Comment Re:Analysis re swpats, and html transcript (Score 1) 160
You have copyright for that. Patents are a whole different ballgame. They give you a MONOPOLY! You could forbid everyone else to use certain combination of notes if music patents were allowed. It'd be like paying a fee to use the word "and" followed by the word "the". The very building blocks of what you need to use for every day composing, whether in literature, music, or software programming are at stake.
Only thing is that in the programming world, only programmers understand this basic limitation imposed on us. The very building blocks used for composing software is limited to us. But with reserved words, data types and objects, we don't see this in the same way every time. Every programmer will view it in their own heads using their own interpretations and abstractions. But have a patent on just ONE of those views and the other programmers will not see the infringing code. There is NO WAY to check for patents on software. Not only that, but when necessity requires, programmers will solve the problem if it's at all possible in the vast majority of cases. It's a myth that software is clever or non-obvious to other programmers. That defies the very definition of a programmer who's job it is to come up with non-obvious solutions.
Only thing is that in the programming world, only programmers understand this basic limitation imposed on us. The very building blocks used for composing software is limited to us. But with reserved words, data types and objects, we don't see this in the same way every time. Every programmer will view it in their own heads using their own interpretations and abstractions. But have a patent on just ONE of those views and the other programmers will not see the infringing code. There is NO WAY to check for patents on software. Not only that, but when necessity requires, programmers will solve the problem if it's at all possible in the vast majority of cases. It's a myth that software is clever or non-obvious to other programmers. That defies the very definition of a programmer who's job it is to come up with non-obvious solutions.