USPTO Issues Microsoft A Patent For 60's Technology

theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO issued U.S. patent no. 6,594,674 to Microsoft for a System and method for creating multiple files from a single source file, which describes a fundamental IBM Mainframe file structure, the Partitioned Data Set, that's been around since the 60's and is familiar to virtually anyone who's used a mainframe text editor in the past five decades. To the amazement of readers of an IBM newsgroup, neither Microsoft nor the USPTO examiners seem to be aware of the existence of the Mainframe-based prior art, which is not cited in the patent."

Comments

Amazed?

[reynaert]

To the amazement of readers of an IBM newsgroup, neither Microsoft nor the USPTO examiners seem to be aware of the existence of the Mainframe-based prior art, which is not cited in the patent."

I don't understand why they are amazed. Mainframe technology is essentielly the Dark Age of Computing. Nobody knows about it, and no place teaches it.

What are "Partitioned Data Sets"? Dunno, I've never heard of them. The link certainly doesn't explain, that's just dinosaur mumbo jumbo. (And what's so special about that editor screenshot?)

This is by the way IBM is porting Linux to their mainframes. Customers might need the high reliability etc., but they still won't buy them if they can't find anyone who knows how to use the native operating systems, let alone program them.

Re:Amazed?

[linuxwrangler]

Wrong. What is true is that people get immersed in their own areas of expertise and when they look up they are "amazed" that there is more to the world. Just look at todays /. story about TRON. How many IT people do you think have heard of that? Almost none (till today), I'd wager. That doesn't change the fact that there are billions of copies in use.

The mainframe is far from dead. There are lots of jobs that are better handled by something other than sticking a bunch of x86 processors in a room together and many of those jobs are better handled by mainframes.

Microsoft is not staffed by dummies - they are able to research the literature. In this instance it appears that they screwed up or they lied.

Re:Microsoft knew..

[John Hasler]

> It's the USPTO people who are missing this
> experience to find prior art. But can we really
> expect one (government) organization to have deep
> experience in every field?

That is _exactly_ what the USPTO is supposed to do: employ examiners expert in every field. They are also supposed to require them to thoroughly research every application.

> There's something fundamentally wrong with the
> idea of the USPTO.

Yes, but this isn't it. Thirty years ago bullshit patents like this were not granted.