Silly Americans

Rick Osborne osborne at gateway.grumman.com
Tue Feb 4 23:26:22 PST 1997


________________________ R i c k   O s b o r n e ________________________
I was reading through the news when I stumbled across a thread that made a
very good point.  The original poster was talking about the UniSys GIF
patent, and this was the reply:

>Broaden your view. I can do anything I want with the GIF format without
>asking _anyone_, and so can almost everyone in the world - except those
>poor americans who chose to live under a "broken" patent law which
>allows protecting _algorithms_. Totally silly.

It brings up an interesting point, especially when applied to ITAR/EAR.  On
a philosophical note, why *do* we allow the government to regulate
algorithms?  (Implementations, I can understand, but *algorithms*?)
_________ o s b o r n e @ g a t e w a y . g r u m m a n . c o m _________
"A poem: a story in meter or rhyme."
'Ahh. `There once was a man from Nantucket ... `'
"You've been talking to Garibaldi again, haven't you?"








More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list