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Microsoft's 'IsNot' Patent Continued...
An anonymous reader writes " According to the patent application--filed in mid-November by Paul Vick, lead architect for Visual Basic .Net at Microsoft; Amanda Silver, a program manager on the Visual Basic team; and an individual in Bellevue, Wash., named Costica Barsan--the IsNot operator is described as a single operator that allows a comparison of two variables to determine if the two point to the same location in memory." This article continues the tale started last november, and here is an eWeek story on the same subject.
So what's the smallest pattern of bits that Microsoft can fairly claim to hold a patent on?
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
We will all have to pay royalties to MS when using the English language. The fees are based on Scrabble's point system, with 1 cent per point. Pls. sign up at www.microsoft.com with your bank-account or credit card information and will send you our patented verbal-word-counter to be attached to your brain.
Thinking the words are discounted at 10% over spoken words!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
MS announced today their plans to patent the string object, the ampersand, coffee, comfy chairs, and the letter 'T'.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
I'd better finish filing out my patent application for "Is" before MS finds out. It's pretty brilliant, if I do say so. "Is" compares two pointers and returns "true" if they contain the same value.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
It all depends on what the meaning of the word IsNot, is not.
is too!
is not!
is too!
hey, this gives me an idea...if two variables are equal in value, then I can invent an new keyword, the "ISTOO" relational operator! I'll copyright/patent/trademark it right away and make millions (billions!?). Why heck, I could probably sue M$ for the use of the equal sign operator...obviously it infringes on my idea.
If I patent XOR does that make me a great hax0r?
I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't tried to patent patenting itself.
That would be no more absurd than some of its other patent requests.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
If my patent application for the BitwiseIsNot operator says anything, this one will be rejected. My idea was pretty novel at the time, though.
BitwiseIsNot: a binary bit-level operation that returns 1 in the bits where the two numbers differ and 0 else. I call it BitwiseIsNot.
e.g. 0110 BitwiseIsNot 1111 = 1001.
For each bit you can write it A BitwiseIsNot B = AB + A'B'
If I h ad a patent lawyer and a few million dollars, then I'd surely have gotten that patent.
I used to work for a company that trademarked the word "xor" (that was the name of the company, now defunct, 450 souls at the height of the dot-com boom). BTW no one (outside of the computer industry) knew how to prononunce xor, so they ran a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal explaining that it is prononuced "X like the letter, or like the word"
Will the outcome depend on what the definition of 'IsNot' is not?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Sesame Street beat Micro$haft to the punch on that one.
Rumor has it that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Honest Politicians Society and Slashdotters with girlfriends are all filing suit claiming that they're proof of prior art...
In all seriousness, the fact that a patent like this is even entertained is a more than a bit disturbing. How in the world one can patent a logical operator is simply beyond me...
In other words, the creation of a Microsoft specific "equals" means that code years down the road will require Microsoft specific tools to edit/change/run this code. I call shenanigans!
Well I can't help you. Stop calling me!
Dear MS (can I call you MS?)
I heard about your new IsNot, I think it is so elloquent and r33t, but someone has gone and copied you with a '==' object comparator that decides if the references point to the same memory area!
I say sue!
Yours,
A Microsoft Fan-Boy
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
It is about time that Europe puts some tough law on software patents in place. Otherwise I fear that VB programmers will emigrate en masse to Europe. Please keep them over there!
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Can anyone explain why IsNot != !=?
Microsoft IsNot sane.
Microoft IsNot reasonable.
Microsoft IsNot ethical.
Why shouldn't they get to patent "IsNot"?
Insert witty sig here.
... on what your definition of the operator isNot, is. :-)
- Kevin
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
is for the Linux Corporation to patent the IsTo operator and the competition can devolve to a completely childish level.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
> When they're resorting to patenting what appear to me to be boolean operations with an object-oriented twist, that's a bad sign about what real plans the company doesn't have.
Yes, but think how useful it could be in their advertising campaign:
IsNot reliable
IsNot secure
IsNot a good idea
...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They're only calling you 'cause they're too polite to call the person they really want.
If a patent is given for this, then it proves that the patent system is truely broken beyond repair.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
sed -e 's/isNot/!=/g' msCode.c > ./gnuCode.c>
2 1337 4 u!
This computer application implements the isNot operator and therefore violates microsoft's patent.
(From the Google Cache, couldn't find it on onion.com)
Microsoft Patents Zeroes, Ones