Patents and copyrights are totally different, and should be treated as such. The issue isn't about whether someone copies the algorithm, it's whether they copy

Patents and copyrights are totally different, and should be treated as such. The issue isn't about whether someone copies the algorithm, it's whether they copy the written code. Nothing in an algorithms textbook is patentable either, but if you copy the words describing an algorithm from it, you are stealing their description.