Klarinet Archive - Posting 000020.txt from 1998/04

From: Neil Leupold <nleupold@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: urgent plea
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 10:03:13 -0500

On Wed, 1 Apr 1998, Roger Garrett wrote:

> On Tue, 31 Mar 1998, Neil Leupold wrote:
>
> > I manage operations for the intellectual property division of
> > a microelectronics engineering firm. Simply stated, my life
> > is consumed by the investigation of patent infringement. Copy-
> > right laws are similar to patents on the right to use, and I'll
> > second everything Kevin has to say below.
>
> Copyright laws are similar to patent infringement laws, but dissimilar in
> enough ways to warrant careful scrutiny of the differences. I would be
> very careful asserting law in one as law in the other by way of a
> similarity. The language is different enough that, as such, copright law
> is a different breed altogether.

...which just goes to prove that you pretty much have an opinion
about everything. I make no "assertions" in my initial statement.
Your comment is broad-based, whereas I qualify mine via a delimiter
which indicates that I'm referring to the "right to use". In U.S.
patent law, the use of somebody else's technology requires the purchase
of a license, typically for the life of the patent (20 years from filing
date, or 17 years from issue -- whichever is longer). Rental of music
can be viewed as a limited license between the publisher and the cust-
omer, the terms being established externally via copyright law in
essentially the same fashion that U.S. patent law dictates the
terms of a technological patent licensing agreement.

Neil