Articles:Patenting Your Computer's Inventions

[Kristian Köhntopp <kk@netuse.de>]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99/11/25/0921201&cid=9


Chess and patents (Score:4, Interesting)
by sreeram (r_sreeram@hotmail.com) on 0:44 26th November, 1999 CET (#9)
(User Info) 
I have always wondered about Chess players patenting some of their moves. To me, it
appears that they could satisfy all the requirements for patentability. 

(1) Occasionally, a brilliant GM might discover a move that has never been documented
before - qualifies as having no prior art. 

(2) The move might be sophisticated enough that it is not obvious to a lot of good Chess
players, let alone the commoners - qualifies as being non-obvious. 

(3) The move is after all a process, a design - qualifies for a "method" patent. 

So, what happens then? You can't ever play that move unless you license it? Whoa. 

I was thinking about that supposedly remarkable move that Deep Blue played against
Kasparov in Game Four of their rematch - which even Kasparov admitted showed signs of
the machine's "intelligence". Would IBM have been able to patent it (if they had 
applied for one before someone documented the game)? 

Sreeram.

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