[TUHS] History of cal(1)?

[Paul Winalski via TUHS]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 10:14 AM Ron Natalie via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

>
> There were a number of reasons why Western Electric used Trade Secret
> rather than copyright.   Some of it was due to the nature of Bell Labs.
> Other, is that when your protecting TECHNOLOGIC INFORMATION, trade
> secret allows you to stop that dissemination.   Copyright, only
> prohibits making copies, but not dissemination of the information and
> patents by their very nature require the information to be disclosed.
>
> US patent law doesn't specifically mention software.  For a long time the
US PTO, and the courts,  allowed algorithms to be part of a patent
declaration, but only as part of a device.  Algorithms expressed as
software were not in and of themselves patentable.  That stance gradually
changed.

As you point out copyright protects creative expression of an idea or
process.  It does not protect the idea or process itself.  That is what a
patent does, and for a long time software wasn't considered patentable.  So
if you wanted to protect technological information related to software the
alternative you were left with was to make it a trade secret--to legally
require that anyone to which you divulged the secret did not disclose it to
anyone else without your permission.  The advantage of a trade secret is
that the information is not disclosed.  The disadvantage is that if someone
else independently discovers it and obtains a patent for it, the patent
holder may demand that you stop using the idea.

-Paul W.