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From: Cameron_C on 19 May 2010 07:58
Hello again.
I am curious if anyone here has gone through the effort of copyrighting or
patenting their software?

I registered for a Trademark (not sure if that is really worth anything
though).
I wanted to see what others before me have done, before I head over to the
Lawyer's office. I am sure that won't be inexpensive!

I also feel nervous about putting all of my stored procedure code out there.
I have read on different groups that it is not recommended to apply an
encryption clause to the stored procedures.
So I am left with looking at making all the SP code visible. While I
understand that it is of no use without the actual application code, it is
still something that I have spent a great deal of effort to put together.
Maybe it just come down to copyright notices in the code and SPs? Maybe it
is all managed legally, with the legalese at installation time?

Anyway, once again, I am just reaching out to see how other folks have dealt
with this side of things.

Thanks for your time,

........Cameron
From: Stephen Wolstenholme on 19 May 2010 08:11
On Wed, 19 May 2010 04:58:01 -0700, Cameron_C
<CameronC(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>
>Hello again.
>I am curious if anyone here has gone through the effort of copyrighting or
>patenting their software?
>

There is no effort involved apart from adding a copyright notice.

All mine says is "Copyright � 2002-2010 Neural Planner Software Ltd"

Steve

--
Neural Planner Software Ltd www.NPSL1.com
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com
From: Joseph M. Newcomer on 19 May 2010 10:54
Patent is a difficult thing to get for software, and often is not really as protective as
you might think. The debate of patent vs. copyright has been going on for at least 25
years, with serious experts like Pam Samuelson pointing out that *neither* gives the
correct protection, and that a new category of law is required to protect software.

Copyright is trivial. Essentially, everything is implicitly copyrighted by its author at
its point of creation (this is a new provision of the Disney Must Conquer All (DMCA,
sometimes called Digital Millenium Copyright Act)). But it is easier if you just add a
comment asserting your copyright:

Copyright � 2010 YourNameHere, All Rights Reserved

You may substitute (c) for the � symbol.

(It is amusing to note that MFC used to generate (c) back when it was NOT recognized as
the translation of the copyright symbol, and still does, even though the fonts have
*always* had a � symbol in them; when MFC first started using (c), the copyright law
insisted the C-inside-the-circle was mandatory. But do we really expect Intelligent
Design from a group whose "About" box doesn't even follow Microsoft's own recommended
practice?)

In addition to the basic assertion of copyright, you may *register* a copyright by sending
in the first N and last N pages of your code, which made sense in the days when there was
a linear representation of code. A group of scattered stored procedures probably doesn't
have a unified "listing". But under the new copyright law, it is not required that you
register a copyright to be able to assert copyright protection.

I've been involved as an expert witness in both patent and copyright litigation. Patent
litigation involves the "heart of the matter" and any expression of code that violates the
patent is prosecutable, no matter what language it is written in. Copyright litigation
involves the expression of the text, and if someone were to recode your stored procedures
in C# or VB or MFC, your copyright cannot be asserted. These are oversimplifications of
what really goes on in the litigation, but capture the basic ideas. Any code can be
copyrighted; it does not have to be "original" or innovative in any way; it does not need
to fulfill requirements such as "not obvious to a skilled practioner in the field" and if
it is not a direct copy of existing code, there is no way to invalidate the copyright by
showing there was "prior art", for example, that someone published a paper suggesting the
algorithm in 1955 (these tests would kill a patent). Copyright is stronger but harder to
enforce; patent is weaker but if the patent's validity is upheld, it is easier to enforce.
But getting a copyright is automatic, and can be trivially emphasized by adding the
copyright notice; getting a patent is an expensive process that can take years, and can be
surprisingly fragile.
joe

joe

On Wed, 19 May 2010 04:58:01 -0700, Cameron_C <CameronC(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>
>Hello again.
>I am curious if anyone here has gone through the effort of copyrighting or
>patenting their software?
>
>I registered for a Trademark (not sure if that is really worth anything
>though).
>I wanted to see what others before me have done, before I head over to the
>Lawyer's office. I am sure that won't be inexpensive!
>
>I also feel nervous about putting all of my stored procedure code out there.
>I have read on different groups that it is not recommended to apply an
>encryption clause to the stored procedures.
>So I am left with looking at making all the SP code visible. While I
>understand that it is of no use without the actual application code, it is
>still something that I have spent a great deal of effort to put together.
>Maybe it just come down to copyright notices in the code and SPs? Maybe it
>is all managed legally, with the legalese at installation time?
>
>Anyway, once again, I am just reaching out to see how other folks have dealt
>with this side of things.
>
>Thanks for your time,
>
>.......Cameron
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newcomer(a)flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
From: Peter Olcott on 19 May 2010 11:22
On 5/19/2010 6:58 AM, Cameron_C wrote:
>
> Hello again.
> I am curious if anyone here has gone through the effort of copyrighting or
> patenting their software?

misc.int.property is the ideal newsgroup for these kinds of questions.

I have a software patent. A patent protects the idea. A copyright only
protects the specific expression of the idea. A copyright is automatic
and need not be registered. As soon as material is expressing in fixed
form, (something besides in your head) a copyright is automatically
created. It is best to label all work that is considered copyrighted
with [copyright YourName Year].

>
> I registered for a Trademark (not sure if that is really worth anything
> though).
> I wanted to see what others before me have done, before I head over to the
> Lawyer's office. I am sure that won't be inexpensive!
>
> I also feel nervous about putting all of my stored procedure code out there.
> I have read on different groups that it is not recommended to apply an
> encryption clause to the stored procedures.
> So I am left with looking at making all the SP code visible. While I
> understand that it is of no use without the actual application code, it is
> still something that I have spent a great deal of effort to put together.
> Maybe it just come down to copyright notices in the code and SPs? Maybe it
> is all managed legally, with the legalese at installation time?
>
> Anyway, once again, I am just reaching out to see how other folks have dealt
> with this side of things.
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> .......Cameron

From: Hans-J. Ude on 19 May 2010 13:03
Peter Olcott schrieb:

>On 5/19/2010 6:58 AM, Cameron_C wrote:
>>
>> Hello again.
>> I am curious if anyone here has gone through the effort of copyrighting or
>> patenting their software?
>
>misc.int.property is the ideal newsgroup for these kinds of questions.
>
>I have a software patent. A patent protects the idea. A copyright only
>protects the specific expression of the idea.

About UTF-8 conversion? :)

SCNR,
Hans

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