Intellectual Property and YOU!

As I’m consistently told by those smarter than I, code is very hard to copyright or patent to any meaningful extent. They say that if you copyright it you are pretty much only protecting what’s written verbatim. Also, to patent anything you can only patent that specific algorithm, not what you’re attempting to accomplish with the algorithm. To put it into terms of recipe writing (which also has its own set of intellectual property struggles), if I write a recipe for a unique cake that says to bake for 35 minutes at 400 degrees fahrenheit, someone could copy it almost completely except for saying that it goes in the oven for 30 minutes at 425 and they for the most part have covered their asses. I understand that a lot of different people write similar algorithms for drastically different purposes and people make cake recipes for drastically different cookbooks so obviously their needs to be some leeway when it comes to how strictly these patents should be enforced but I think my complaint still stands. Actually, I think patents for more generic algorithms should be allowed and enforced in certain contexts. For example, one should be able to patent a unique algorithm to load images on the screen in the context of a video game or maybe even more granular. It would make sense that somebody developing video development software may create something similar on their own and they shouldn’t be punished for that but at the same time they should be allowed to protect what they’ve created.

As for my trade secrets, well, they’re secrets. I would much rather prefer to avoid writing what I plan on keeping secret on a public forum. I can say that we’re in the process of developing certain algorithms that add weight to certain things but that’s as far as I want to go with that.