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From: Timm Murray <hardburn@runbox.com>
To: gopher@complete.org
Subject: [gopher] Re: Heads up
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 11:39:18 -0600
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On Thursday 10 January 2002 09:24, you wrote:
> MJ Ray <markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
> > There is the "not limited to patent issues" part in there.  If UMN can in
> > any way legally claim to own the *idea* of gopher as was feared in the
> > past, then surely the problem still survives?  If their licence fee idea
> > was based
>
> Well, I think that by this point we are talking about a problem that
> could be argued with any GPL'd software, not just gopher.
>
> In the US, we have three different ways to "own the idea":
>
> 1. Copyright
> 2. Patent
> 3. Trademark

Don't forget Trade Secrets.  Whereas patents give you a limited monopoly at 
the expense of revealing everything about your device, trade secrets give you 
a monopoly at the expense that you must keep everything secret.  The moment 
your device is revealed to the public, you lose your trade secret.  [Clearly, 
this is not the case here, since Gopher is a well-published protocol].

- -- 
All the simple programs have been written.
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