The reports by Samuelson and Glushko (1990a, 1990b) conclude that most workers in the user interface design field tend to oppose copyright and patent protection for user interfaces "because they think such protection would adversely affect the climate of open exchange and discussion of research and design innovations that has brought progress to the field." Samuelson and Glushko also state that "a fundamental purpose of the intellectual property laws is to provide protection for innovations in order to give incentives for people to be creative, thereby promoting progress in various fields of endeavor." (1990b, pg. 17) The position of the respondents to the survey with respect to this well-known fact about intellectual property law is paradoxical.
/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/a-concern-about-the-samuelson-glushko-survey-IbF40FVVvl