From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4895 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David CHEMOUIL Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: patenting colimits? Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 09:28:53 +0200 Message-ID: Reply-To: David CHEMOUIL NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1243435337 15505 80.91.229.12 (27 May 2009 14:42:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 14:42:17 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Wed May 27 16:42:15 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1M9KKZ-0001qU-0l for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 27 May 2009 16:42:11 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1M9JiD-0004nW-CX for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 27 May 2009 11:02:33 -0300 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4895 Archived-At: Hello, On Tue, 26 May 2009 05:46:09 +0100 (BST), Dusko Pavlovic wrote: > *but* if you write a book, and present pythagora's theorem in it, you will > not only be able to copyright it, but it will actually be almost > impossible for you to distribute your book without copyright it, and > without selling the copyright to a publisher. so anyone who wants to use > your version of pythagoras' theorem has to ask your publisher's > permission. More precisely, AFAIK, copyright effectively applies to the *form* that you used to describe Pythagora's theorem. As such, no one is allowed to reprodu= ce it with the same exact form as you long as the copyright holder doesn't gra= nt him or her that exclusive right. > patents are crazier than copyright --- but maybe not that much crazier. > you cannot patent mathematics, but you can patent "method and apparatus" > for a particular application of pythagoras' theorem. (they always call it > "method and apparatus".) you cannot patent modular exponentiation, nor the > conjecture that inverting it (ie computing the discrete logarithms) is > computationally unfeasible. but you can patent a method and apparatus to > share a public key by exchanging and multiplying two modular exponents. > the essence of your originality argument will rely upon the novel use of > the conjecture that the discrete logarithms are hard to compute, on which > the security of your system is based. Let us however recall that patenting algorithms is possible in the USA or in Japan but certainly not in the EU, until now (despite much repeated lobbying from pharmaceutical and IT companies). Still, the European Patent Office (EPO) has already accepted tens of thousands of such patents, by cheating with the law (indeed, the law says that you can't patent an algorithm "as such", which the EPO interpreted as : you can patent an algorithm as long as it is part of a "technical mechanism" such as an MP3 player, for instance). Without even entering into social or economic outcome of "openness" of results, or so-called innovations (see Maskin's publications for more information, for instance), I'd like to point out an ethical issue here. Th= at is the harm done to a 500-year, or so, social contract between scientists acknowledging publicly, that is in publications, that they stand on the shoulders of giants or, with less grandiosity, on other colleagues' results= .=20 Of course, there is a strong incentive, to say the least, in many instituti= ons for the "valorisation" of results. My point is that a strong "openness" (su= ch as publications under "creative commons" or release of software under free/open-source licences) may give a far better valorisation of results th= an strong, defensive, appropriation, while being more compliant to centuries of scientific practice.=20 Best regards, dc --=20 David CHEMOUIL ONERA/DTIM - 2 avenue =C3=89douard Belin - F-31055 Toulouse Tel: +33 (0) 5 6225 2936 - Fax: +33 (0) 5 6225 2593 http://www.onera.fr/staff/david-chemouil [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]