The C++ std and copyright

[Neelesh Bodas]

This is not exactly a question on C++ std, rather it is a
"metaquesti on" on C++ std.

The C++ ISO std has a copyright notice saying that "No part of this
publication may be reproduced in any form, including an electronic
retrieval system, without the prior written permission of ITI."

What does this exactly mean? Eg. Suppose I am writing a book on C++.
In my book, I will obviously explain only those things that are in the
standard (I cant invent things and tag them under the name of C++). So
does that mean I need to take a prior permission from the ITI before
writing any such book?

What about writing some article (say on c++-style-casts) in a journal?
on a blog?

May be in my book I will use a different wording at most places to
avoid any copyright violation. But for basic definitions etc, I will
have to use the exact wording from the standard. Also, at certain
places the standard gives very nice examples (code) to demonstrate.
Can't I use this code in my writeups to explain certain concept/idea?

-Neelesh

[osmium]

"GeekBoy" writes:

However, under crazy US laws, some algorithms can be patiented. So if
someone came up with the bubble sort algorithm just the other day and
patented it, you could not use it commericaly for 10 years.

The laws may be crazy but they aren't *that* crazy. The bubble sort
algorithm has been exposed to the public more than a year ago, so that kills
any idea of patenting it. Your hero may have *rediscovered* the idea by
himself, but still, no patent.

[GeekBoy]

"osmium" <r1********@com cast.netwrote in message
news:5f******** *****@mid.indiv idual.net...

"GeekBoy" writes:

>However, under crazy US laws, some algorithms can be patiented. So if
someone came up with the bubble sort algorithm just the other day and
patented it, you could not use it commericaly for 10 years.

The laws may be crazy but they aren't *that* crazy. The bubble sort
algorithm has been exposed to the public more than a year ago, so that
kills any idea of patenting it. Your hero may have *rediscovered* the
idea by himself, but still, no patent.

I was merely giving examples.
However M$ has patiented many "algorithms ."

[Dizzy]

Victor Bazarov wrote:

Erik Wikström wrote:

>On 2007-07-10 21:24, Victor Bazarov wrote:

>>GeekBoy wrote:
[..]
While the way the presented the standard is protected, putting out
the standards in your own way is not.

I have hard time understanding that statment (English is not my
mother tongue). Could you perhaps clear it up or rephrase or maybe
elaborate? Thanks!

What he means is that while the standard (the text and formatting of
it) is copyrighted, the actual data in it can not be copyrighted
(just the representation) , so it's legal to express the same data in
another way and distribute that.

Aha... So, if I say that "applying operator* to a pointer that has
an invalid value causes things to happen to which no requirements can
be established", I'd be expressing the same idea as some standard
saying "dereferenc ing an invalid pointer has undefined behavior", but
it's OK since I don't quote the Standard itself, right?

I am guessing that there were some words missing in the sentence.
Ought to be

"While the way the SMTH presented BY the standard is protected,
putting out standard's SMTH in our own way is not".

Sounds about right?

Unless you have some strange Copyright law. AFAIK copyright in general only
protects the expression of the work not the ideas expressed by the work.
Thus the standard shouldn't be ammended as long as that definition is valid
for your country (or whatever law applies, international or not). That's
why there are (software) patents, to "protect" ideas.

--
Dizzy

[James Kanze]

On Jul 11, 12:05 pm, Dizzy <[e-mail] wrote:

Victor Bazarov wrote:

"While the way the SMTH presented BY the standard is protected,
putting out standard's SMTH in our own way is not".

Sounds about right?

Unless you have some strange Copyright law. AFAIK copyright in
general only protects the expression of the work not the ideas
expressed by the work. Thus the standard shouldn't be
ammended as long as that definition is valid for your country
(or whatever law applies, international or not). That's why
there are (software) patents, to "protect" ideas.

Patents protect "inventions ", not ideas. The invention may be
based on ideas, but at least under international patent law, you
cannot patent just an idea or an algorithm. And except in
exceptional cases, software is considered an algorithm, and
can't be patented.

That's international law, of course; some countries do tend seem
the consider themselves above international law.

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:ja******* **@gmail.com
Conseils en informatique orientée objet/
Beratung in objektorientier ter Datenverarbeitu ng
9 place Sémard, 78210 St.-Cyr-l'École, France, [phone]

[Kai-Uwe Bux]

James Kanze wrote:

On Jul 11, 12:05 pm, Dizzy <[e-mail] wrote:

>Victor Bazarov wrote:

"While the way the SMTH presented BY the standard is protected,
putting out standard's SMTH in our own way is not".

Sounds about right?

>Unless you have some strange Copyright law. AFAIK copyright in
general only protects the expression of the work not the ideas
expressed by the work. Thus the standard shouldn't be
ammended as long as that definition is valid for your country
(or whatever law applies, international or not). That's why
there are (software) patents, to "protect" ideas.

Patents protect "inventions ", not ideas. The invention may be
based on ideas, but at least under international patent law, you
cannot patent just an idea or an algorithm. And except in
exceptional cases, software is considered an algorithm, and
can't be patented.

That's international law, of course; some countries do tend seem
the consider themselves above international law.

Are you sure that the international law does not just specify minimum
requirements for national laws so that national laws must recognize patents
from another country provided they satisfy requirements A, B, and C.
However, it is easy to conceive that member states to the international
patent treaty (or whatever created the international law you are refering
to) reserved the right to afford farther-reaching protection mechanisms in
their national laws. All that international law implies is that such local
patents should not be expected to be enforcible elsewhere.

BTW: what international law are you refering to? I would like to look that
up.
Best

Kai-Uwe Bux

[GeekBoy]

Micros
"James Kanze" <ja*********@gm ail.comwrote in message
news:11******** **************@ m3g2000hsh.goog legroups.com...
On Jul 11, 12:05 pm, Dizzy <[e-mail] wrote:

Victor Bazarov wrote:

"While the way the SMTH presented BY the standard is protected,
putting out standard's SMTH in our own way is not".

Sounds about right?

Unless you have some strange Copyright law. AFAIK copyright in
general only protects the expression of the work not the ideas
expressed by the work. Thus the standard shouldn't be
ammended as long as that definition is valid for your country
(or whatever law applies, international or not). That's why
there are (software) patents, to "protect" ideas.

>Patents protect "inventions ", not ideas. The invention may be
based on ideas, but at least under international patent law, you
cannot patent just an idea or an algorithm. And except in
exceptional cases, software is considered an algorithm, and
can't be patented.

Some algorithms are patentable. The guy who holds the MP3 patent
successfully sued Microsoft over his patent.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...flip-flop.html

>That's international law, of course; some countries do tend seem
the consider themselves above international law.

[GeekBoy]

"Kai-Uwe Bux" <jk********@gmx .netwrote in message
news:f7******** **@murdoch.acc. Virginia.EDU...

James Kanze wrote:

>On Jul 11, 12:05 pm, Dizzy <[e-mail] wrote:

>>Victor Bazarov wrote:

> "While the way the SMTH presented BY the standard is protected,
putting out standard's SMTH in our own way is not".

>Sounds about right?

>>Unless you have some strange Copyright law. AFAIK copyright in
general only protects the expression of the work not the ideas
expressed by the work. Thus the standard shouldn't be
ammended as long as that definition is valid for your country
(or whatever law applies, international or not). That's why
there are (software) patents, to "protect" ideas.

Patents protect "inventions ", not ideas. The invention may be
based on ideas, but at least under international patent law, you
cannot patent just an idea or an algorithm. And except in
exceptional cases, software is considered an algorithm, and
can't be patented.

That's international law, of course; some countries do tend seem
the consider themselves above international law.

Are you sure that the international law does not just specify minimum
requirements for national laws so that national laws must recognize
patents
from another country provided they satisfy requirements A, B, and C.
However, it is easy to conceive that member states to the international
patent treaty (or whatever created the international law you are refering
to) reserved the right to afford farther-reaching protection mechanisms in
their national laws. All that international law implies is that such local
patents should not be expected to be enforcible elsewhere.

BTW: what international law are you refering to? I would like to look that
up.

There is really no "internatio nal" law, but agreements made between
countries.
The agreements are between most countries thus the call it international
law.

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Erik_Wikstr=F6m?=]

On 2007-07-11 17:12, Kai-Uwe Bux wrote:

James Kanze wrote:

>On Jul 11, 12:05 pm, Dizzy <[e-mail] wrote:

>>Victor Bazarov wrote:

> "While the way the SMTH presented BY the standard is protected,
putting out standard's SMTH in our own way is not".

>Sounds about right?

>>Unless you have some strange Copyright law. AFAIK copyright in
general only protects the expression of the work not the ideas
expressed by the work. Thus the standard shouldn't be
ammended as long as that definition is valid for your country
(or whatever law applies, international or not). That's why
there are (software) patents, to "protect" ideas.

Patents protect "inventions ", not ideas. The invention may be
based on ideas, but at least under international patent law, you
cannot patent just an idea or an algorithm. And except in
exceptional cases, software is considered an algorithm, and
can't be patented.

That's international law, of course; some countries do tend seem
the consider themselves above international law.

Are you sure that the international law does not just specify minimum
requirements for national laws so that national laws must recognize patents
from another country provided they satisfy requirements A, B, and C.
However, it is easy to conceive that member states to the international
patent treaty (or whatever created the international law you are refering
to) reserved the right to afford farther-reaching protection mechanisms in
their national laws. All that international law implies is that such local
patents should not be expected to be enforcible elsewhere.

Yes, that's about it, patent law is currently a messy area since there
are many types of patents, from national, to international, with some
multinational thrown in (such as EU patents). To my knowledge it's not
possible to get an international patent on algorithms (software patent),
and it's not possible in the EU* either. The US does allow them however,
and that coupled with a kind of broken patent system** have caused some
troubles in the software industry.

However since it's an international market, especially for software, it
means that almost all have to play by the US rules, since they have to
follow them if they distribute their software in the US.

BTW: what international law are you refering to? I would like to look that
up.

That would probably be the TRIPS agreement.

* Though it's possible (to my understanding) to get a patent for usage
of a specific algorithm/software coupled with hardware, so you could
probably patent a portable MP3 player (had it been a new invention).

** That's not just my opinion, it's a fact and they are working on
improving things.

--
Erik Wikström

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Erik_Wikstr=F6m?=]

On 2007-07-11 20:07, GeekBoy wrote:

Micros
"James Kanze" <ja*********@gm ail.comwrote in message
news:11******** **************@ m3g2000hsh.goog legroups.com...
On Jul 11, 12:05 pm, Dizzy <[e-mail] wrote:

>Victor Bazarov wrote:

"While the way the SMTH presented BY the standard is protected,
putting out standard's SMTH in our own way is not".

Sounds about right?

>Unless you have some strange Copyright law. AFAIK copyright in
general only protects the expression of the work not the ideas
expressed by the work. Thus the standard shouldn't be
ammended as long as that definition is valid for your country
(or whatever law applies, international or not). That's why
there are (software) patents, to "protect" ideas.

>>Patents protect "inventions ", not ideas. The invention may be
based on ideas, but at least under international patent law, you
cannot patent just an idea or an algorithm. And except in
exceptional cases, software is considered an algorithm, and
can't be patented.

Some algorithms are patentable. The guy who holds the MP3 patent
successfully sued Microsoft over his patent.

To my knowledge, it's only possible in the US, see my other post though.

--
Erik Wikström

[osmium]

"Erik Wikström" writes:

* Though it's possible (to my understanding) to get a patent for usage of
a specific algorithm/software coupled with hardware, so you could probably
patent a portable MP3 player (had it been a new invention).

I have been issued seven US patents for microcode used in hardware. These
were all assigned to my employer at that time. and I received $1 from my
employer for each of them so I am content with the system. Microcode just
happens to be the only practical way to implement some very complicated
mechanisms that are becoming increasingly common. I searched the Web to see
if they were also issued in some foreign country, and could find no sign of
that happening. But in the process I found a pure hardware patent that I had
totally forgotten about! So it was a worthwhile search.

Note that if the microcode is burned into a ROM it is now hardware - should
patents on such like be banned? I think this is not a simple problem, but
the well has been polluted by some trivial patents that should never have
been granted. For example, I have read newspaper accounts of patent on
something involving "one click shopping" or some such. And because of such
things a huge number of programmers want to ban patents in a somewhat
related area. Patentability should depnd on what kinds of marks I, as an
engineer, make on paper? If I draw AND gates it is patentable and if I draw
1's and 0's it is not? Does that make sense? The *idea* is the important
thing, not the kinds of marks made on paper to represent that idea.

WRT to software patents, I think RSA is certainly worthy of a patent; and
think of what a nightmare it would be to implement that in AND and OR gates
and flip-flops. I don't mean to put myself into that league, it is just
something that occurred to me as I have been following this thread.