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Microsoft Seeks Patent On Brain-Based Development
theodp writes "With its just-published patent application for Developing Software Components Based on Brain Lateralization, Microsoft provides yet another example of just how broken the patent system is. Microsoft argues that its 'invention' of having a Program Manager act as an arbitrator/communicator between a group of right-brained software users and left-brained software developers mimics 'the way that the brain communicates between its two distinct hemispheres.' One of the 'inventors' is Ray Ozzie's Technical Strategist. If granted, the patent could be used to exclude others from making, using, or selling the 'invention' for 17 years."
So they just patented the concept of a manager. I really hope Microsoft enforces this one.
I wonder if I can get a patent on a 'for' loop and then declare all software that uses it to be violating my patent?
Fucking ridiculous.
Only in America.
The left brain doesn't know what the right brain is doing at Microsoft.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
How sad that Microsoft considers metric-driven software development that connects users and developers a new invention. :-(
"At Microsoft, these two halves of the brain come together in the colon."
1) This is only an application. Any dumbass can file an application so long as he pays the fees.
2) The poster doesn't even know how long patents last, let alone anything relating to what is *actually* wrong with the patent system.
Just my two eurocents (since they hold their value better).
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Microsoft should seek patent on brain-damaged development. At least with that one they will have the monopoly on prior art.
I read some of the patent application. It's the standard format, but the subject matter is remarkable. I can only think that Microsoft is testing what they can get away with at the USPTO.
If I had the money, I would patent the placement of pineapple on pizza in adjacent hexagonal cells to reduce juice runoff. I would have diagrams. It is novel, non-obvious, and I doubt there is prior art. Then we'd see if the folks in the USPTO are even reading these things.
As a (small) stockholder of MSFT, I have to wonder, don't they have better things to do?
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
Microsoft can pry my Corpus Callosum from my cold, dead brain. I think either God can claim or Darwin can demonstrate some sort of prior art here. Just need to schedule a court appearance for one of them...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The concept of program manager is the single most fucked up aspect of Microsoft culture, IMO. Basically, the assumption is that developers can not, on a fundamental level:
1. Talk to each other directly
2. Understand what the customer needs
3. Deliver software on time
Anyone with any brain at all sees immediately that all three assumptions are pure bovine excrement, but there's a large layer of well entrenched PM's at Microsoft, up to about 30% of each product team. 95% of these folks do absolutely nothing but (mis)communicate, hold meetings, "manage releases" (whatever the heck that means) and manage up. The remaining 5% are worth their weight in rare earth metals, but they're a tiny minority and they would be better used in a position of authority, like a Project Manager. Program manger has no reports and no authority over either development or test. Oftentimes they have no specialized education and no area expertise. They are randomly assigned to "areas" and told to "spec them out". Most of them even have to design UI, despite not having any usability or UI design experience (I'm sure that explains a lot). So they throw together a primitive spec, and the developer (who is typically an area expert) then spends a lot of time trying to politely explain how big a pile of flaming poo their spec is and why certain things need to be done differently to be even possible.
The worst part is, PM role is typically considered something of a fast track to management. So you end up with a lot of people who have not a slightest idea what they're talking about making strategic decisions.
So I say, let them have it. The rest of the world will just assume that their developers and testers have a brain. Seems to be a pretty safe assumption to make, most of the time.
They need to patent their OS releases... it mimics the way a human being takes a dump.
You seem to assume that if they read it, they'd send you your pizza patent back and tell you to go fly a kite. That's actually incorrect. You'd probably just get the patent anyway. Heck, you could even patent the looks of a pizza.
A patent attorney actually patented his son's way to swing in an oval shape on a swing. The patent office originally didn't want to let it through. The father argued that although there are a couple of patents on swing designs, none is about how to swing on one. He got the patent.
IIRC, someone patented a cap with an american football goalpost on top, and a little ball on a spring to bob around between the posts. It's so stupid, it makes even a propeller beanie seem decent by comparison.
Speaking of american football, there's IIRC a patent on a crochet "replica" of a helmet.
A quick googling also produced this abomination of a hat that claims to be patented.
Etc.
So basically not only you would probably get a patent on that pizza layout, it wouldn't even be the worst you could do with patents. By far. All legal and with them actually reading it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Is Microsoft only a victim?
Haven't they implied on more than one occasion that Linux is violating X patents?
That sure doesn't sound like a victim...
A little more reading will also tell you that functional lateralization is far from exact; for example, while right-handers typically have speech centers located in the left hemisphere, lefties are more likely to have speech control divided between both hemispheres. Are there statistical tendencies in function lateralization? In so far as there are tendencies in function localization, yes. Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with saying that people have certain information-processing preferences. (Oh, and by the way, it's usually much easier to just ask people what their preferences are, rather than using one of those lame MBTI tests. Self-reported preferences don't automatically become "scientific" by assigning them alphanumerical codes.) However, the ideas that you can (1) infer properties of someone's neurological structure based on their job title, and (2) use said properties to devise an optimal communications strategy, are 100% grade-A #1 hogwash. The media's gross unwillingness (or, more likely, inability) to interpret basic research leads to all kinds of farces like this. (For example - the next time someone refers to that old chestnut about how we use only 10% of our brains, consider what the result of using 100% of your brain would be: a skull-fucking seizure. Med students, back me up! Or tell me off; I just want to know...)
(begin microrant) But the worst exploiters of this pseudo-scientific garbage are educational consultants - you know, the ones who neurotic mothers pay (either directly, at clinics, or indirectly, through shitty-book sales) to have their children diagnosed as misunderstood geniuses. "Oh, my little Johnny! Sure, he gets Cs and Ds in every subject in school, but that's just because he's a special learner! He's a right-brained, visual-spatial prodigy with mild autism and extra cheese, just like Einstein! The teachers just don't know how to deal with him!" Here's a hint, folks: the more stringent the conditions under which someone's genius is supposed to manifest itself, the more likely that said genius is nothing more than neurotic maternal rationaliz
Tom Smykowski: Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org