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Software Patents on Memory Allocators?

Posted by Cliff on from the the-child-who-cried-'Patents!' dept.

Emery Berger asks: "I'm a PhD. student at the University of Texas and the author of Hoard, an open source memory allocator for multiprocessors. After posting information about the latest pre-release to the Hoard mailing list, I received a cease-and-desist letter from Microquill, Inc., which markets memory management software, calling for me to stop distributing Hoard. They are claiming that my latest version of Hoard, which does DLL patching when running on Windows, infringes on their patent (which actually dynamically rewrites arbitrary executables). Because DLL patching is prior art and my technique is quite different from theirs, I think I'm in the clear. However, if anyone knows of systems from 1996 or earlier based on DLL patching (or any dynamic rewriting of a running executable), especially to change the memory allocator, that would really help."

4 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Purify by V.+Mole · · Score: 2, Informative

    Purify (now a Rational product) worked (On HP-UX, at least) by rewriting the system libraries with a new allocator, etc. I'm 90% sure that this was before '96. Hmmm, don't remember if it was the shared libraries or just the static ones. But it might be a starting point.

  2. The Game Genie for the Nintendo. by His+name+cannot+be+s · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Game Genie I had for my 8 bit NES did that. It dynamically patched the running game to keep me from running out of lives.

    In addition I had a SuperSnapshot cartridge for my Commodore64 that did the same thing, and that was back in ... 1988ish?

    I'd say you are quite in the clear on that one.

    --
    "...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
  3. Novell's Netware by itwerx · · Score: 2, Informative

    Netware 3.x (way prior to '96!) had several patches which loaded at run-time. Some of them fixed problems with memory allocation. Not sure where you'd get good evidence but an email to their tech-support might yield some results.
    Novell is one of the few companies who actually has their programmers do tech-support on a rotating basis. Just ask that the email be forwarded to one of the OS programmers and they'd probably be willing to at least make a statement to that effect.

  4. Re:show me the claims by Ristretto · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is a reply from Emery Berger. I've added links to the relevant patents in the text of the first letter from MicroQuill.