----- Original Message ----
> From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[log in to unmask]>
> In other words, stealing an idea is perfectly
> fine, ideas are cheap anyway and come by the dozen.

Stealing an idea is *not* perfectly fine. If ideas are as cheap and freely available as you say, there's no reason to steal an idea: Just come up with another one of your own.

> Second, language is a natural phenomenon. It's a *social* natural
> phenomenon, but it's a natural phenomenon anyway. One of the rules of
> patents is that one cannot patent the laws of nature. That means no
> patenting of mathematics either (including algorithms).

Patents on purely mathematical algorithms fail because of patents have to have a specific use. Image compression algorithms are patentable, which is largely why PNG disappeared as a major compression model (dealing with the patent became too onerous for software developers). Software code is likewise patentable.

Engelangs and exolangs are by their nature *not* natural phenomena. Exolangs are not useful (since they are intended for creatures that don't live on Earth), but for an engelang to be patentable, it would have to demonstrate its specific use. For instance, in the case of patents already provided on this list, an engelang designed to codify natural languages in unambiguous ways to allow for natlang1 > engelang > natlang2 translation without the natlang1 speaker knowing natlang2 or vice versa.

> I think it's just nonsense to put any effort even in the idea of protecting
> one's language. You may be able to claim copyright on works *in* or *about*
> the language, you might be able to invoke trade dress on the words of the
> language (or maybe even copyright, although I'm not sure it would work), but
> I don't think you could do anything if someone stole your grammatical ideas
> and implemented them in a different language (nor do I think you could do
> anything if a serial killer used your language to leave cryptic notes on
> their victims).

In my case, when I speak of protecting my language, I mean just what you're saying here: Making sure the copyrights on works using that language are observed, and making sure that the trade dress is observed. Let me give a specific example. I have a pronoun in my conlang which represents the current topic. Its use in English (call it "Fe"):

I went to the store today. Fe bought some cookies. As for my sister, fe stayed home.

"Fe" means "I" in the first case but "she" in the second case. Now, if this pronoun appeared in some other conlang (or, for that matter, in a natlang), great. If it appeared in some other conlang because someone saw it in mine and thought it was cool, even greater that I inspired someone. I wouldn't think of patenting "a pronoun representing the current topic."

What I want to protect, though, is the work I put into developing a specific language with specific phonology, morphology, orthography, etc. I'd rather not put effort into creating such a language only to have some fanboys decide they love it but it could really use some diphthongs and besides the clausal structure is too confusing, and on and on. If people don't like a language of mine, as a language, then they can take what they like and make their own, or make suggestions to me for modification.

> And that said, why would it even be a problem? People were
> already creative before strong "Intellectual Property" laws appeared, and
> they didn't mind their work not being protected.

The existence of people who have no problem with public domain and free markets and such does not eliminate the existence of people who would rather have their hard creative work protected from random repurposing. If nobody creative minded their work not being protected, the IP laws would have collapsed years ago, as the likes of George Lucas and J. K. Rowling took up arms of apathy against copyright law and, by opposing, ended it. Obviously, then, some creative minds care.

> The true masters still
> shine, and the copiers are long forgotten.

Shakespeare stole all or most of his plots.

Then again, so has Disney. ;)

I agree with you on patents, although not having an engelang of my own I'm unwilling to say it's wrong to patent those. However, when you go so far as to condone theft of ideas as a general concept, I have to disagree.

-- Paul


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