Why has WUaS not sought a patent?
It's not a device, and although it is a software platform, it's Creative Commons' licensed ... and MIT OCW-centric and Yale-centric, and is like Wikipedia, which are also CC, and is explicitly for open sharing of ideas.
This changes fundraising strategies from a patent focus which might be used for profit, or sold, etc., to fundraising and bookstore and Presses. ...
Patent - Patents protect an invention that is "novel" (new and original) and "nonobvious" (to someone with technical expertise in the field of the invention). This has traditional been primarily used for physical devices (machines, electronics, certain manufactured goods), but has recently been applied to more abstract concepts, such as computer software algorithms or business processes.
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Fascinating Harvard talk on the Internet and autonomous agents and networks this morning (which should be watchable soon) ...
Primavera Di Filippi
Ethereum: Freenet or Skynet ?
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/04/difilippi
Di Filippi, Primavera. 2014. [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/04/difilippi Ethereum: Freenet or Skynet ?]. April 15. Cambridge, MA: cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/04/difilippi.
