Re: AWE32 Programming Info (Official) Released!!!!

Stig (stig@hackvan.com)
Wed, 21 Aug 96 07:51 PDT

Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > I guess you're referring to RSA? RSA does not have an international patent,
> > only a domestic one. This is because publication of the algorigthm was
>
> No other country of note recognizes software as patentable, even if there
> is a hardware patent. Software is just a statement of mathematical facts

Yeah, but an algorithm is a way to do something. It's like a manufacturing
process in that regard. Patents let you patent the product and the process
by which it was manufactured. I don't like software patents either...
especially when they hamper liberating technologies like RSA...but I thought
I should make the distinction between "software" and "algorigthm". Software
is protected by copyright law, while algorithms are protected by patent law.

Stig