GregNews: A history of artistic innovation as artistic invention

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

From Greg's PatNews:

!20030427  A history of artistic innovation as artistic invention

     As part of my new Web site on the global patenting of entertainment
and art, I have prepared a lengthy (if not the longest) global chronology
of artistic inventions over the last 4000 years. I argue that innovation
is invention, and when properly described, patentable.  The chronology is
available at:

            www.patenting-art.com/history/histor-e.htm

...

In 855, European musicians invent "polyphonic music", music that combines
several simultaneous voice parts.

In 1022, Murasaki Shikibu (a young noblewoman in Kyoto, Japan) invents
the first "(romance) novel", the story Genji the Shining One, with 1200
pages in the English translation.

In 1041, the Chinese printer Pi Sheng invents "movable type", for printing,
made with clay blocks.  400 years later in Germany, in 1454, Johannes
Gutenberg invents metal movable type.

Around 1360, Germans invent "stringed keyboard instruments", starting with
the clavichord and harpsichord.  German wiresmiths do so by pulling wire
through steel plates.  The keyed monochord, the forerunner of the
clavichord, dates back to the 1100s.

In 1437, English composer John Dunstable invents "counterpoint" for
musical compositions.

....

In 1879, American author Ella Cheeber Thayer invents the idea of "online
romance", in her book Wired Love: a romance of dots and dashes, a story
about two American telegraph operators who conduct a romance using
telegraph messages.

....

In 2000, artist Eduardo Kac invents "transgenic animal art" when he
creates the 'GFP Bunny', a transgenic rabbit whose cells are augmented
with the Green Flourescent Protein gene, which causes the rabbit to glow
under a black light.

---------------------------

Indeed an informative list which again shows that the distinction
"functional vs esthetic", which seems to be what current EPO software
patent evangelists like Dai Rees mean by "technical vs untechnical", is
also fragile and can be withered away any time if there is a strong
commercial interest in broad monopolies on what Art 52 EPC calls
"esthetic creations".

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
140,000 signatures against software patents          http://noepatents.org/