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0 pointsGHFigs15y ago0 comments

I don't understand where this idea comes from that ideas can be owned by anyone.

Intellectual property is not about owning ideas. Consider that if you read a book and take in it's ideas, you have not violated copyright, because it applies to the text of the book, not the ideas. On the other hand, if you just take the text and print your own books, you have violated copyright even if you never read the book at all and have no inkling of the ideas expressed. Again: it's not about owning ideas.

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thristian15y ago· 1 in thread

On the other hand, if you read a patent and take in its ideas, and then act on them (say, by applying those ideas yourself), you may well have violated the patent.

"Intellectual property" is more than just copyright.

nkassis15y ago

From wikipedia's page on patents: "The term patent usually refers to an exclusive right granted to anyone who invents any new, useful, and non-obvious process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, and claims that right in a formal patent application"

From what I underestand, the ideas themselves aren't patentable under this definition but the process or the invention that implements the idea is. (The idea of rolling on something isn't patentable but the shape of the wheel that makes that idea work would) In that sense software patents bend the rules.

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