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Jerry Stuckle · November 10th 14, 01:22 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna

On 11/10/2014 5:29 AM, Lostgallifreyan wrote:
Brian Reay wrote in news:441948959437305285.373419no.sp-
:

If you have something to protect, seek professional advice. It is a bit of
a
mine field. Plus, if you work for a company, they may have something in
your
contract of employment which gives them a claim, or they will say it does.
That could lead to a 'parting of the ways', possibly in your favour
financially etc.
but involve a lawyer to ensure you secure your position.

I won't patent. I've been reading of the cost in the UK. (All figures are
UKP) 3000 to 6000. Add 10000 give or take not very much to add US protection.
That;s in the first year. You have to add about 4 grand more within a year
and a half, maybe more, and that's ignoring ALL costs of actually defending a
patent! Add those, the costs soar to around 150 grand.

I will not release my code to the public domain unless there is a GUARANTEED
way to prevent patent trolls and sharks from stealing it, a way that does not
extort more money than I may ever earn before I even start to earn it!

If there is no such way, then I may release code that strictly emulates an
existing instrument (the Yamaha DX7) in its main funtion, and on the strength
of that, I will hope to find a performer who can afford to take on the
extended code privately as a performing instrument.

Why is it that patents force me to seriously consider ideas of elite
sponsorship that belong to the 16th century?! Has the world of ideas and the
right to profit from original work really progresses so little in all those
years? After all, the only way to win the game is to have already won. I'm
not going to cause myself misery fighting tautologies like that.

I don't think patents are what I should be asking about. The real question
is: how do I defend my work from the patent system while trying to earn money
from it, or share it with the world?

Well, unless your code contains a "new and innovative idea", it's not
patentable, anyway. You can copyright the code (it's automatically
copyrighted, anyway - but you have to register that copyright in the
U.S. to have any *real* protection), but not necessarily patent it.

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Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry, AI0K

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