Re: [computer-go] Intellectual Property

[Paul Pogonyshev <pogonyshev@xxxxxxx>]

Robin Kramer wrote:
> Does anyone on this list know if comments in code are a natural language
> and therefore are protected by copyright laws.  If for example someone who
> wanted to write a paper contributed some code, would the comments in the
> code prevent someone else from usurping the idea and publishing a paper?
> I know that the code itself is not sufficient to produce, a copyright,
> patent etc.  I am interested in protecting the rights of anyone who should
> want to share code, including myself.

As everyone else who replied, i'm not a lawyer, so please don't make
any serious conclusions.

I seriously doubt that comments in some code are enough to prevent
"usurping the idea", even if they are very detailed.  Copyright law
does not prohibit "reimplementing" works.  You could of course try to
prove that the offender based his work on the comments and actually
derived it from them, but i have that feelings that you would need
really serious ground for this, not much less than the offending work
containing direct quotes from the comments.

Nicol N. Schraudolph wrote:
> Code cannot be patented (nor a work of art, nor an algorithm), but the
> legal doctrine is that since modern programming languages give you the
> flexibility and freedom to express a given algorithm in many different
> ways, source code is a creative work, and as such automatically protected
> by copyright.  Of course violations are hard to pursue unless you attach
> an explicit copyright notice.

Alas, algorithms are patentable, though not everywhere.  AFAIK, at
least in USA and Japan, software patents are legal.  Recently, EU
rejected software patents and will hopefully not accept them in future.

What would actually help you is a software patent (though i don't
approve the idea behind them).  But it seems your situation is nowhere
close to having that on hands.  And getting such a patent is not an
easy deal.  Nothing gives you them automatically, unlike copyright
on your work.  The only thing those comments could do is preventing
someone else from patenting the "idea" in question (assuming you
live in a state allowing that in the first place), because patenting
requires some proof of actual invention, at least in theory.

Assuming the problems you might have, you are probably not really
interested in the issue, but please consider not using term
"intellectual property".  It is misleading because it lumps multiple
things (like copyright law and software patents) of different nature
together.  You can read more on  

  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty

I'm most in favor of sharing code and hope you don't actually have any
ideas "usurped".  However, releasing information to public before you
have made your use of it (like publishing a paper) is not a wise thing
to do.  I'm in no way trying to provide excuses to plagiarism, but i
don't approve the idea that inventing something gives you natural right
to control its use, especially if it is merely an idea.

Paul Pogonyshev
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