[briantmaurer]

Programming is in this odd position somewhere between the structure of math and the creativity of writing. Some things feel as obvious as basic addition, which clearly should not be copyrightable, while other things feel as clever as complex poems, which clearly should be copyrightable.

I am not a copyright expert, but in my opinion APIs usually fall closer to the structured math half of programming.

ex. GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE to the following:

/users

/messages

/comments

/login

/logout

/signup

/payments

etc.

Who gets those copyrights?

[josho]

When I lived in Java based environments I would have agreed with you. But, having moved on and seen C#, Ruby/Rails, Objective-C, etc. Seeing how differently APIs have been implemented I have an appreciation for the creativity possible in API design.

But, there seems to be a balance, is the API of a single class copyrightable? No, probably not. Is the API of a large system like Java's copyrightable, I really do think so.

Having said that, I disagree with the protections an API suddenly gains once we say I have a monopoly on its use and license. E.g. This verdict likely just made every emulator an act of copyright infringement. Does intel own the API on the x86 instruction API and can lock out AMD?

[0x0]

The entire reason the PC business exploded was because the IBM BIOS (an API if I ever saw one!) was reverse engineered, documented, and then clean room reimplemented by Compaq

[mcintyre1994]

I'm not hugely aware of the intel/AMD history but as I understand AMD invented x64 and license it to Intel? That's probably over simplified, but the point potentially stands : if such a ruling applied for Intel over x86 would we expect a similar one for AMD over x64?

[sabujp]

if they did that, they would become a monopoly. It's the only reason they keep amd alive.

[Zikes]

Well...

POST /cart

http://www.google.com/patents/US5715314

[dadair]

I don't understand patents like this...

Could a store owner in a mall patent the way that users walk into the store, buy a t-shirt, and leave?

Anyone able to explain to me how the linked patent was deserved? I'm genuinely curious.