fullfilling stretch with about 10% less effort. The stretch is performed by laying flat on your stomach with your fore legs and hind legs stretched straight out. After a moment of laying like this it is important to twirl your hind legs two or three times. If you have realplayer you can see what it looks like.This is system is expected to save dogs billions of dollars in energy over the next few years. Royalties to use this patented system have not yet been released.

Robot != AI

[Luke B. Bishop]

Yes, for a programmed robot, this is the case.

What about if the robot was a neural system? For me, this isn't just idle debate; I've worked extensively with neural networks, even in the context of robotic intelligence. The one thing I can tell you right now is that you DO get robots with personality disorders. In one of my preliminary tests, I had a computer vision system go into "complete negative lockdown", which is the equivalent to suicidal depression.

Granted, at the 50-neuron level, it certainly was not self-aware. However, most of my decent tests of neural systems all point to the existance of true artificial intelligence in them. Yes, it is about as intellegent as a ringworm, and possesses all the intelectual and emotional development of one.

But the point is, from the second I switch on a neural network, I hardly have the foggiest notion what it'll be like. The same matrix that went negative-lockdown stayed "sane" for about a full minute when I tried the same test with the room lights darker.

While other experimental techniques like genetic algorithms, fuzzy logic and adaptive knowledge-based systems do still have the capability to mess up in ways the designer did not intend (your favorite search engine is proof of that), neural networks (which most experts believe is the most promising currently) have the capability for a MUCH larger range of reactions.

Somehow I doubt many of us would like to have "Marvin the Paranoid Android" driving our car. But with neural systems, you cannot be sure about the differences between one neural map and another. The equations for them become exponentially complex with netsize, so much so that for a 50-neuron system, the equations are often hundreds or even thousands of pages long.

Oh, and it doesn't necessarily take an AI system to design something patentable. A simple brute-force "try everything until it works" system works quite well for any problem domain with a well-defined method of simulation (mechanical design, architecture, etc). While the calculations would take months to perform, I have seen a few of these work wonders.

Just the opinion of somebody who dabbles in AI professionally.

Who would own the patent?

[{R00T}]

It seems that the person that instructed the computer to work on a given problem would hold the patent. The person that put the computer on a task does not have to be the inventor of the software/hardware, nor whould the inventor, if it is not the person using the device, get the patent. It just seems to me that this is the most logical "solution".

I hate this sig, but im too lazy to change it.

The US Law Is Fairly Straightforward

[Steve B]

35 USC 102 says:

A person shall be entitled to a patent unless --

[listing of disqualifications, including]

(f) he did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented

/.

Re:The US Law Is Fairly Straightforward

[Moooo Cow]

If you try to use this clause to deny a patent, you will find that it is not nearly as straightforward as it seems. What if part of the process you are patenting involves writing a C++ program, which gets compiled (using a licensed, third party compiler) into machine language?

You're not going to get denied the patent, just because you've used a tool to translate your high level instructions into machine language that you didn't actually "invent". As long as the computer is perceived as a (very powerful and advanced) tool, and not as a separate sentient entity, I don't think this clause can be applied here.

A computer spell-checked this response, and maybe even updated some grammar automatically. Does that mean I didn't write it?

The software or the hardware?

[drox]

Untill intelligent computers have rights I think the owners of the patents will get to be the owners of the computer

The owners of the computer, or the authors of the software? In cases where patents have been rewarded (Linden's antenna algorithms) it seems to have been the author of the software, rather than the owner of the hardware who gets the patent.

This was reported on in Science News a few months ago. Unfortunately it only appeared in the pulp-and-staples publication, not the online one. But a little search through the patent office turned up only a patent on the algorithms themselves, not on the antennas that the algorithm invented. Unless I really misunderstood the abstract.

Re:Well what about primes?

[TerryMathews]

I don't think this has anything to do with the current laws, but I don't think you should be able to patent anything you can't create. For instance, you ahould be able to patent an x86 processor design, but not a prime number (it's prime whether or not you discover it), Haley's Comet, the Human Genome (DNA exists whether or not we research it), nuclear resonance, etc. Not that there isn't enough in this world to patent anyway (The method of generating nuclear resonance, a scanner used to analyze the human genome, a computer design used to discover all of the prime numbers, etc.) But really, there are just a few too many goofy patents out there.

Quite the opposite

[Moooo Cow]

"Since the computer is a machine developed over many years by many different people, it seems to me that no one should really own the work they do."

Substitute "pen" for "computer" in the above sentence, and see how absurd it sounds.

And yet, both "pen" and "computer" are generic tools, patented by no one (at least in the broad, generic sence), and as such they are available for use by anyone to research and discover new ideas and new processes. Sure, the "computer" is much more powerful and advanced than the "pen" in many ways, but they are still fundamentally both tools (with the current state of computer/AI technology, you could hardly argue it is something greater than simply that).

new patent

[Bill Currie]

My computer has come up with a clever means of implementing basic intelligens in patent office officials. As there doesn't seem to be any prior art, I beleive I shouldn't have any problems applying for a patent on behalf of my computer.

Oh, wait a minute, I have to apply at the patent office, don't I? Hmm, could be a problem...

Re:new patent

[Le douanier]

My computer has come up with a clever means of implementing basic intelligens in patent office officials. As there doesn't seem to be any prior art, I beleive I shouldn't have any problems applying for a patent on behalf of my computer.

Oh, wait a minute, I have to apply at the patent office, don't I? Hmm, could be a problem...


Not exactly, you could probably patent it. If it is obfuscated enough that they don't understand what it means they will not be angry against you and may grant the patent, and if the obfuscation is good enough they will have no idea what this mean, will think that it is obviously an innovation and grant it to you.

The problem will be that after they won't want to pay you licensing fees to improve (create?) their clue level, therefore they will be condemn to stay as clueless :(

on moderation...

[TeknoDragon]

haven't been a moderator recently eh?

i've noticed things have changed... in fact it seems to encourage playing out 5 points in around 100-200 posts... in extremely large stories you'll notice that moderator points only go so far...

Re:on moderation...

[TeknoDragon]

nod, it's good to get the feel of the field before you distribute the points...

i usually spend my points as soon as I get them since it seems there is a limited space in which to distribute them... and I usually only read the few articles that interest me..

Re:international patent games

[loki7]

I believe that the Geneva (or maybe Berne?) Convention covers this. I did a search and found a few web pages with some info:

Ladas & Parry

World Intellectual Property Organization

SUMMARY OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & LICENSING LAWS

Copyright Law FAQ

/peter

A modification needed to the definition?

[ParadoXIII]

Seems to me that in the case of a computer inventing something, and the computer's owner/operator getting credit for it, the definition for the denial of a patent needs to be modified a bit. Change it to 'A patent is denied when the idea to set up and program a computer to search for/devise an invention is obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art....' and it almost makes sense. Of course, my wording's probably a bit awkward, but you get the idea...

Computer punishment could be effective

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been mentioned that simply turning off a sentient computer would not constitute punishment, that the machine would just be "sleeping". But in truth, cutting the power could be the equivalent of a human execution.

First, we must agree on definitions. Sleep (we assume complete unconsciousness) can be defined as a state in which no mental activity takes place, a state that is preceded and followed by states in which mental activity does take place. Death can be defined as a state in which no mental activity takes place, a state preceded but followed by one of neural activity. (In a human, there exist other biological differences between sleep and death, but a lack of computer activity is far more equivalent to a lack of a computer than a lack of human activity is to lack of a human. In both cases our definitions hold; they are merely more complete when applied to computers. Imagine a world in which the dead could be brought back to life at will. Because we have agreed that biological constraints--such as a decaying body--are of no relevance, then those brought back to life cannot be considered to have been truly dead in the first place; only those never revived can be considered thus.)

We are assuming, as well, that the universe will not exist forever in an incarnation in which sentience is possible; new inflationary cosmological theories support this view. (In addition, a closed universe existing forever in a sentience-permitting form--at intervals, at least--would completely eliminate death of any kind in both humans and computers; we therefore will discard its possibility for the purposes of this discussion.) There is a time limit, then, and the discrete possibility that an off computer will never be turned on.

In a purely classical universe (that is, one without quantum mechanics) we could, with enough information, extrapolate the future of any computer turned off, see whether a renewed power supply exists in its future, and therefore determine whether it is dead or merely sleeping. With quantum mechanics in play, however, truly unpredictable submicroscopic events could scale up--al la Schrodinger's cat, not just through incredibly improbable jumping and tunneling combinations--to form a truly unpredictable world, no matter the amount of information. Because each particle, until observed, is in multiple states, and because this throws its surroundings into multiple states--the cat, again--then in theory the future of a computer could be in a multiple state--that is, a computer could occupy the duel state of sleep/death. Of course, it is also possible that no quantum even would come into play, that the computer would therefore be, most likely, dead.

Computers w/patents

[mmmmbeer]

'A patent is denied when an invention is obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art....'

It seems to me, if there is software available commercially which comes up with patent-worthy advances, then anyone who could buy it would have the "ordinary skill" it takes to come up with those same advances. Shouldn't that therefore disqualify most patents based on the work of computers (such as those in the article)?

If that isn't so, or in the cases where that would not apply, I think the patents(and any applicable copyrights) should belong to the user of the program. After all, if I use software today to develop new products, I can patent them, but the software developer can't. A computer program, no matter how advanced (within the foreseeable future, at least) is only a tool, and patents do not go to the tool maker, only the user.

My only other thought on this matter is, regardless of how this particular issue may be resolved, I think the time has come to reevaluate patent laws. I think most /.ers will agree with me when I say some of the recent patents we have seen really show that something is wrong. Many other laws are being rethought because of technological advances; shouldn't this be one of them?

'Bout as reasonable as other stupid patents...

[Damn Yankee]

Patents made by 'ideas' from machines are about as reasonable as patenting genes from the human body (which have existed for millions of years and weren't 'invented' by anyone) or patenting software techniques (i.e. patents for 'selling over the web', etc.).

The U.S. PTO has been driven to the ridiculous by unrepentent greed in the private sector and a complete absence of guidance by our politicians and courts. Blecchh, retch!

I think the end result will be that many countries around the world will begin to simply ignore the more ridiculous U.S. patents. This will, in turn, lead to a general weakening of the global patchwork of laws that protect intellectual property, heightening tensions and fostering trade disputes and protectionist tendencies.

Way to go guys...

GA's are just a tool

[GrEp]

Genetic Algorithms are a tool. Carpenters use hammers and engineers are starting to use GA's.

When a carpenter builds a house it is considered his, not his hammer's for the ingenious angles it allowed him to pound the nails.

When an engineer applies a Genetic Algorithm to a certain problem and comes up with a new and unique solution it is because of the engineer's ingenuity not the GA's.

To use a GA you have to model the attributes of what you are trying to optimize very well. This takes a lot of skill. For instance exactly how would you model a GA that started out with candels as an optimium solution and produced a lightbulb?

Score: Thomas Edison 1, GA 0.

GA's are just a search tool for finding optimum solutions to a problem. They still need people to set them up.

--Anything can be made to work if you fiddle with it long enough.(Wyszkouski)

AI? Get Real!

[snowbird]

Hey, think about it. The AI bunch has failed miserably on the promise of machine thought. Just *when* is some brilliant genius going to write a "code filter" that will generate useful computer code? Here are some of the issues:

1. Good code is HIGHLY structured, and EXTREMELY non-random. That's why you can't just hook up a white gaussian noise generator front-end to a compiler. And if it was easy, we'd all be great programmers, and we know that's not true (like micro-squish).

2. How do you tell good/useful code from bad (thus the "filter")? Yes, we (programmers/users) can tell the difference, but testing a potential code snippet in a virtual machine and observing its behavior may not be an efficient mechanism. I'd be willing to estimate that a great many good code snippets are only useful in *very* limited contexts and only with suitable surrounding code.

3. We still don't have a handle on entropy vs. organization. My humble observations of complex systems that we've created, like GPS navigation, all require order being impressed into the system from outside the system. You know, like full unabridged dictionaries coming out of printing press explosions :). This also points out the recursive problem of where we get *our* inspiration from... Hmmm. (I smell a rant/flame/religious debate starting here.)

4. Finally, I think that all to many of us are buying into the idea that Science (TM) can solve everything. Science fails miserably when it treads too far into the philosophical/ethical/moral/religious arena. But that starts a whole other set of rants/flames/holy wars.

O.K., flame me if you must, but THINK about the issues first. Let's try to shine some light in this dark closet we live in.

Sofware that made patentable ideas would be easy.

[Paul Crowley]

CDNow! have patented the idea of choosing what tracks to put on a CD using a Web interface. If that's patentable, then coming up with patentable content is easy: modify a buzzword generator to select from lists of:

* common tasks people do on computers
* commonly used tools that enable tasks

and perm a million different combinations of them all. If you want to include business models, throw in some common business-transaction type things like payment, auction etc.

If the possible outputs of such a program ran to, say, a few thousand pages, it would be worth printing it all out and sending it to the Patent Office as prior art of all the ideas it lists.
--

Re:software vs. hardware

[GregWebb]

Surely the invention is the product of the combination of the algorithm and the input stream? In which case it's the property of whoever controlled it, plus whoever owns the copyright to the algorithm. If the algorithm relies on library features for operation (so disk and screen I/O shouldn't count) then their copyright holders have to be factored in, too...

This one is going to keep lawyers busy for some time :) - though, standard disclaimer, that isn't a category which I'm in.

Greg