Public Domain

Projects Programming
1

Just curious... Once info (code...design...etc.)is posted on a forum does it become public domain or is it still able to be patented?

2

If it’s posted publicly on a forum , asking for help , I would say :

  1. It’s unlikely to be patentable .
  2. IMO you have published it publicly anyway.
  3. Don’t think you can patent software anyway (?) , only what it does.

I’ll scan your posts anyway , this time next year I could be a millionaire ....

3

You can patent something regardless of whether or not it has been made public. But some forums have small print in the user agreement that makes everything you post belong to the forum host (FB for example...). Not sure about this one.

4

Cool thanks.

5

Bluenick2100:
Just curious... Once info (code...design...etc.)is posted on a forum does it become public domain or is it still able to be patented?

You can patent an algorithm, but "code" is artistic results and can be copywritten, but no patent.

Paul

6

Once info (code...design...etc.)is posted on a forum does it become public domain or is it still able to be patented?

In theory, anything you post has an implicit copyright, and if it's a substantial amount of code that you wish other people to be able to use, you should also attach an explicit copyright notice, and a license detailing the limitations (if any) of such use. Or a notice saying that you explicitly released it to the public domain (which means that you retain no rights whatsoever.)

There are some popular existing licenses with well-known properties. MIT and BSD are pretty free, while GPL has "viral" properties that prevent its use in non-open-source projects. You can find explanations on the web. Along with theorizing about what these "big computer" licenses are likely to mean on a small microcontroller.
As for patents, code isn't patentable, but ideas or algorithms might be. I believe that posting an idea on a major well-maintained forum (like the Arduino forums) counts a "publishing" your idea, which means that you'd have one year after that to submit a patent (hmm. I'm not quite sure of what happens after that.) In theory, publishing an invention prevents someone else from patenting it. The "patent council" at the company I worked for had possible outcomes for ideas submitted: ignore, publish, or patent (with increasing levels of associated bonus.)
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. But I did a fair amount of research on SW copyright issues (and paid a lawyer quite a bit) during an attempt to publish some PC software, and then took corporate classes in "let's get lots of patents", and "how to use/not use OSSW in our proprietary products", and similar. I'm the author of four granted patents (probably only one of which is useful (but not practical), and two of which were essentially obsolete by the time they were granted.)

7

westfw:
There are some popular existing licenses with well-known properties. MIT and BSD are pretty free, while GPL has "viral" properties that prevent its use in non-open-source projects.

Don't forget the Beerware License.

8

Another thing about copyright. You copyright the source code, not the compiled/linked code. Be sure there is a date on the first line of the code. Every change means a new copyright. At one of my previous companies, The copyright notice was given on every program listing, even if we did not actually go through the copyright process.

Then there is the problem of using someone's "libraries" in your source code. You can't copyright their code. Gets pretty complicated!

Paul

9

we had to update the copyright year each year code was released and changed was made to the code

// copyright (C) 2017-2020

or

// copyright (C) 2017-2018,2020