Developers Beware.
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Like Generic Medicine which gets manufactured at very cheaper cost, does the Patent expiry to hold for software code/design/concept etc?
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Well, someone did file a patent request for the wheelbarrow, back in the early 70s -- and it was granted, and the clown who got it made a pile of money from it. However, software is a weird area in which to seek a profit from such a patent, because to enforce a judgment against a developer, the patent holder would have to compel him to reveal his source code -- and that takes a lot more than an unsupported claim of patent infringement.
But on the larger topic, the requirements for a patent grant are less stringent than you might think. Some years ago, a friend tried to patent the flight of stairs. He missed, but not by much!
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)
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they patented the Multiply_linked_list[^]? :(( Wiki:
In a multiply linked list, each node contains two or more link fields, each field being used to connect the same set of data records in a different order (e.g., by name, by department, by date of birth, etc.). (While doubly linked lists can be seen as special cases of multiply linked list, the fact that the two orders are opposite to each other leads to simpler and more efficient algorithms, so they are usually treated as a separate case.)
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Extract:
Filing date: Sep 26, 2002 Issue date: Apr 11, 2006
I'm sure I was using linked lists way back in the 1990's, can I sue them?
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
I was using them back in the 70's on a file system that didn't support indexes.
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Like Generic Medicine which gets manufactured at very cheaper cost, does the Patent expiry to hold for software code/design/concept etc?
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IBM was using linked lists in OS/360 in the late 1960s, and possibly in other operating systems before that. I would bet that they had already patented it, or thought it was too obvious to patent, or they just didn't do software patents then.
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What the...?, That's why we see people fighting for squares, black borders and colors nowadays. I'm going to try to patent the wheel, who knows, perhaps if i try it several times i may succed.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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Bogus, man. In my CS class in 1981 I had to build a linked list using arrays. What'll they patent next? Recursion? (I had to simulate recursion using my own call stack in the same course.) :| Now rounded rectangles... that's a different matter altogether. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
Ravi Bhavnani wrote:
I had to build a linked list using arrays
We did the same in my Data Structures class in 1980. In FORTRAN.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Ravi Bhavnani wrote:
I had to build a linked list using arrays
We did the same in my Data Structures class in 1980. In FORTRAN.
Software Zen:
delete this;Luxury, we had to do it on an abacus, but try telling t'kids o' today that and they won't believe you.
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:omg: What on earth possessed the patent office, in 2006, to grant that? There is 30 years of prior art, and it's not even obscure!
The patent office doesn't think it's their job to judge whether a patent should be granted, only whether all the bureaucracy has been followed. They'll rubber stamp pretty much anything, because they know that whether it actually stands or not, depends on how the court system decides lawsuits surrounding it. Yes, they do some review, but they can't know every nuance of every field.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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The patent office doesn't think it's their job to judge whether a patent should be granted, only whether all the bureaucracy has been followed. They'll rubber stamp pretty much anything, because they know that whether it actually stands or not, depends on how the court system decides lawsuits surrounding it. Yes, they do some review, but they can't know every nuance of every field.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
the problem with this approach, of course, is that the courts seem to take the attitude that if the patent office issued the patent, they must have known what they were doing. and so overturning even a patent with obvious prior art is an uphill struggle...
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the problem with this approach, of course, is that the courts seem to take the attitude that if the patent office issued the patent, they must have known what they were doing. and so overturning even a patent with obvious prior art is an uphill struggle...
So, what you're saying is that the courts have decided they aren't qualified to evaluate patents either. Seems we need to find people who are qualified. One option is to open all patents to a period of public review prior to being awarded, but there's not much incentive (actually, there's a disincentive) for people to do those reviews. I'm in favor of a different way of finding people who are qualified. And there's an easy source of qualified reviewers that the patent office already has at hand -- the inventors. Just require the inventors to review 10 other patents in their field before theirs can be granted. Give them an incentive for doing a good job -- they don't have to review as many pantents if they can find some prior art that wasn't listed.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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The patent office doesn't think it's their job to judge whether a patent should be granted, only whether all the bureaucracy has been followed. They'll rubber stamp pretty much anything, because they know that whether it actually stands or not, depends on how the court system decides lawsuits surrounding it. Yes, they do some review, but they can't know every nuance of every field.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
They shouldn't be expected to know every nuance of every field, but something as basic as linked lists is not a 'nuance'. A simple Google would have turned up CS textbooks! It's like trying to patent the method of building that involves placing one layer of bricks offset by half a brick from the previous layer ... so obviously prior art that even a committee of laymen should notice.
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There is a discussion on AskPatents[^] with a number of prior-art examples.
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So, what you're saying is that the courts have decided they aren't qualified to evaluate patents either. Seems we need to find people who are qualified. One option is to open all patents to a period of public review prior to being awarded, but there's not much incentive (actually, there's a disincentive) for people to do those reviews. I'm in favor of a different way of finding people who are qualified. And there's an easy source of qualified reviewers that the patent office already has at hand -- the inventors. Just require the inventors to review 10 other patents in their field before theirs can be granted. Give them an incentive for doing a good job -- they don't have to review as many pantents if they can find some prior art that wasn't listed.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
"...they don't have to review as many (sic) pantents..." Aye, there's the rub. Fewer patent applications mean less application fees - and perhaps fewer examiners. At the moment, the US government want to decrease the unemployment numbers by increasing government positions, rather than by making economic conditions conducive to greater employment by private enterprises. That decrease works well in the narrative of the incumbent. So we're not getting less examiners.
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they patented the Multiply_linked_list[^]? :(( Wiki:
In a multiply linked list, each node contains two or more link fields, each field being used to connect the same set of data records in a different order (e.g., by name, by department, by date of birth, etc.). (While doubly linked lists can be seen as special cases of multiply linked list, the fact that the two orders are opposite to each other leads to simpler and more efficient algorithms, so they are usually treated as a separate case.)
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Bogus, man. In my CS class in 1981 I had to build a linked list using arrays. What'll they patent next? Recursion? (I had to simulate recursion using my own call stack in the same course.) :| Now rounded rectangles... that's a different matter altogether. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
Totally. I did a linked list in a random access (flat file) database for a dental office scheduling program I wrote in '79. In '87 I had to rewrite a report generator that picked through records to generate a manifest for the conveyor system I was working on. Original program took 15 seconds to generate the report in the morning and over 5 minutes in the afternoon because of the volume of information. The linked list version ran in 10 seconds, no matter the time of day. Maybe I should patent my disk file variant. Next they'll be patenting fried eggs.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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Wonder if someone will patent the asterisk. That will be fun - half the people I know draw the asterisk with 4 lines, the others draw it with 3.