Why Real Programmers Don't Take The USPTO Seriously: Doubly-Linked List Patented
from the oh-come-on dept
It's pretty difficult to find software engineers who take the patent system seriously. There are a few, but it's still pretty difficult. For the most part, they recognize that code is just a tool: you can make it do all sorts of things, given enough time and resources, but that doesn't mean that doing any particular thing in code is an "invention" that no one else should be able to do. And then, sometimes, they discover that something pretty basic and old has suddenly been given a patent. Brad Feld discusses his discovery that doubly linked lists were apparently patented in 2006 (patent number 7,028,023):The prior art was extremely thin, only went back to 1995, and didn't mention that entire computer languages have been created around the list as a core data structure. One of my first Pascal programming exercises in high school (in 1981 -- on an Apple II using USDC Pascal) was to write a series of operations on lists, including both linked and doubly-linked lists (I always thought it was funny they were called "doubly-linked" instead of "double-linked" lists.) Anyone who ever graduated from MIT and took 6.001 learned to love all varieties of the linked list, including the doubly-linked one. That was 1984 for me by the way.Another day, another reason to question why software is patentable at all -- and to question who approves these kinds of patents.
Ironically, Wikipedia had great entries -- with source code no less -- about both linked lists and doubly-linked lists. The linked list history goes back to 2001, well before the patent was filed.
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Filed Under: doubly-linked lists, patents, prior art, uspto
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IT Court
The judge / officials should have satisfactory background in dealing with modern technologies. And if there are juries, briefing should be provided by specilists to explain what the case is about and what consequences it may have.
Hope that it'll make less non-sensible judgement of the kind.
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Re: IT Court
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To get technical
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Re: To get technical
I prefer the logarithmic-linked list.
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Re: Re: To get technical
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Re: Re: Re: To get technical
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Re: To get technical
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Re: To get technical
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Gee... thanks....
Can someone get the EFF on this... I've got an idea for an app I want to start working on in 10-15 years... :-)
/patent system is a joke
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Re: Gee... thanks....
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Crap!
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This is crap
So, he essentially made it happen. I wouldn't call it inventing...but it certainly hadn't been done before. Figured it out is probably a better term.
His response was to go into that same forum and post the code for everyone.
He did this, not to be a braggart, but rather to give back to the community. He wouldn't be the web developer that he is today if people hadn't helped him and freely shared code when he was first starting out. And this is his way of showing his appreciation. It could spark someone else to "figure out" how to do other innovative stuff, thus progressing the field.
If only we all thought like that...
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Re: This is crap
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Re:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html
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You should really fix the subject
With many CS patents, the question appears to be more -- who's the first person to have a reason to do this? -- but in this case, unless it was purely an abuse of the PTO, it seems fair to guess that some young programmer independently realized that there are applications for which a multiply-linked list is an appropriate data structure.
Either way, it'd be an argument against patents for software.
The wiki version prior to submission of the patent (which was Sep 26, 2002) covers only a simple explanation of linked lists -- so the history for that document isn't prior art. OTOH, the current version links to the patent and notes the techniques were in use for decades before the patent was filed.
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Re: You should really fix the subject
And this is non-obvious how?
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Re: Re: You should really fix the subject
Though personally, I haven't had any applications where a multiply linked list seemed appropriate -- there are other ways to store multiple paths through a list; and maintaining a multiply-linked list (additions, deletions, etc) can be expensive, depending on various factors.
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SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
write it on your little brainless foreheads, lemmings
it is impossible, legally or otherwise, to separate software from hardware implementation - they are two sides of the same coin
It's just a lot easier to change "sofware" running on e.g. general-purpose CPU as opposed to changing e.g. ASIC design
BTW, what you call "software patents" date back to those old times when computers didnt exist ...
How abot that, little idiots ?
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Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
with one patent, dozen pubs as well as 2 MS degrees and a PhD
Now shut up
Gosh, how I hate this f@#$%^& blog
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Since they're handing out patents like Little League trophies, I don't doubt he has one. Clown School, however, has higher standards of comedy than that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Ha... I guess you can call it clown school
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Institute_of_Physics_and_Technology
I still remember some pretty crazy things going on in the student dorm back then
Esp on April 1, we had a huge all campus all night discoteque followed by some wild wild stuff...
After that it was all downhill, fun-wise
Get ready for Fools' Day, punks !
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
You should pity them.
This is where all the programming drones hang out. The kind who day after day crank out repetitive unimaginative code. Because they are not capable of an original thought they think that they should be free to copy those who are. That is all they know, copy and copy some more. Think how unimaginative they are.
The problem is that 99% of the programming community is like this. They are equivalent to the poor slob who stood between a pallet of parts on a production line and loaded those parts on a conveyor all day long, day after day, week after week for 20-30 years.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
If You Want More Information
Please DNFTT
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Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
brb patenting calculus.
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Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Leibniz: But ... so have I!
Newton: ...
Leibniz: ...
Newton: Look, an elegant solution to the 3-body problem!
Leibniz: What? Where?
Newton scurries off to the patent office.
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Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Within logic and set theory you can prove the concept of a general purpose machine to do computations. That is the basis for the computer. The set of all possible computer programs is the set of all programming statements that can be put together to form them. This is why they're called computer LANGUAGES. Writing programs becomes then more like writing a book than inventing. And books (and software) are COPYRIGHTED (or copylefted ;-) but are not inventions that are patentable.
This should be clear to any honest computer scientist. The hardware can be patentable because it is a literal tangible thing, but as many hardware companies have found out (hello IBM) patenting your bus and other internal constructs make your machine design less desirable and loses you market share. Thats not to say that things like chip fabrication procedures shouldn't be patentable, but even then that kind of thing is probably better off as a trade secret.
At the end of the day, if push came to shove, I could maybe be convinced that an entire computer language might be patentable, as it creates the context from which all programs written in it will come into being. But then, how many people would learn and use a computer language that enforced ownership over every program you would ever create.
Software patents are bad, horrendously bad.
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Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Yes it does. You just are not knowledgeable enough to understand it.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
You seem to have no valid arguments and serve only to fling insults. Once again I understand that I am just feeding a troll.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
Organization 1
Organization 2
Organization 3
Committee 1
Some Dead Guy
God
The Entire United States
Martians
Bacteria
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Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Why? Because the reverse is not true. Not all hardware can be done in software. If it CAN be done in software, it should not be eligible for patent protection. If it requires specific hardware then that hardware could be considered eligible for a patent if it meets patent requirements.
Although I personally think patents are a drain on our society.
My personal solution. Make patents and copyright last one year. Wait two years. If we can say that sufficient innovation/creation is not happening increase the appropriate term by one year (wait two years, rinse, repeat). If extending by a year has no effect, or a negative effect, reduce by two years.
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Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
rinse, repeat
then F@## her every 2 weeks, rince repaet
then cut off you balls
Seriosly dude you are a f@@#%^^ moron without a clue
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
:)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
It shows in your thinking process
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Hardware is different in that although at a high level it is equivalent to software how you deal with the real world means you can make it faster/better somehow, like if you figured out how to make logic gates that switch 10x faster you could patent that. But the logic could stay the same and just be faster... the LOGIC is the part of hardware that is like software but hardware design is a lot more than just the logic.
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Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
For example the algorithm for AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) can be done in software or hardware. Further that same algorithm has been done in pencil and paper. It's mathematics.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
http://www.moserware.com/2009/09/stick-figure-guide-to-advanced.html
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Re: Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
angry dude sputtered:
If that’s true, then does that mean, if software can be patented like hardware, then hardware can be copyrighted like software, too?
If they’re the same thing, then why do they need two kinds of legal protection, both patent and copyright? Surely one is enough?
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Re: Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
Absolutely YES
Hardware designs can be protected by copyright-like rights
(e.g. semiconductor chip layouts etc)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask_work
you didn't know it, punky ?
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Re: SOFTWARE = HARDWARE
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No more freedom
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Re: No more freedom
It's called dependencies, except instead of software dependencies, we have created legal dependencies.
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Software patents that are overly broad should never be granted, and the sad fact is the USPTO office has been granting overly broad, vague patents in all disciplines for far too long.
If someone were to write an specific algorithm that solves a particular problem, that exact algorithm is patentable. But only that algorithm. If someone can come up with another means of solving that problem it should not violate the patent.
The argument that "All software is math, and you cannot patent math" does not apply. Simply because all sciences can be broken down into mathematical formula if you go far enough. For example Chemistry is really just applied physics and thus mathematics, but no one would seriously argue that the Pharma companies should not be able to patent their latest drugs.
If one wanted to make the argument to get rid of all patents, that perhaps society no longer needs them, I could agree with that. But there is no reason to exclude software over other types of patents simply because the USPTO isn't doing its job properly. The problem is with how USPTO grants patents (read: far too loosely). Not software patents specifically.
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Re: @MRK
Generally the companies doing interesting software choose to handle inventions as trade secrets.
Software patents are an unmitigated disaster: no one in the software industry uses them to find better solutions, they're just used as a tool for litigation.
I'm not convinced that better management at the USPTO would improve matters -- you'd need to reach the point where it was often faster and better to look for a patent than to solve the problem from first principles. (Assuming the goal of patents is to advance the useful arts and sciences, rather than benefiting established companies at the expense of new ones.) And given that patents don't generally explain the problems for which they are inappropriate, you'd often wind up with a suboptimal solution (not that that's different from the status quo).
Copyright for existing solutions (software libraries) is a different matter -- there's a lot of benefit in not having every company re-implement the same algorithms with their own new bugs -- but software patents aren't software, just a blueprint which would need to be filled in anyway.
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Re: Re: @MRK
I'm not saying Software Patents have not been a total disaster. I simply assert that the problem lies in how the courts have allowed Patent Trolling to run amok. And the USPTO granting obviously stupid patents.
The system needs reform. But I think tossing software patents out would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
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Re: Re: Re: @MRK
Mind you, RSA patent was framed as hardware patent - you can build a specialized chip for doing this
same with speech compression patents used for cell phones
Build a custom ASIC and voila - you have a piece of harware
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Re: RSA Patent
angry dude sputtered:
Actually, the patent itself promoted no progress at all. The most popular applications of RSA were in Free Software on the Internet (PGP, OpenSSL etc), where royalty deals don’t work.
RSA even released the patent into the public domain earlier than they had to. If the patent really was “promoting the progress”, they would have hung onto it for the full duration. After all, more duration, more progress, right?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
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Tossing patents
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
I've recently started reading it, and it's been enlightening so far.
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Re: Re: Re: @MRK
Where do you draw the line between a "hard" algorithm vs. other hard problems such as application scalability?
Yesterday's compression algorithm was "tough" yesterday and extremely trivial today. Did Huffman encoding deserve a patent?
If someone ever solves an NP-Complete problem, do you feel they will deserve a patent on the solution? Written up the right way, that patent would block/tax anyone solving all other NP-Complete problems.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
You are joking, right ?
Of course it did
As well as LZW compression, LPC or CELP coding for speech, MPEG encoding for audio etc.
Those are kinds of "software" patents that promote progress and improve quality of life, including your life, little retarded fella
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
Elementary Logic 101
Back to school, little punk
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
Elementary History 001
Back to bridge, little troll.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
Go look, most of the most important algorithms ever invented were never patented, so please explain why the people who created them need a patent motivation.
Huffman coding is still one of the most widely used compression algorithms, it is a part of a very large number of video and audio codecs, and all sorts of other stuff, then there's LZMA, and bz2 both of which were based on things that were never patented (AND they are open source so not only is there a good description of the algorithm out there, the actual implementation is disclosed).
Alan Turning and Alonzo Church didn't need patents to write some of the most important, foundational, papers in computer science. Claude Shannon didn't patent anything when he basically created information theory (on which all compression is based at some level)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
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Re: Re: @MRK
Which means that they do not advance the art by teaching. It also means that when someone does come along and teach with a patent that the idiot who used trade secret is toast, rightfully so.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
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Re: Re: Re: @MRK
I challenge you to find a single 'real' programmer who was ever taught via patents.
"It also means that when someone does come along and teach with a patent that the idiot who used trade secret is toast"
Hmm... Is that because the one that has the patent will now sue the one that did the original innovation? Wow, that sure sounds fair, right, and just. (should I put a sarc mark here?)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: @MRK
Of course, it's even worse than that when it comes to software. For the most part, the software patents we're seeing being rewarded aren't due to their genius, but merely for the fact that the applicant was the first to the USPTO.
Software is still a young enough field that just about every few days a new branch opens. Patents will (does) massively stiffle innovation in these fields.
Real programmers know this.
Not sure why RJR is even commenting on software patents. By his own philosophy he should not since he doesn't have any software patents (and he isn't a real programmer).
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Re: Re: Re: @MRK
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Re: Re: Re: @MRK
Except we have patents in place and trade secrets still exist. Microsoft has many patents yet their software is still closed source. There is little to no evidence that patents have eliminated or reduced the use of trade secrets.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
So we are in agreement!
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Re: Re: Re:
Yes, I think we agree then.
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or copyrightable either but that's another argument completely
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Patent trolls are the real theives
Give me a description of the device and I will have an undergraduate computer science class create an implementation for you. It really is a case of someone else stealing from me the product of my own intellect.
I can stumble upon an entire idea and implement it on my own without realizing someone else has already done it already (patented or not). This is very common in software. It's not terribly burdensome either. It's certainly a lesser burden than being in a minefield of patent trolls.
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Re: Patent trolls are the real theives
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Patentable software
In the process of getting my patent, I had a wonderful opportunity to see how screwed up the US Patent Office is. It took 4 years to get granted, during which time the examiner was citing totally unrelated patents as prior art reasons why it should not be granted. I don't know how much legal time was wasted on the process since that was handled by the company I worked for at the time. In any case, from the examiner comments on the rejections I could tell that he/she was clueless about what we were actually trying to patent - a means to extend classes and behavior in compiled (binary code) systems by specification and not programming - a key component to truly adaptive systems.
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Re: Patentable software
Lucky you
How about 4 years til 1st office action ?
"If the USPTO would subject software patent applications to the same rigor they subject hardware patents (non-obvious solution to a problem, no relevant prior art, etc),"
Ua kidding right ?
Perhaps you don't know but a simple ethernet plug has some 600 patents on it
Hardware patenting is also screwed big time
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Say what?
The idea that someone can wander in in 2006 and make a patent on this is insane.
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How can a fundamental concept of CS be patented? Is Newton's law of motion patented? How about the theory of relativity?
Just...gah!
I guess the only thing to do now is to patent Bubble Sort.... ;)
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Let's call the USPTO
http://www.google.com/patents?id=Szh4AAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=&f= false
The primary examiner's phone number (John Breene):
http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/contacts/tcmgrs.htm
John Breene, 571-272-4107, Supervisory Patent Examiner of Art Unit #2162. We should all give him a call and ask what he was thinking when he allowed this to go through, in the 4 years (2002-2006) he had to examine it.
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Piracy & Fairness Coalition Members Sponsorship
REAL programmers DO take the USPTO seriously. It is the REAL programmers who actually invent something who file for patents and second and third rate ones and their corporate counterparts who while about the patent system.
Mike, this patent is on a VERY narrow linked list concept and it seems unlikely that it has much use. It most certainly does not impact the majority of linked list uses. It is a shame that you and your sponsors saw fit to leave the impression that this patent covered the broad concept.
What I found more interesting is that finally we have a public head on admission that two members of the Coalition for Patent Piracy & Fairness are sponsoring TechDIRT posts on patent issues. This is most certainly the kind of "insight" we have come to expect.
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
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Re: Piracy & Fairness Coalition Members Sponsorship
I just finished reading the whole patent. Not only does it appear to cover any and all implementations of a multi linked list (except for a linked list with two or fewer items), it also appears to cover any software that makes use of such a list.
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Re: Piracy & Fairness Coalition Members Sponsorship
Ronald, no sponsors have any say in the content of these posts. I haven't spoken to anyone at Sun or Intel about any of the content I write, and haven't even talked to anyone at either company in months. Given what each company has said publicly about patents, neither agrees with my position.
Please, keep your conspiracy theories to being logical.
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Re: Re: Piracy & Fairness Coalition Members Sponsorship
Ha
everybody and his dog knows what you'll be writing about patents and copyrights
no need to even ask - they like your idiotic writings the way they are...
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Re: Piracy & Fairness Coalition Members Sponsorship
The whole point of this article is that this patent filer did NOT invent something. He took a very fundamental and very old data structure from computer science and slapped his name on it.
"Mike, this patent is on a VERY narrow linked list concept and it seems unlikely that it has much use."
What!? You'd be hard pressed to find an experienced programmer that hasn't crossed this one at some time.
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Re: Piracy & Fairness Coalition Members Sponsorship
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Re: Piracy & Fairness Coalition Members Sponsorship
To date, you have refused to do so.
We'll keep waiting...
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USPTO: Stupidity knows no bounds...
Now I can go out and patent a user interface that uses pointing devices like mice, trackballs, cursor keys, little sensors that track my eyeballs and, don't forget, spoken commands!
With the profits I'll startup US Robotics and develop robots whose sole purpose in existence is to inundate the USPTO with more and more troll patents and of course, find the violators!
What's not to like?
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Re: USPTO: Stupidity knows no bounds...
Ronald J. Riley,
I am speaking only on my own behalf.
Affiliations:
President - www.PIAUSA.org - RJR at PIAUSA.org
Executive Director - www.InventorEd.org - RJR at InvEd.org
Senior Fellow - www.PatentPolicy.org
President - Alliance for American Innovation
Caretaker of Intellectual Property Creators on behalf of deceased founder Paul Heckel
Washington, DC
Direct (810) 597-0194 / (202) 318-1595 - 9 am to 8 pm EST.
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Ronald J Riley's Stupidity knows no bounds...
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Re: Re: USPTO: Stupidity knows no bounds...
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PL-1 & Multiply Linked Lists
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do as I say
Or so Intel and Sun would like them to think. Their view is "if we didn't create it, then neither can anyone else".
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re
In cases like these, I have to ask myself if people like the USPTO are abysmally stupid, or criminals on the take. If I assume they're stupid, the logic just don't work out.
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Re: re
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Hey Ronald McDonald...
The mind is the culmination of experiences in ones life, the brain is it's hardware that stores those experiences and the processes around them...
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Re: Hey Ronald McDonald...
Then you can put your little retarded mind in a glass bottle and store it forever for humanity
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Prior Art
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How To Read A Patent
He also gives an interesting suggestion as to how Free Software developers should react when threatened with a patent lawsuit: that we should pool our intellects to come up with a workaround, and then make sure everybody in the world knows about that workaround. That way, even those licensees of the patent who are developing proprietary software can make use of that workaround. So the patent owner doesn’t just lose the case against the Free Software project, they lose their existing revenue stream as well.
Basically, patent holders should learn that Free Software developers are BAMFs, and stay away from them.
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Re: How To Read A Patent
yeah, right, I know
and I stay away from those FSF punks as long as they stay away from my patent
(which was not only published at uspto.gov but was also disclosed to eveybody at 2 major international conferences and the work was cited many many times in various publications around the world)
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Re: Re: How To Read A Patent
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Not doubly-linked list!
It's a patent on singly linked lists with additional chains of single links in case you need to traverse a subset of the list or the whole list in another order. Doubly-linked lists are a special case.
Yes, this is still obvious, and yes, there's still plenty of prior art.
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Re: Not doubly-linked list!
Gah, posted before I finished.
I looked through some old source code, and I did find an example of a general subset/reordering problem from the 4.3BSD source code circa 1986. Each process belongs to two doubly-linked list:
Linux today maintains no fewer than 14 pointers per task, and the code to do this predates 2006 by quite a while.
While that's the oldest source code I could find, it's not the oldest reference to the technique in the literature. The original paper on the DLX algorithm, popularised by Knuth in 2000 or so, was submitted for publication in 1978 by Hitotumatu and Noshita.
And, of course, compilers have been using multiply-linked lists for symbol table management essentially forever, since back in the day, you had to maintain both links to manage the hash table and links to manage nested namespaces. I have a book written in 1979 by Richard Bornat which describes a symbol table organisation which uses five pointers per node. The technique was considered to be well-known even then. I seem to recall, for example, the BLISS/11 monograph talking about multi-pointer lists for various tasks; that was written in 1974 about code written in 1971.
I think it'd be hard to find an earlier published reference than that for a very simple reason: Programmers don't like wasting time stating the obvious. And this is as obvious as it gets.
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Easy...
These approvals are made by people who don't have a full understanding of software. Such people can be easily misled into thinking that is common knowledge or even a tool of the trade is somehow patenable.
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I don't think this actually covers any sane implementation of a linked list... or it covers pretty much all of them, so either it is invalid (by prior art) or it covers essentially nothing...
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lists == specialized graphs
Software == Math and hardware == a turing complete machine that does Math.
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Still little understanding
First, it's not the doubly-linked list that is patents it's 'A method of linking lists by some unique means'.
Just as the patent 'on the steam engine' is not that simplistic, it would have been worded, and diagramed very specifically.
That means if you come up with another different way of using steam to drive an engine, you can go patent that.
As for software and hardware, it's all the same thing.
Software is an abstraction, on the real physical level it's a specific configuration of many millions of swtiches.
Next clock cycle, it's a new configuration, the invention is in the METHOD of achieving something, not the something itself.
You dont patent 'the steam engine' you patent a specific method of generating torque from stream'.
Is a switch any more or less 'real' or physical if it is turned ON of OFF ?? NO.
The invention is in how you turn on or off specific hardware in a specific combination to achieve a specific result. (what we call software, but can be hardware as well).
In the real physical world there is no distinction between software and hardware. As well if you want to get right down to it, electrons have mass, therefore they are physical, just as real as a transistor or a ford pickup.
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Still little understanding
First, it's not the doubly-linked list that is patents it's 'A method of linking lists by some unique means'.
Just as the patent 'on the steam engine' is not that simplistic, it would have been worded, and diagramed very specifically.
That means if you come up with another different way of using steam to drive an engine, you can go patent that.
As for software and hardware, it's all the same thing.
Software is an abstraction, on the real physical level it's a specific configuration of many millions of swtiches.
Next clock cycle, it's a new configuration, the invention is in the METHOD of achieving something, not the something itself.
You dont patent 'the steam engine' you patent a specific method of generating torque from stream'.
Is a switch any more or less 'real' or physical if it is turned ON of OFF ?? NO.
The invention is in how you turn on or off specific hardware in a specific combination to achieve a specific result. (what we call software, but can be hardware as well).
In the real physical world there is no distinction between software and hardware. As well if you want to get right down to it, electrons have mass, therefore they are physical, just as real as a transistor or a ford pickup.
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What a joke.
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