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At 11:39 PM 1/23/98 -0500, you wrote: >The inventor's economic interests, in the sense you mean, are >perfectly well served by trade-secret law. (I think patents >actually "started" prior to that law, but a similar effect is >achived just by keeping stuff secret. I believe TS law merely >provides for legal remedies when employees or other contacts >"leak" stuff claimed to be trade secrets. Without this law, >just keeping stuff secret works pretty well.) I don't agree with this. There are three different types of protection under the law; trade secret, patent and copyright. Each has a area of application. Trade secret would not apply to something that is obvious when you look at it, such as a paper clip. So we have patents which allow you to spend the time to invent the paper clip and reap the rewards from its manufacture. BTW, a lot of this thread has been assuming that a patent holder will prevent anyone from duplicating his invention. That is not the case. Most inventors would gladly license the invention rather than to go into business for themselves. It is much easier to collect royalties on someone else's product than to produce and market your own. >So, the *purpose* of patents is to encourage publication of >knowledge that might otherwise be kept secret, or kept under >trade secret law. But the free spread of information is not the only reason for patents. It is also to encourage the invention process itself. If you couldn't patent the paper clip, you likely wouldn't have bothered to invent the thing without the patent! Of course, there will be examples of significant inventions which happened without ever being protected, such as Velcro. But the inventor of Velcro never made any real money off of it. At least not until the industry was guilted into giving him a token royalty. I don't distinguish between software and hardware in this context. It all comes down to whether or not you can be rewarded for your efforts. If you think you can make a profit by giving away your code and being paid for your knowledge of it, then great! Do that. But don't rain on my parade and say the I should do the same. My code might just be the thing that will make me rich by selling it (but I'm not holding my breath)! Rick Collins