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If you're not looking for a patent yourself, but want to make sure that |
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nobody else pulls one on you, you may want to look into the USPTO's |
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Statutory Invention Registration program. It basically creates a public |
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domain patent of your invention so nobody else can "invent" it and claim |
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priority. And it's cheap (something like $100 IIRC). |
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|
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Sean Crandall |
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|
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Uwe Thiem wrote: |
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> On 16 September 2005 04:31, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales wrote: |
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> |
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>>Hi everyone, |
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>> |
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>> I work with biotech and for about an 1 year I've been working on a |
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>>web interface for genome/proteome data analysis. And I'd like to make |
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>>it free software. But I still have doubts about legal problems I might |
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>>face and about intellectual property. |
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>> Basically, I don't want to restrict people on using and |
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>>contributing with source or whatever, but don't want anyone taking |
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>>credit for my work or pateting it and sending me a cease-and-desist |
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>>letter. |
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>> If anyone has any insight, references or links on this subject, |
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>>please let me know. |
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> |
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> |
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> 1. Step |
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> You make sure the stuff is your. So you stamp a copyright message all over it. |
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> Basically, you put a copyright notification in each and every file. Now you |
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> have made clear it is *your* intellectual property. |
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> |
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> 2. Step |
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> You have to put it under an OSS license that suits you best. I guess the two |
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> most widely used OSS licenses are the General Public License (GPL) and the |
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> BSD license. There are quite some differences between them. In a nutshell: |
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> The GPL does not allow to include any of your stuff in a piece of software |
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> that is not under the GPL. In other words, Whoever wants to build software |
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> based on yours has to make the result OSS under GPL as well. The BSD license |
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> basically allows any use of your software as long as the copyright remains |
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> unchanged (which prevents anyone from patenting it) and the result credits |
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> you. |
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> |
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> All that said, if someone with a lot of money grabs your stuff an - say - |
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> patents it you still have to challenge them in court which can take |
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> considerable time and money. The GPL has a slight advantage in this case |
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> because the Free Software Foundation (FSF) will help you legally. |
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> |
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> You should read through the available licenses even if they are a boring |
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> read. ;-) |
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> |
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> Uwe |
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> |
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-- |
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