jbs@mit-eddie.UUCP (Jeff Siegal) (11/18/85)
In article <959@turtlevax.UUCP> ken@turtlevax.UUCP (Ken Turkowski) writes: >History: CADTRAK of Sunnyvale is asking big bucks to license the >technology that allows non-destructive display of a cursor by means of >exclusive-or. They have a patent dated around 1980. > >Computer science has been around for a long time, longer than computer >graphics. It seems to me that there is something written somewhere >about the unique property of the exclusive-OR function that if it is >applied twice with the same source and destination, then the >destination is the same as the original. > >What difference does it make that the data in this case controls an >electron beam at a specific spatial location? Would this same patent, >for example, cover the use of exclusive-or for scrambling speech >signals? The technology is the same, it is just applied to a different >problem. Really, now. Hasn't this all been said before? A patent does NOT give one the right to exclusive use of a mathematical or scientific principal. Those things are NOT patentable. What a patent does do is protect a SPECIFIC APPLICATION of technology. Just because something is easily explained by some branch of science (or mathematics) doesn't mean that the APPLICATION of it is not a sufficiently useful contribution for a patent. The patent does NOT apply to the XOR function (i.e. computer manufacturers need not buy a licence to use XOR in their instruction set. A function is a simple piece of mathematical knowlegde and is not patentable. BUT, when you use that function for something, the issue of patentability comes into play. Also, note the word _applied_ in the following definition. Word: technology _ tech.nol.o.gy \-je\ n [Gk technologia systematic treatment of an art, fr. techno- + -logia -logy] 1 : technical language 2 a : applied science b : a technical method of achieving a practical purpose 3 : the totality of the means employed to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort So the technology of speach processing is really not the same as the technology of graphics cursors, even if the science used is the same. Jeff Sigal - MIT EECS (jbs@mit-eddie)