Re: [Patents] EuroParl-ordered study to be presented in Paris

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> >Copyright does not apply to ideas, but that doesn't mean it cannot serve
> >to help people capture financial returns from their ideas.
>
> Lousy advice to anyone trying to exploit their software ideas.  People
> will look at your ideas in whatever you copyright, change the expression
> of the software (variable names, indenting schemes, order of modules -
> all easily reengineered) and use your ideas without having to pay you
> any money.

Either this "reengineering" takes almost about as much time as your
original work or they are still infringing on your copyright.

Moreover, who will care to look at so much source code, especially if you
need to decompile/unscramble it?  In the latter case, writing from scratch
is easier.

> Publish your software ideas without patent protection, and
> all you do is help make more consulting money for big companies like IBM.
> You will end up capturing nothing, except a pat on the head from IBM.

Indeed you need the hypothesis of swpat being available in order to make
the above calculation look bad.