Microsoft Copies Idea, Admits It, Then Patents It

An anonymous reader writes "BlueJ is a popular academic IDE which lets students have a visual programming interface. Microsoft copied the design in their 'Object Test Bench' feature in Visual Studio 2005 and even admitted it. Now, a patent application has come to light which patents the very same feature, blatantly ignoring prior art."

Comments

Re:Sick Software "Patents"

[electrosoccertux]

If Microsoft get this patent Can anyone explain the grammar rule for why corporations are sometimes considered to be groups of people, in a context when it doesn't look like they should be? In this case, we aren't really talking about the collection of individuals at Microsoft, because "they" aren't getting the patent. The "entity" of Microsoft, the "corporation", so to speak, is the one getting the patent.

I've seen this done before but I'm wondering what the reasoning is behind it. I always thought subject verb agreement was the rule of thumb. Only way I could see the OP's grammar being right is if the subject gets treated as a plural subject (which like I said before, it's a single corporation, we don't care much about the plurality of the individuals that are a part of it).

Not trying to be grammar police or anything, just wondering. Anyone care to explain?

Re:Sick Software "Patents"

[Tango42]

I think it's just a common mistake. As I understand it, organisations should always be treated as singular entities, although if you're referring to a group of people explicitly, then it's plural: "Microsoft if...", "Microsoft's staff are..."

No sense of history!!

[HiThere]

(Well, no references, but this is how I heard it...)
A brass monkey was a triangular framework on which to pile cannon balls, back in the days of sailing ships. They were so sized that in Britain you could pile the cannon balls into a neat pyramid, with no extra space.

Now cannon balls are made of iron (steel?) and the brass monkey was made of brass...which had a different coefficient of thermal expansion. Occasionally, in ships that sailed north of the arctic circle, it would get so cold that the brass triangle shrank sufficiently that one of the bottom rows of cannon balls wouldn't fit...and you would end up with a bunch of loose cannon balls rolling around on deck, changing direction each time the ship rocked with a wave. Both unpleasant and dangerous. And funny when you think of it happening to someone else. (A cannon ball packs a LOT of momentum into a small package. DON'T try to stop it with your foot, or you'll be using a peg leg.)

I presume that most of the loose balls ended up going over the side, but that detail wasn't included in the report that was relayed to me (by someone from Boston whose family used to be connected to the sea a few generations back).

Believe this is you want. I can't prove either way, but I found it convincing.

Re:No sense of history!!

[goobar]

Seems you fell for an urban legend: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/b/brassmonkey s.htm/

Summary of the eRumor

This piece of alleged history explains that in the olden days of sailing ships, cannon balls were stacked on the decks on brass plates called "monkeys." The plates had indentions in them that held the balls on the bottoms of the stacks. Brass, however, expands and contracts with the temperature and if it got cold enough, the cannon balls could fall...giving real foundation to the phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"

The Truth

According to the United States Navy Historical Center, this is a legend of the sea without historical justification. The center has researched this because of the questions it gets and says the term "brass monkey" and a vulgar reference to the effect of cold on the monkey's extremities, appears to have originated in the book "Before the Mast" by C.A. Abbey. It was said that it was so cold that it would "freeze the tail off a brass monkey." The Navy says there is no evidence that the phrase had anything to do with ships or ships with cannon balls.