[OT] Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design

[bill at herrin.us (William Herrin)]

On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 12:49 AM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> This assumes that Copyright is the only IP protection out there. There
> are actually two distinct realms of IP protection afforded in the US.

Actually, there are four: copyright, patent, trademark and trade
secret.  A network configuration could fall under either copyright or
trade secret. It won't fall under trademark and it's hard to imagine
how a network configuration of a general shape anticipated by the
router manufacturer could fall under patent. Not with the
double-whammy of prior art and the recent rulings to the effect that
adding "on a computer" to a technique is insufficient to make it
patentable.


> However, all of the technicalities on this stuff vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
> The broad strokes have been normalized through treaties for the most part, but
> details and technicalities still vary quite a bit.

There are only so many jurisdictions with distinct law in North
America. You know, this being NANOG and all.

-Bill


-- 
William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>