Intellectual Property Law for Engineers, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs. Howard B. Rockman
1847 and 1849, Babbage produced detailed drawings for an improved version, which he called Difference Engine No. 2, but he failed to receive funding for this project from the British government.
After failing at his efforts to complete Difference Engine No. 1, Babbage worked on a design for a more complex machine, which he called the “Analytical Engine.” He and C. G. Jarvis, who had previously worked for Clement, worked on the analytical engine, which was a transition from mechanized arithmetic to full‐fledged general‐purpose computation. It is largely on his development work on the analytical engine that Babbage’s reputation as a computer pioneer was established, although the analytical engine was never completed in Babbage’s lifetime.
The analytical engine was to be programmed with punch cards that would control a mechanical calculator, which would use the results of preceding computations as input. The device was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern computers, including sequential control, and looping and branching. It would have been the first mechanical device to be considered a complete computer. The analytical engine was not a single physical machine, but rather a succession of designs that Babbage continued working on until he died in 1871.
By 1834, Babbage had completed the first drawings of the analytical engine, which is now considered by some as the forerunner of the modern electronic computer. The analytic engine never progressed beyond detailed drawings; however, it is quite similar in logic components to present‐day computers. Babbage’s writings described five logic components of his computer: the store, the mill, the control, the input, and the output. The store contains all the variables to be operated upon, as well as all quantities that had arisen from the results of other operations. The mill, which is similar to the CPU in a modern computer, is a locale into which the quantities about to be operated upon are always brought. The control was carried out by a Jacquard loom–type device, operated by punch cards. The punch cards comprised a program for the particular task, where every set of cards made for any formula would at any future time recalculate the formula with whatever constants would be required. Thus, Babbage envisioned that his analytical engine would possess a library of its own—with every set of cards, having once been made, reproducing at any time the calculations for which it was first configured. Babbage designed the analytic engine to effectively have infinite storage by outputting data to punch cards, which could be read into the system again at a later stage when necessary. As the difference engine, the analytical engine was never completed by Babbage.
Babbage visited Luigi Federico Menabrea in Turin, Italy, in 1840. During this visit, Menabrea collected all the material needed to describe Babbage’s analytical engine, which Menabrea published in October 1842. Ada Lovelace, also known as Lady Byron, the daughter of Lord Byron, translated Menabrea’s article into English, adding considerably more extensive notes than the original memoir. Lovelace’s work was published in 1843.
Ada Lovelace described seeing Babbage’s working prototype in 1833: “We both went to see the thinking machine (or so it seems) last Monday. It raised several numbers to the 2nd and 3rd powers and extracted the root of a quadratic equation.”
Ada Lovelace was credited with developing an algorithm that would enable the analytical engine to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. Therefore, Ada Lovelace is often considered the first computer programmer, although no programming language had yet been invented during her time.
When Babbage turned his attention to developing the analytical engine, he further undermined the British government’s support of his difference engine, and this was one reason government financial support was withdrawn. By improving the concept as an analytical engine, Babbage had obsoleted his earlier difference engine.
Believe it or not, Babbage’s design was finally constructed between 1989 and 1991 using his plans and nineteenth‐century manufacturing tolerances. Lo and behold, this machine performed its first calculation in the Science Museum in London, returning results to 31 digits. During the 1980s, Allan G. Bromley, assistant professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, looked at Babbage’s original drawings for both the difference engine and the analytical engine that were located at the Science Museum Library in London. Ultimately, the Science Museum was persuaded to construct a working Difference Engine No. 2, which was built between 1980 and 1991 to tolerances achievable with nineteenth‐century technology. In 2000, the printer that Babbage had originally designed for the difference engine was also completed. Construction revealed some minor errors in Babbage’s design, which some commentators surmise had been purposefully introduced as protection in case his designs were stolen. These errors were corrected, and once completed both the difference engine and his printer worked flawlessly, and still work to the present day. This resolved the long‐standing debate as to whether Babbage’s design would have actually worked.
Babbage’s printer’s primary purpose was to produce stereotype plates for use in printing presses, by pressing type into soft plaster to create a flong. Babbage’s plans show that the engine’s results would be conveyed directly to mass printing, having recognized that many errors in previous tables were not the result of human calculating mistakes, but resulted from errors in the manual typesetting process. Therefore, the printer’s paper output is a means of checking the difference engine’s performance.
There are many articles and books written about Babbage’s work and how his difference engine operates. Those of you who are interested in delving into this subject matter further are encouraged to review the literature and gain more information about the earliest computer ever made from these sources, several of which are named in the Bibliography section of this text.
1 Overview of Intellectual Property Law
1.1 DEFINING “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY”
First, we need to define the core term of our subject: intellectual property. The term “intellectual property” generically describes those “intangible” property rights—those you usually cannot see or touch—which are initially created by one’s intellectual creative efforts. The results of those intellectual efforts, in most cases, are then anointed with these intangible property rights that give their creator or owner the “exclusive” ability to control, and profit from, the results of this creativity. “Intellectual Property Law” is that field of law which defines those intellectual creations that are entitled to protection as intellectual property, how to obtain (or lose) those intellectual property rights, how to properly use and benefit from those rights, and how to obtain enforcement and compensation when those intellectual property rights are infringed upon by a competitor or other evil person. Intellectual Property Law also provides guidance to a competitor who desires to produce a new product or use a new process, by designing around, and thus avoiding, the proprietary territory defined by your intellectual property rights.
Winning or losing out in business and financial opportunities many times heavily depends upon whether your creative output, inventions, products and business ideas and services are protected by patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secret rights, mask work rights, and others. Commercially new and useful ideas, inventions, products, and business services are the foundation of practically every highly successful business. As a result, successful business owners and entrepreneurs typically place a high value on the exclusive rights granted to intellectual property developed by their employees.
Businesses have succeeded or failed because of their owner’s efforts to protect their intellectual property, or their failure to do so. The value of many publicly traded companies has taken huge swings based principally upon whether the company has been successful in obtaining and enforcing its patent rights, for example. There are many common myths and misunderstandings surrounding the need for and the difficulty in obtaining patent, trademark or copyright protection. Understanding the protection rules and processes and appreciating the valuable rights which can be acquired ensures that your intellectual property is protected, as well as that of your employer.
“Tangible” property includes things such as land, houses, jewelry, communication system terminals and networks, and even animals—things you can see