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Microsoft Patents 'IsNot', Enlists WTO
Milhouse102 writes "I was just reading an article on The Register about Microsoft's offshore patent war following Ballmer's recent outburst in Asia. I came across this little nugget, it seems MS has patented BASIC's IsNot operator."
I am going to patent "is too" and "nuh uh".
I hate sigs.
Somehow, this IsNot funny.
Hmmm Microsoft patents IsNot so we can't say Microsoft IsNot Linux or Mac, right? Maybe because they don't want us to say Microsoft IsNot good? IsNot fair? IsNot using best practice? I guess they are trying to surpress our complaining.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Me: "IsNot" a valid patent.
Microsoft: "IsTo"! damn forgot to patent that one!
And now, Microsoft can counqer the world... *Evil Laugh*
But seriously, is there prior art? (i'm not old enough to know :P)
For future applications, the patent office will have to pay them to say "This IS NOT original".
Microsoft recently announced patents on the Instructions PRINT and GOTO, the Variable "Hello world" and the concept of Line Numbers (with particular reference to 10 and 20.)
This is a direct attack against GNU/Linux, no longer will GNU be GNU isNot UNIX!
Slashdot headline, July 23, 2006 -- Patent IsNot Granted.
800 posts later, slashdotters still haven't deciphered the meaning of the headline.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Hey! That's the prior art we need to stop this thing.
It depends on what your definition of "is" is...
IsPatented - returns true if method/function/operator is patented
Programmers should be able to tell what methods and operators are patented before they call them
IF not IsPatented( IsNot() ) Then
IsNot(....
ELSE
OneTimeIsNotHandle = PayToUseIsNot(CC#, CC Type, CC Expiration)
OneTimeIsNotHandle(....
END IF
That's nothing. I think my sister has the patent on "IsSo".
In other news... (From an old Onion article)
REDMOND, WA--In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
With the patent, Microsoft's rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and ones--the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and programs--unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant.
"Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975," Gates told reporters. "For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals."
Read More.
--
Sounds like a scam, but it works.
Free Flat Screens | Free iPod Photo |
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
But I do have the patent on IsToo non-enumarable infinity, witch is larger then IsToo infinity. I win!
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
There is a sublime although disturbing elegance in the fact that it is illogical to allow MS to patent a logic operator
I am currently trying to patent multiplication so all of you owe me a nickel everytime you times.
From the patent application: Such a language construction is ungrammatical, requires more typing and violates the philosophy on which BASIC rests. It would be helpful therefore, if a single more intuitive operator could perform the function that the combination of the two operators Is and Not typically performs.
Microsoft is simultaneously announcing the publication of an updated version of The Elements of Style, revised specifically for Visual BASIC programmers.
"We're concerned with the literacy rates among VB programmers," says Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. "How can programmers learn to write correctly in English when they're exposed on a day-to-day basis with ungrammatical programming constructs?"
Not everyone agrees with the initiative. Some people are expressing concern that Microsoft is concentrating on grammatical correctness at the expense of program correctness. Stay tuned for further details on this exciting development in the annals of programming history.
EricMore humor here
A system whereby a computer arbitrarily switches to a debug info mode wherein the screen turns blue and displays a stack trace, register dump and other inscrutabile information in a grey fonr, then spontaneously reboots. This would have to happen both randomly and not, and the user may or may not percieve or be able to ascribe this to any particular cause. We should note in our patent that the only way to properly exit this mode is to format the disk drives.
no longer will GNU be GNU isNot UNIX!
Yes, but GAU Ain't UNIX doesn't have that same academic feel to it...
...14 year-old AOL subscriber Iain Polowski, 15, has lodged a patent application for the "Me too!" expression which he developed for use in internet chat rooms and meeting sites.
"i started hte develepoment process ovr 6 month ago when my mom baught me a comptutor for my birthday. i realised that most of that i said was saying the same thing as somebody else but it was hard to say it the same but differently. si i invented the process of typing 'Me too!' as a mechanicalism to show agreement with somebody, while saving on band-witdh and time", Iain said in an Online interview with Wired today. "What colour bra?", he continued before adding, "shit sorry, wrong window".
Microsoft's director of licensing David Kaefer indicated that MSN chat users who subscribed to their licence indemnification program would not have anything to worry about, raising speculation that Microsoft are preparing a hostile takeover of Iain. "Me too!", added Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer.
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
... we will have to invent an "isnt" operator
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
He won't know I did it for another 260 years.
800 posts later, Slashdotters still are complaining about the dupe.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
It's OK. I'm just finishing up my implementation of the "Ain't" operator, which will be released under the GPL.
GNU is Not Unix.
....
Pine Is Not Elm.
Wine Is Not an Emulator.
Technically, it isn't Microsoft Corp. isn't claiming to have invented fire, it's Paul A. Vick Jr., Costica Corneliu Barsan, and Amanda K. Silver.
In most situations where Microsoft employees act like rat bastards people place the blame on this nebulous entity "Microsoft", but for a patent application the names of real people to blame are published for the whole world to see! What kind of circle of friends must you have if you're not too ashamed to put your name on such a blatant attempt at defrauding the legal system as a means of stifling your competitors?
"So, what did you do at work today?"
"I filed a patent for pointer comparisons in BASIC, pretending to have invented a programming technique older than I am in order to help my criminal employer keep competiting compilers incompatible and thus entrap our customers. And you?"
"Oh, same old, same old. Those puppies don't just drown themselves, you know!"
NonMSVisualBasic (NMSVB for short) is identical in every respect to Microsoft Visual Basic [trademark owned by Microsoft, all rights reserved by them] except that it lacks an IsNot operator. Instead, please use one of the following methods:
- !Is()
- MicrosoftSucksAss()
- SoftwarePatentsSuckAss()
- NotIs()
We apologize for the inconvenience; please direct all further questions on this issue to billg@microsoft.com.Even easier: in USPTO database, it is labeled "United States Patent Application". Patents that have been granted are labeled "United States Patent", without the word Application.
probably a vi user. I bet his ESC key is worn out also.
been there. done that.
Say, this is bad for GNU. You know, GNU isNot unix.
it's free with your purchase of "No's Treasure"
... at a store near you.
Conservatives: sugar and spice and everything nice
Liberals: baby eating, blood drinker, satan worshippers, terrorist sympathisers, want to ban the bible and feed christians to the lions, pedophiles and drug addicts
There. Isn't that better, dumbass?
probably a vi user. I bet his ESC key is worn out also.
No, but you should see his colon....
Never mind, forget I said that.
Does this mean that Microsoft can sue GWB when he says, "Our children isnot educated?"
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
what if it IsNot patented?
could microsoft claim the patent system infringed on "their" IP? then maybe they'll sue the patent office out of business and then no more ridiculous patents will be made. a win-win situation!
Move Sig, for great justice.
Paraphrasing Orwell only slightly, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two is not five; everything else will follow."
[
I would make that static.
Well, there are no pointers in Java. References, sure, but not pointers. Which is why, if you try to dereference a null one, you get a NullPointerException.
Oh, wait...
Muerde mi brilloso culo de metal! ;-)
Cheers,
Adolfo
It depends on what the definition of "IsNot" is.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
People just refuse to accept that Microsoft is an innovator. But this patent proves it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This may be a sign that an MS employee gets a bonus every time they patent something. No question that MS has patent fever-- what better way to get everything under the sun patented than to connect an employee perk to them?
Look for MS to next patent the GOTO HELL command-- while me, I'm trying to get the GOSUB HELL command patented and hope there's a RETURN down there somewhere... :-)
In Aussie BASIC, patent pending, the combined use of the IsCloseEnough and NotReally statements would negate the use of such an anti karma item as "IsNot"
Actually there must be a large number of extensions to the BASIC language that could be patentable, timee to dig throught the source code...
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Well your addition pattent violates my bitwise-or patent (which is how all CPUs do addition) but I'll license it to you for a share of the royalties on addition ;)