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HP Patents Bignum Implementation From 1912

Posted by kdawson on from the can-you-spell-prior-art dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The authors of GMP (the GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library) were invited to join Peer-to-Patent to review HP's recent patent on a very old technique for implementing bignums because their software might infringe. Basically, HP's patent claims choosing an exponent based on processor word size. If you choose a 4-bit word size and a binary number, you end up working in hexadecimal. Or for a computer with a 16-bit word and a base-10 number, you use base 10,000 so that each digit of the base-10,000 number would fit into a single 16-bit word. The obvious problem with that is that there's plenty of prior art here. Someone who spent a few minutes Googling found that Knuth describing the idea in TAOCP Vol. 2 and other citations go back to 1912 (which implemented the same algorithm using strips of cardboard and a calculating machine). None of this can be found in the 'references cited' section. Even though the patent examiner did add a couple of references, they appear to have cited some old patents. The patent issued a few months ago was filed back in October of 2004, and collected dust at the USPTO for some 834 days."

144 comments

  1. What I want to know is... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...how many of these blatant abuses actually get overturned?

    In particular, is there any way sanity can enter the process without having to challenge it in court?

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:What I want to know is... by stms · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You must be new here, sanity rarely enters the process even when it does get challenged in court.

    2. Re:What I want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In particular, is there any way sanity can enter the process without having to challenge it in court?

      The whole idea is not that the patent has any basis but that it is ridiculously expensive to go to court. This puts a huge entry barrier around the market and protects the large incumbents. In essence, patents are now being used to protect large corporations from small entrepreneurs - exactly the opposite of their original intention.

    3. Re:What I want to know is... by Artifakt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sanity has never been part of the US patent process. Here's some pre-computer examples.

      1. An inventor was able to patent a design for mule shaped bookends, while another was denied a patent on a mule shaped balloon. The Patent Office ruled that sawing a brass mule in half was non-obvious and original, while blowing up a rubber mule wasn't. In a similar area, dying coal blue wasn't novel, but dying coal blue with your company logo was.

      2. Aspirin was patented well after a similar process for making Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale was. The office decided, with no precidents, that making the same chemical in pure enough form that it was safe for medicinal use was novel. When challenged on it, the USPO said they were going through a bottle a day deciding patent claims and were not about to reject rewarding this claim no matter what the law said.

      3. A patent was once denied on a chemical process because that chemical was already mentioned in industry literature from more than a year before. The problem? What the literature said was: "It is impossible to synthesize chemical X. No one will ever do it."

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    4. Re:What I want to know is... by pnewhook · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Patents are for the most part completely useless. We should just get rid of the entire patent process. It's not needed.

      --
      Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
    5. Re:What I want to know is... by Gerzel · · Score: 1

      It comes right down to the process is overloaded. We don't put enough people and energy into maintaining the patent system and it is geared solely toward protecting large industry and business.

    6. Re:What I want to know is... by quantumplacet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      [citations needed]

      very badly since you seem to be the only person on the entire internet to have ever heard any of these stories.

    7. Re:What I want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Except for patent trolls, you know...

    8. Re:What I want to know is... by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      That essentially means that the patent office is a bunch of morons where people ends up when they for some reason can't get a productive job but still can't be put into unemployment since it would make the government look bad.

      Maybe it's time to invalidate all patents and start over with a new set of rules for patents. Let a patent be valid for at most 12 months from the date of the application. That would keep competition on it's edge.

      Today too many man-hours are wasted on patents and the process around patents. Enough to delay progress instead of promoting progress.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    9. Re:What I want to know is... by NickFortune · · Score: 1

      It comes right down to the process is overloaded. We don't put enough people and energy into maintaining the patent system and it is geared solely toward protecting large industry and business.

      The question then is whether it is possible to put enough people and energy into maintaining the patent system.

      Certainly it is to the advantage of those building IP thickets that the system should be overloaded. The less time the examiner has, the greater the chance of a spurious patent getting rubber stamped. So allocating resources to the patent office isn't necessarily going to help, since the system's abusers will likely increase the volume of submissions.

      Worse, there's an asymmetry to the workload involved. Examining a patent should be a process of careful and painstaking research. That's not necessarily a problem when the patents being examined are the result of a similar painstaking effort. The trouble is that if the submitter doesn't care about novelty, then they can skip most of the research. This means that a bogus patent can be drafted and submitted with far less effort than that required to properly examine and reject same.

      I don't think the system can be fixed by throwing money at it. I rather doubt it can be fixed at all.

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
    10. Re:What I want to know is... by pipatron · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We're trying to do this in Sweden. Spread the word. :)

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    11. Re:What I want to know is... by AlecC · · Score: 1

      More relevantly, does the patent process serve society as it now exists? The process was invented about three centuries ago, when the pace of progress was much slower and research tools were much weaker, so that it was plausible to protect at least some inventions (e.g. industrial processes) by keeping them secret. It intended to protect society against two ills: people not bothering to make or exploit inventions because they would be ripped off by others, and people keeping inventions secret to they were not as widely exploited as would be useful for society.

      Both of these reasons are much weaker in our current technological age. People generally manage to make quite a fair amount out of things that not patentable. While they do, of course, apply for patents, in many cases they would still product their products without patent protection - and even with patent protection, copiers often find ways round the protection. And reverse engineering is often good enough to bypass the secrecy approach: while your product may be difficult to reverse engineer, I think it would be unwise to depend upon that.

      I would not deny that the patent system provides some means of protecting and rewarding genuine inventors. But I question whether the cost of the system is worth the benefit it brings in today's technological world.

      --
      Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
    12. Re:What I want to know is... by Svartalf · · Score: 1

      I'm largely convinced that the USPTO is doing much harder stuff than a bottle of Asprin per day, based on the experience I've had up to this point with the system (And I HAVE had experience, based on prior filings done by myself...).

      --
      I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
    13. Re:What I want to know is... by kenshin33 · · Score: 1

      Well, one simply shift the the burden to start (big fines in case of a bogus patent). Buffering of introducing delays (artificial or natural); we'll take the time we need to study the application no matter the workload we have, that should avoid a DoS like attack (login program is a good example, it waits a couple of seconds before showing the prompt after a failed login attempt). when a system like this one is in equilibrium there would be less and less bogus applications (IMHO).

    14. Re:What I want to know is... by NickFortune · · Score: 1

      Well, one simply shift the the burden to start (big fines in case of a bogus patent).

      A good place to start, but I'd have to question the simplicity of the measure. For instance, the genuine inventor stands to be wiped out by fines that a multinational would pay out of petty cash. Politically, this would be very hard to implement.

      Buffering of introducing delays (artificial or natural); we'll take the time we need to study the application no matter the workload we have, that should avoid a DoS like attack

      I was thinking of DDOS attacks as well. The trouble here is that you can't just drop all the pending patent applications and start with empty pipes. Taking the time to do everything by the book would stall the entire process completely.

      Now if you could limit the rate at which a submitter could apply, that might help ... assuming you can stop patents being filed by employees in their own name and simultaneously signed over to the company, for instance. It's also a bit rough on the genuine researcher who makes a single breakthrough that yields five genuinely patentable inventions.

      when a system like this one is in equilibrium there would be less and less bogus applications (IMHO).

      Which doesn't mean the equilibrium point is necessarily reachable, of course. And if it is, there's no guarantee that the equilibrium level would be one that serves the purposes for which patents were designed. I can image a system where Microsoft, HP, IBM and a dozen other tech giants published perhaps a dozen high quality patents every year, but where no-one outside the group could afford to make a patent application, and no one could afford to licence any of these patents except as part of a cross licensing deal.

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
    15. Re:What I want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you mean acetylsalicylic acid. Otherwise, it would just be...spirin?

    16. Re:What I want to know is... by Gerzel · · Score: 1

      I think there need to be legal ramifications if a patent is sumbitted, approved and then is shown to be unworthy due to prior art.

      Or at least there needs to be a prior art defence for any patent. If the accused infringer can show that there is in-fact substantial prior art and that the patent is non-novel...yeah I know pipe dream.

    17. Re:What I want to know is... by NickFortune · · Score: 1

      Or at least there needs to be a prior art defence for any patent. If the accused infringer can show that there is in-fact substantial prior art and that the patent is non-novel...yeah I know pipe dream.

      The problem isn't so much the defence as the expense of challenging and overturning a patent. The big players can afford to tie the case up in court for years. Meanwhile, the smaller party isn't getting any income, and are bleeding money through legal fees.

      And it's hard to see how to fix that in such a way as doesn't lend itself to further abuse.

      I think the only solution in the long run will be to for governments to stop telling people what ideas they can and cannot use.

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
  2. Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by radtea · · Score: 0, Troll

    I wish the summary said something about what the patent was about. I guess I'll check back in a few hours and scroll down to read the explanation that someone who has actually bothered to read and understand the claims has posted--I can't be bothered to be that guy this time, but I'm sure someone else will do it.

    Just think, if /. summaries on these stories bothered to tell us what the patent was about we could all be spared that effort, but we all know from long experience that they don't, so there's no point in responding to the summary with outrage unless you want to look like a completely newless clewbie.

    --
    Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    1. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by nebaz · · Score: 2, Informative

      In the example section they give, they are dividing up the "bigdecimal" in decimal, rather than binary components. The number of decimal digits depends on the word size. For example, an 8 bit word has 0-255 as possible storage, but in decimal, you could store 0-99, but not 0-999. So you would store the number 102,345 as 10, 23, and 45 in 3 separate words if you had an 8 bit word. They claim that this is more efficient than binary for rendering back to decimal, though I can't see how this is more efficient than straight binary storage.

      --
      Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
    2. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by _merlin · · Score: 1, Informative

      If you had comprehension skills, you'd be able to ascertain that it relates to an implementation of an arbitrary precision numerics engine, a la GNU MultiPrecision (aka GMP). The technique has been around for close to a century, if not longer.

    3. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wish the summary said something about what the patent was about.

      Actually, the summary explains the whole thing:

      Basically, HP's patent claims choosing an exponent based on processor word size. If you choose a 4-bit word size and a binary number, you end up working in hexadecimal. Or for a computer with a 16-bit word and a base-10 number, you use base 10,000 so that each digit of the base-10,000 number would fit into a single 16-bit word.

      It's okay if you don't understand the explanation, but perhaps you should try reading the summary before complaining about it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by Vexorian · · Score: 1

      straight binary storage would improve memory usage but it does not improve CPU usage incredibly much. However, using a power of 10 as base is helpful when converting the input/output decimals to bignum, since it is trivial instead of requiring successive divisions. Let's call it a case of pick your poison. However, that's not what the patent is about, it is about choosing a base according to the word size... The base may be a power of 10 or 2 if you like but the patent (According to the summary) merely says that you should choose a bigger base when the word size is bigger... This is perhaps a very obvious realization to even the slower CS student, but hey, it is patented!

      --

      Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
    5. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by kainino · · Score: 1

      To the best of my knowledge:

      Without this, if you want to find out the higher up (leftmost) digits, you have to consider every single binary digit (except the last few) to find out what it's going to be.

      With this, you can just say, "what's the digit at byte x?" and you will get to digit. But this is just about the same thing as storing bignums as strings (in decimal, hex, base64, whatever).

      --
      Please disregard any grammatical errors in the above message. I normally perfectly English just well!
    6. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by achbed · · Score: 1

      ...perhaps you should try reading...

      You're new here, aren't you?

    7. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by Ciggy · · Score: 1

      SED
      LDA #$12
      CLC
      ADC #$19

      The Accumulator of the 6502 8-bit processor (circa 1978) now contains 0x31; the top nybble contains the MSD in decimal.

      Ok, so this is actually only using only 1/2 the word size - 4 bits - packed 2 to a byte.

      But this isn't what seems to be implied by the summary, namely, instead of using a BCD style, you only use the first B^n numbers of the word, ieeg for 8-bit and 10^2, you use 0x00-0x63 to represent 0-99 and you still have to convert the binary to decimal, just that each word contains a single base B number, which for B=10^n would be n decimal digits.

      And that sounds very similar to the problem we were set as the end of the 1st year of my maths degree back in 1984 as part of a computing unit:: calculate every [decimal] digit of 2^3000 using a CBM PET. In BASIC the obvious answer was to use an array of "bignums" (each holding, say, 0-999) and then to print out each element with leading zeros (except the first). (Choosing 0-999 means that each element contains the "normal" 3 digit split for writing big numbers.)

      --

      A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
      A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
    8. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by pipatron · · Score: 1

      I only read the headline, it's faster that way.

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    9. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by redalien · · Score: 1

      Indeed, it was taught as part of my undergraduate degree, for chrissakes.

    10. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by radtea · · Score: 1

      Actually, the summary explains the whole thing

      My comment is a reflection on the emprical fact that /. patent stories almost never accurately summarize the claims--which are the only part of the patent that has legal teeth. Almost every patent-related story on /. has a long list of outraged replies from people who think that the summary has something to do with the patent, followed by an explanation from someone who has bothered to read and understand the claims as to why the summary is false, followed by a bunch of replies to the tune of "well so what the system sucks anyway!"

      It gets tiresome, and I thought it would be fun to try to short-circuit the process.

      If you've checked the actual claims in the patent itself and verified that the summary accurately reflects them, fair enough. If you've taken the summary at face value then you have a very high probability of not knowing anything about the what has actually been patented.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    11. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by radtea · · Score: 1

      Actually, the summary explains the whole thing:

      Scrolling down a bit I find this story is in fact that other routine kind of /. falsehood: a patent application being reported as a patent grant.

      So while in this case the summary does more-or-less accurately reflect the claims, it lies when it says HP has a patent on those claims. It has nothing of the kind, nor is there any reason to believe it ever will.

      So if by "explaining the whole thing" you mean "misleads the reader into believing falsehoods that fundamentally change the sense of the facts purportedly being reported" I'll grant your point. Otherwise, not so much.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    12. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 1

      It's more interesting to just read the comments, and try to figure out what the story and headline are. :-)

    13. Re:Now if we only knew what the patent was about! by radtea · · Score: 1

      If you had comprehension skills, you'd be able to ascertain that it relates to an implementation of an arbitrary precision numerics engine

      What is this "it" of which you speak? The summary and headline talk about a patent, but there is no patent, only a patent application. I didn't realize this when I made my comment because following up on patent stories on /. is a waste of time, for pretty much the reasons I describe: they are always false.

      In this case the summary happens to have described the claims more-or-less accurately, but is completely misleading with regard to the nature of the document. It is not a patent, and the headline is simply false.

      I'm not sure why you or anyone else is all worked up about this patent application. Anyone can apply to patent anything, including hundred-year-old techniques, and patent examiners routinely reject them.

      Why all the beating of chests and gnashing of teeth about that?

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  3. Put down the pitchforks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I guess that there is some good news in this article. The patent hasn't been issued yet, it is only being reviewed right now. And this review is accomplishing what it is meant to: showing that the patent claim is ridiculous. Yeah, HP shouldn't try patenting this, and the USPTO probably should have thrown this away in November of 2004, but still it was caught and (hopefully) won't be issued. The system is working, kinda, and this patent at least will hopefully not be issued. We will only need to get out the torches and pitchforks if the USPTO grants this patent anyways despite the outcry and prior art.

    1. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by martijnd · · Score: 2, Informative

      "A few minutes googling"

      Less than 10 years ago it would have taken multiple trips to (several) libraries by a very persistant person to find this information. (The kind of person who would read an obscure mailing list about patent abuse).

      Most likely a cursory review by a bored patent clerk (as he is working on the next E=MC^2) would have turned up nothing, and the patent would have passed.

      Now any Slashdotter with a minute to spare can find the same information.

      Its interesting to see how we are getting to grips with information overload.

    2. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1

      I see the patent grab as being indicative of the fucked-up state of the patent system, not as abusing it. A defensive move. Hell, I wish more big corporations would scoop up common-sense shit and release them as open patents. It's in everybody's best interest as long as patent trolls exist.

      Better HP than some "IP Firm" taking it to the East District of Texas.

    3. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by LOLLinux · · Score: 1

      You mean except for the fact that HP has used the East District of Texas to file patent suits?

    4. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't quite say "less than 10" - more actually closer to 15. AmericaOnline was pretty ubiquitous by 1995-1996. That said, your point stands.

    5. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes AOL was. The information being sought out in this case was not.

    6. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by tragedy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sorry, wasn't this in The Art of Computer Programming? That is not in any way shape or form an obscure text in the field of computer science. In any sane world, any patent examiner dealing with patents in computer science would have the set on their desk.

    7. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.wikipatents.com/7523150.html-1

      Date of application: Oct 28, 2004
      Date of patent: Apr 21, 2009

      Note that this is a GRANTED PATENT, and can thus be found in the USPTO's granted patent search, NOT the pending/applied for patents search.

      http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7523150&OS=7523150&RS=7523150

    8. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 1

      Sorry, wasn't this in The Art of Computer Programming? That is not in any way shape or form an obscure text in the field of computer science. In any sane world, any patent examiner dealing with patents in computer science would have the set on their desk.

      The Art of Computer Programming is a pretty big book. I have the first three volumes on the shelf behind me; they have my scribbles all over the margins. But I couldn't tell you from memory every algorithm that's in there. This is just one of the many places where searchable hypertext scores over flattened dead trees.

      --
      I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
    9. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess that there is some good news in this article. The patent hasn't been issued yet, it is only being reviewed right now. And this review is accomplishing what it is meant to: showing that the patent claim is ridiculous.

      Wrong: according to this, the patent has been issued April 21, 2009.

      BTW, the GMP mailing list discussion can be read here and here.

    10. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by paladin217 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, HP shouldn't try patenting this...

      In my time at the USPTO, I noticed that HP took the phrase "anything under the sun made by man" to the extreme and tried to patent everything under the sun made by man in every patent app filed. Each case was an absolute battle to get them to claim what they really invented. If the examiner wasn't willing to fight it out on the case, he or she could have just easily said "Screw it! They won't try to enforce it anyway..." and just allowed the case.

    11. Re:Put down the pitchforks. by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      There is another reason to patent something besides to sue people.
      It is to keep you from getting sued. If you own the patent of something then it is a lot harder to get sued when some "IP" holding company patents something that you have been doing for years.
      In the industry I work in an IP company got a patent on sending text over a serial connection to a terminal. It didn't matter that several companies had been doing that for years in this industry. The IP company didn't go after any of the software companies in the industry they went after our customers. One of them finally stood up and fought the patient and we and our competitors then helped them get the patent over turned.
      Now we patent just about every new innovation we can. Not to sue anybody but to protect ourselves and our customers.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  4. WikiPatents? Good idea! by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think this is the first time I've heard of WikiPatents at all, and I don't think it's been featured on the front page yet.

    I'm thinking this would be very useful in the patent approval process, not just after the fact. Suppose it worked like this: The second you file a patent, it would be published. Before it could be approved, it would have to be public for some length of time, during which anyone could present prior art or arguments for "obviousness".

    On the other hand, I think they're being entirely too kind. From their FAQ:

    Patent Examiners do an excellent job reviewing patents in the limited amount of time they are allotted to review patents. However, no single individual can accumulate all of the most relevant information to review a patent within 10 hours, 100 hours, or even 1,000 hours.

    On the other hand, based on the "quality" of the patents which get through (like this one!), it really doesn't seem like Patent Examiners even bother to Google it before approving.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      On the other hand, based on the "quality" of the patents which get through (like this one!), it really doesn't seem like Patent Examiners even bother to Google it before approving.

      It's worse than that - this isn't something you Google, because as soon as you are able to understand what the patent is saying, you will also understand that it is obvious in an especially egregious way. The patent examiner cannot have understood the patent and still have granted it. It is much like the Russian patent on bottles a while back. If anything, NOT doing what the patent is suggesting is the non-obvious thing.

    2. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      Google is, however, one way to understand what the patent is saying, at least enough to examine whether there might be prior art.

      I suppose in an ideal world, they'd at least skim the summary, then fire an email off to whoever filed the patent asking "How is this different than <list of patents>?"

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    3. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by Theaetetus · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm thinking this would be very useful in the patent approval process, not just after the fact. Suppose it worked like this: The second you file a patent, it would be published. Before it could be approved, it would have to be public for some length of time, during which anyone could present prior art or arguments for "obviousness".

      That's brilliant. Why, change "the second" to "within 18 months after" and you just described the USPTO. All patent applications are published and public for some length of time before approval, during which anyone can present prior art or arguments for "obviousness".

      You knew that, right? I mean, you're not just griping about something without actually researching it, right?

    4. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by dasmoo · · Score: 1

      You do know the patent system sucks not only for companies being trolled, but also for inventors right? There are so many big companies infringing on the little guys who just don't have the resources to fight. Even if they did fight, they could be labeled trolls because they don't have the capital to produce their idea. Publishing the patent before approved could give big companies two years of royalty free access to their idea, making it so that everyone already has widget x and doesn't need one anymore, or the goodwill has been created for company x's widget being the best. The patent system sucks from both sides.

    5. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking Jimbo has been patented by "Underage Boys Inc."

    6. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All patent applications are published and public

      In a completely useless form of course. The patent mafia are phenomenal hypocrites.

    7. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by Ciggy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...The patent examiner cannot have understood the patent...

      Errm, patents are supposed to be usable by someone skilled in the art to produce the invention; no? If the patent examiner can't understand what the patent is about then either:

      • a) The patent examiner isn't skilled in the art; or
      • b) The patent isn't disclosing the [full] details of the patent [clearly enough for a skilled person];

      or both. In the case of (b), the patent should be instantly rejected as it doesn't fulfil the criteria of disclosing details for a limited monopoly,

      In the case of (a) the examiner should refer to someone who is [so skilled] to give guidance and to fail to do so is negligence (and so either personally or the USPTO should be liable for costs incurred in defending against such a patent when the patent is shown to be issued wrongly).

      --

      A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
      A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
    8. Re:WikiPatents? Good idea! by FlyingBishop · · Score: 1

      That was his point. The person in question cannot have sufficient grounding in computing if he doesn't know how arbitrary-length integers are stored, he certainly is not qualified to review this patent.

  5. Just wait to you see my patent. by mysidia · · Score: 5, Funny

    On finding the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle.

    Scope of the invention:

    For right triangle with length of two sides denoted by A, B, the length of the hypotenuse denoted by C:

    C^2 = A^2 + B^2

    and

    Abs(C) = Sqrt(A^2 + B^2)

    Oh yes.. and my patent on trigonometric functions.. These things I like to call "Sines", "Cosines", "Secants", "ArcSecants", "Tangents", and "ArcTangents".

    And PI itself...

    Stand back Eolas, i4i, NTP, Unisys, get ready for Mysidia.

    Muahahahahahahahahaha!!

    1. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by darthdavid · · Score: 4, Funny

      The scary thing is that you could probably actually get away with that as long as you make sure to put "On a computer:" at the start...

    2. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      "... over a wireless connection..." seems to be the prevailing trend among patents I've seen for obvious technologies.

    3. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 1, Funny

      I wish to patent the "floor function". It takes as its input lots and lots of alcohol. The output then hits the floor.

      Using my floor function as a reference, I extend it to the ceiling function, which also accepts alcohol as an input. F(x) then becomes parallel to the floor function and faces upward. The projection is then called the ceiling function, which is a dizzying combination of periodic sine[(c)Mysidia 2010] and cosine[(c)Mysidia 2010] functions. The ceiling function is itself periodic and reverts to the floor function.

    4. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by gearloos · · Score: 1

      did someone say pie? I was told there'd be pie!

      --
      "Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
    5. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Sure... that's cool..

      As long as I get the -vomit-frame-pointer gcc option

    6. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      get away with that as long as you make sure to put "On a computer"...

      I already patented that process:

      // make me rich
        h = openFile("ordinary_behavior.txt");
        while (w = readNextWord(h)) {
          if (random(0.0,1.0) > 0.96) {
            w = w + " using a computer ";
          }
          print(w);
        }

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    7. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you vomit, you clean it up! (Or you owe us a case of beer.)

    8. Re:Just wait to you see my patent. by noidentity · · Score: 1

      Oh yes.. and my patent on trigonometric functions.. [...] And PI itself...

      I think you mean copyright.

  6. Simple solution by bobdotorg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Have the patent office add a Slashcode forum so commenters from the peanut gallery can yell:

    DUPE!!!

    --
    __ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
    1. Re:Simple solution by robot256 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Have the patent office add a Slashcode forum so commenters from the peanut gallery can yell: DUPE!!!

      Crowd-sourcing patent review is a very good idea actually. Patent applications are normally published after 540 days whether they've been issued or not, so putting them up for public comment *before issuance* would be in line with current policy. And since slashdotters are used to providing references, the clerks could just ignore everything else and look up the references people posted. WikiPatents.com is a start but does not seem to allow people to actually critique a patent (or application) for being unique.

      Only problem is: how are we going to get an intelligent (slashdot) crowd to research all of the ~500,000 patents filed each year? For that matter, would this actually be able to deter some of the frivolous patent applications, i.e. actually have them denied? I would love to see the (probably short) list of patent applications that have been denied recently.

    2. Re:Simple solution by sg_oneill · · Score: 1

      Its not the dupe guys they fear, its penisbird.

      --
      Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    3. Re:Simple solution by webmistressrachel · · Score: 0

      It's not penisbird they fear. It's webmistressrachel's /. rants... don't worry, I'm quite placid today...

      This comment will not be saved until you click the Submit button below.
      You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.

      [RANT]OMFG....

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    4. Re:Simple solution by mysidia · · Score: 1

      I prefer that would-be patent applicants have to post their patents in a comment, so the dupes can be modded... -1, Redundant, by a computer scientist with mod points :)

  7. 10,000??? by istartedi · · Score: 0, Troll

    10,000??? Turn in your geek card now. Don't understand why it should be turned in? Well, there are 10 types of people...

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  8. Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by SlappyBastard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That seems to be the USPTO's over-riding theory. Approve all the patents and then if people want to scream prior art, let them scream it to a judge.

    --
    I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
    1. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by russotto · · Score: 1

      That seems to be the USPTO's over-riding theory. Approve all the patents and then if people want to scream prior art, let them scream it to a judge.

      The courts, in their turn, then defer to the USPTO and grant a presumption of validity to the patent. And so we have Microsoft successfully sued for breaking an XML file up into the text and the tags with pointers into the text. And nonsense like this. And also a new patent for a mousetrap which appears in ads in the 1920s...

    2. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by Theaetetus · · Score: 1

      And also a new patent for a mousetrap which appears in ads in the 1920s...

      [Citation needed]

    3. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an idiot.

    4. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by russotto · · Score: 1

      One patent is 4,937,968. Another is 562,879. The catalog (1908, sorry, not 1920) is here:

      Mousetrap, captioned "The Mouse Trap that Catches Mice Catches Customers"

    5. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by paladin217 · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, it is. The general thinking among some examiners is that the bigger companies mostly get patents defensively (i.e. to stop others from suing them with the threat of a big patent portfolio). They see it as harmless to let something like this out because a patent like this would likely be used against another company with enough money to shoot it down.

    6. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by Theaetetus · · Score: 1

      One patent is 4,937,968. Another is 562,879. The catalog (1908, sorry, not 1920) is here:

      Mousetrap, captioned "The Mouse Trap that Catches Mice Catches Customers"

      The ad is nonenabling for at least one of the novel features of the '968 patent, specifically the latch arrangement on the water tank, rather than the hinged lid arrangement on the water tank of the '879 patent. As such, neither are anticipatory prior art.

    7. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by russotto · · Score: 1

      The latch on the water tank? One uses a hinged cover, the other uses a retainer which could be a rotating latch, a hasp, or a sliding latch. Only claim 7 even mentioned the retainer, and it's broad enough to cover a hinged cover.

    8. Re:Approve them all and let the courts sort em out by Theaetetus · · Score: 1

      The latch on the water tank? One uses a hinged cover, the other uses a retainer which could be a rotating latch, a hasp, or a sliding latch. Only claim 7 even mentioned the retainer, and it's broad enough to cover a hinged cover.

      In the earlier one, the lid is part of the water tank and flips up via the hinge. In the other, the lid is attached to the vertical piece, and there's a latch that can be disengaged to remove the tank. It's patentably distinct because it's a required limitation of independent claim 1: "a downwardly opening platform housing mounted on the wall and enclosing the top and side surfaces of the platform and terminating adjacent the upper edge of the container to form a continuation thereof..."

      The earlier patent didn't have that - rather, the water container had a side opening that you slipped over the platform. The top and side surfaces were part of the container.

  9. Patent system fundamentally broken by dwheeler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The current patent system presumes that "everything worth inventing, that has been invented, already has a patent". That wasn't really true in the late 1700s, and is completely nonsense today.

    Eben Moglen made an interesting point about patents back in 2009. Today, any time the government wants to create a new rule/regulation, they must normally ensure that the public can participate/review/comment on it. Also, the government must show that the benefits of the rule/regulation exceeds its costs. All of this is courtesy of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (aka the APA). The APA is no garden of perfection, but it has helped. The big exception is the patent system, which predates the APA, and thus patents are exempt from the APA. In the patent system, there is no opportunity for the public to participate/review/comment on each patent, and there is no requirement to show that the benefits of granting a patent exceeds its costs. Which is weird, because patents (as government-granted monopolies) can have as wide an effect as any other rule or regulation. We need to get rid of software and business method patents, at least, but changing the patent system to require public review and a demonstration that costs exceeded benefits would help too.

    --
    - David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
    1. Re:Patent system fundamentally broken by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is weird, because patents (as government-granted monopolies) can have as wide an effect as any other rule or regulation.

      I have yet to convince a single anti-government right-wing republican that it's a bad idea having a faceless bureaucrat in Washington decide which companies can freely make a product and which have to pay for the right and follow a bunch of licensing rules to make the same product. It seems obvious to me that any Free Market lover would hate the patent system, but they'll defend it to the death. I honestly don't understand this attitude.

  10. I'm waiting by Grand+Facade · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm waiting for Al Gore to patent the internet.

    --
    Rick B.
    1. Re:I'm waiting by webmistressrachel · · Score: 0

      Why would he want to do that? If he did that, then the cost of using the internet would go up, and his movie trolls would get torrented less and ... well ... that's all, really.

      This comment will not be saved until you click the Submit button below.
      You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.

      Grrrrr... 14:59 I wrote 05:01 it submits

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    2. Re:I'm waiting by pipatron · · Score: 1

      do they think I'm crapflooding or something?

      I hate to be the one to break it to you (ok I lied, I love it), but yes, you are.

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    3. Re:I'm waiting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He has to patent the environment first.

  11. OK, nevermind by istartedi · · Score: 0, Troll

    I read it too fast, saw a number that wasn't a power of 2, and got snarky. Not sure about my geek card; but at least I'm in line with Slashdot community values.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:OK, nevermind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lamer lame lame.

  12. Let's keep this going by Weaselmancer · · Score: 3, Funny

    "... with one click..."

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:Let's keep this going by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "...for use on social networking sites..."

    2. Re:Let's keep this going by redalien · · Score: 1

      Find the distance between profiles by taking orthogonal interests ?

    3. Re:Let's keep this going by noidentity · · Score: 1

      "...with a low carbon footprint..."

  13. PostgreSQL did this ten years ago by butlerm · · Score: 2, Informative

    PostgreSQL starting storing NUMERIC columns in base 10000 six or seven years ago. A nice trick, but not exactly rocket science. If you have a high school level education in computer science, you should know how to do stuff like this. Maybe that is what the patent examiners need.

    1. Re:PostgreSQL did this ten years ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Although, it looks like Tom fixed the number at base 10000 (i.e., 16 bits) where it had been base 100 (8 bits) rather than adjusting to the machine word size - perhaps the HP patent takes that additional step.

      Yep, obvious though - or at least I think so having done something similar in the 90s just as 64 bit machines were becoming commonplace. I didn't think it was particularly clever at the time and didn't pat myself on the back. I certainly didn't think it was worth a patent - although, I must admit, when the plea "Developers, find stuff that we can patent and we will give you $2K for each patent - no matter how inane" goes out I pretend to be a drooling idiot with no ideas (there's no way $2K or $20K is worth dealing with patent attorneys and reading drafts of patents - even if tricking the USPTO to grant patents that shouldn't be seemed ethical to me).

  14. Re:Simple solution with a flaw? by GumphMaster · · Score: 1

    Strikes me that there is a flaw in this process.

    Let's say that the a range of software authors read the patent and comment, but the patent is granted anyway. The freshly-minted patent holder then has a ready made list of parties interested enough to read and comment on a patent, which is probably a good approximation of those that thought they might be infringing. Send the list to the lawyers and you reduce the underpants-to-profit time. The patent holder also knows that these people have read the patent so they cannot claim ignorance and the settlements can be increased.

    I guess you take comments in confidence but that defeats the transparency that is being called for.

    --
    Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
  15. Newbie mistake by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

    Context: author described "finding the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle" in English.

    Damn newbies, with an explanation as provided you will most definitely get your patent application rejected. Heck even a two year old could understand the explanation. Your mistake was using an understandable explanation. The trick is to use 'patentese' a language so arcane that even the experts have a hard time understanding what is being described. You see it is like using Shakespear's English in that you marvel them at your use of the language that they give up and simply approve based on language rather than content.

    There is other arcane languages in common use today such as 'marketese', where you convince people to buy your product simply based on the noble use of the words of Buzz.

    --
    Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    1. Re:Newbie mistake by mysidia · · Score: 1

      That's not the patent application.. that's the form before adding layers of obfuscation and indirection, translating to lawyerese, and inserting every possible elaborate permutation in claims.

    2. Re:Newbie mistake by Tsujiku · · Score: 1

      You need to translate from lawyerese to English and back a few times to get it to really work right.

      --
      Paradox
    3. Re:Newbie mistake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "Never use a big word when a diminutive word will do." (One of my Greek prof's quotes for the day.)

    4. Re:Newbie mistake by redalien · · Score: 1

      "when a diminutive one will suffice" is the form I always use.

  16. Re:Simple solution with a flaw? by the_enigma_1983 · · Score: 1

    I see your point, but it won't always be "infringers" who will be looking for these prior arts. And even if they were, an anonymous tip on "wikiforpriorartclaims.com" would let some do-good random make the complaint anyway.

    Personally, I'd like to see it set up such that if random-joe finds prior art using publicly available information (aka 'Hey, I searched for the obvious terms A & B, and found prior art here'), then the applicant is fined, so the applicants themselves are forced to at least complete a cursory search for prior art. Of course, then we have to work out what counts as "obvious terms" and what is considered "publicly available" (are scientific journals?).

  17. Well, we all know what to do now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...until GMP pulls their bignum implementation, it's time to boycott GNU software, and even once it's all cleared up, perhaps it still won't be cleared for Free Software use, given that they're using proprietary tech.

    just kiddin', guys. I hope this ends up being a slam-dunk against HP.

  18. "Someone who spent a few minutes Googling"... by Theaetetus · · Score: 1
    ... but doesn't understand what he's reading. From the summary's link:

    They claim one thing that they repeat three times. What they claim is converting a string of digits...
    The claims repeat this, first for "a method of operating a processor having a processor word size" to do the sectioning and converting each section. Then they say the same thing but don't call the sectioning a separate step, i.e., going through the input string N digits at a time as there is no reason to actually do a sectioning step. And third they repeat the wording of the first one but call it "a computer-readable storage medium storing instructions for controlling a processor" instead of "a method of operating a processor", but otherwise just repeat all the same words.

    ... and that right there identifies the author as not understanding patent law. If he were to focus on the technical aspects, he may have some authority, but he clearly doesn't understand what he's actually criticizing.

  19. Nice by Greyfox · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's so much easier to be a patent troll if you patent stuff that's already been invented. I don't think HP actually makes... things... these days. The only thing I've seen out of them in recent days is crappy IT outsourcing and lawsuits. I'd have thought super-expensive ink would have been more profitable than any of the above, though.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Nice by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      When are the patents on inkjets gonna run out already and become a commodity? I'm tired of being jerked out of money by cartridges that find more excuses to expire early than Marilyn Monroe clones in a poppy field.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Nice by mysidia · · Score: 1

      HP provides some decent server gear (and network gear, now that they bought 3com)

    3. Re:Nice by SharpFang · · Score: 2, Funny

      C'mon. They are world leader in printer ink cartridge lifetime shortening and protection from copying technology.

      Wasn't that them who invented scanner-printer devices that refuse to scan if you don't have ink?
      Wasn't that them who invented ink level permanent kill switch to prevent refilling?
      Wasn't that them who invented disabling cartridges based on number of pages printed, ink level notwithstanding?
      Wasn't that them who invented printer cartridges with built in clock and killswitch to disable full cartridges after specified date?

      Who was first to create full C+M+Y+K cartridges so that if you run out of black, printing papers, you have to dump all the color ink as well?

      Unfortunately Lexmark beat them to use code of a program as authentication key for a cartridge to sue anyone authenticating their cartridges using the same key under DMCA for copying their code.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    4. Re:Nice by pipatron · · Score: 1

      Wasn't that them who invented scanner-printer devices that refuse to scan if you don't have ink?

      w.. t.. f..

      Is this for real or are you just making crazy things up now?

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    5. Re:Nice by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure if they are all HP. I know they all were used in one or another printer manufacturer's devices at certain time.

      Yeah, the scanners that require ink were notorious. Scanning required a proprietary app that served simultaneously as printing and printer servicing app. Upon detecting empty cartridges it would only open "replace cartridges" screen and not allow to do anything else until the cartridges were replaced.

      Like with the others, I'm not sure if it was HP though.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    6. Re:Nice by badkarmadayaccount · · Score: 1

      Marylin died of benzos.

      --
      I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
  20. Re:Simple solution with a flaw? by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Anonymous/pseudonomous submissions avoid that problem.

  21. I did the same thing by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 2, Informative

    I used to have a VAX assembly program called "er1e9", which computed e using base 1,000,000,000 numbers (which fit into 32-bit integers). I wrote that in the late 80's, and still have it around somewhere. Multiplying and dividing using the VAX instructions was fairly trivial with that format up to arbitrary lengths. It's a pretty obvious optimization, or at least it was for a college kid.

    --
    Do you have ESP?
    1. Re:I did the same thing by hughk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Funnily enough HP bought Compaq who bout Digital who designed the VAX range of computers, but the VAX architecture is ~30 years old (it was announced in 1978) so they probably ended up prior arting themselves.

      --
      See my journal, I write things there
  22. Re:CmdrTaco Has A Tiny Penis by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    CmdrTaco patents having a 2 inch penis.

    Don't laugh, you're cited as prior art.
         

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  23. Collecting dust for 834 days? by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1
    Collecting dust for an indefinite amount of time with little feedback only to be arbitrarily granted or denied in some process with impenetrable logic (if it even has any of *that*).... I just realized....

    The patent office is a perfect analogy for the iTunes app store!

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  24. Make it stop! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stop this! You're scaring me! :-)

    1. Re:Make it stop! by only_human · · Score: 1

      "A computer optimized travel method for pedestrians, vehicles and signal communication paths through open access spaces with superior distance and time characteristics than methods that utilize travel over two connected edges of said space." "Features: Narrow-beam signal transmissions aimed directly from source to destination will automatically utilize all the benefits and features of this patent"

  25. FTP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck the patent police.

  26. If I published a book by Arancaytar · · Score: 1

    Or a scientific article, which claimed to be original but was actually a copy of an older work, this would be plagiarism, as well as a copyright violation.

    However, if I claim a patent on an invention almost a hundred years old, I would be granted exclusive rights to it until someone sics a lawyer on me.

    Can't we make filing false patent claims a felony? It is not enough to have these patents sit uncontested unless someone can cough up the cash for a civil court case. The people who file these patents should ask themselves: "Do I want to pay a sizable fine or spend time in jail for filing a fraudulent patent claim?"

    Morally, this is a violation of the intellectual property rights of the People (ie. the public domain), and the state should prosecute that.

    1. Re:If I published a book by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meanwhile in the real world: big corporations like HP bribe politicians and officials to open their hands and close their eyes.

    2. Re:If I published a book by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the false claim itself is a felony, what stops the examiner from simply approving all of them?

      It's in their interest to do so unless their is some cost for not paying attention right?

      So now we have a situation where the examiner externalizes their costs (time) to a third party (the courts, ie, the people). We all know externalizations suck for everyone but the externalizer - their is no motive to avoid being an asshat.

      It might cut down on frivolous applications, but it would increase ridiculous approvals. So.... wouldn't you need a balance against said approvals? Wouldn't there need to be some repercussions for approving a patents that has say, prior art?

      Seems to make sense so far... until you try to hire some examiners... and you get the bottom of the barrel that either don't care, can't afford to care or don'y know they should care.

      Are we any farther away from square one when we work only on the punishment motive?

      Basic psychology suggests that the carrot doesn't work alone nor does the stick. Both are required to get the behavior you want. So... if you what some ethics, honesty, morals... justice in the patent system, you need more than punishment for violation and more than huge rewards for being 'intellectually violated'.

      Perhaps an easier solution to the say, SCO/IBM case would have been to say 'ok - SCO you lost, IBM, you now own SCO... and all its debts." IBM can either pay and own the patents of SCO or they can not and the patents go public domain on the spot. If its worth money to them to prevent the idea coming to market, IBM should see it as a carrot and pay. If not, they should see it as a stick and avoid getting hit by not paying. If they can't figure out which it which, then damn, clearly the 'free market' with all its natural wisdom will take care of everything right? ... oh yeah... part of the price IBM is that you must donate x dollars (fixed against inflation, exchange rates and GROSS sales) to the US campaign finance reform movement. Also, all funds donated from all employees, all board members and all shareholders go into a pot when it comes to political donations distributed by un-interested third parties with no conflicts of interest THAT YOU HAVE NO INFLUENCE IN CHOOSING until the patent you just got goes to public domain... though you can put the patent into the public domain at any time.

      Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. CEO - put your money where your mouth is... 'K? Afterall, you wouldn't make so much money spending so much money explaining how vital you are if you can't make such a decision. Certainly your worth the price you are paid right? .... Right?

      So... what's your motive? To protect a great idea you ARE USING from being copied (reasonable and fair) or to prevent anyone from using a great idea so your crap alternative can continue to profit (God, I wish people like this would just choke)

      PS - externalizer is a killer band name. '..' :) '..'

      PPS - I know that IBM has the biggest IP porfolio of all but then again, they OFTEN use it in ways that ends up defending the little guy as well. I don't mean to pick on IBM per say - just making a relevant example of the case we all know and hate.

      If the patent is worth the money, it will be paid for. If not, they why is it not in the public domain in the first place since its obviously not worth paying for?

  27. Citation Gambit! (Sorry Mods, Offtopic!) by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 1, Informative

    Sorry, sir, I changed my sig because of folks like you. It reads:

    Citation War - A1: Correct, NotCited. A2: Correct, Cited. B1: Wrong, NotCited B2: Wrong, Flawed Citation.

    Because all of slashdot seems to hide when I start a reply, you made me open seven tabs to compose this. But here we go.

    ----
    Section A - you vs. poster above you.

    You said: "[citations needed]very badly since you seem to be the only person on the entire internet to have ever heard any of these stories."

    Calling his comment some 75% correct, that makes your remark about 75% libel.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel ...libel (for written or otherwise published words)--is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, ... a negative image. It is usually.. a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed...

    Retire the Freudian acronym. This is a partial list of Slashdot Lawyers. If I were a lawyer I would be on my own list. I am not on that list.
    http://taophoenix.paradoxservers.net/Freedom/Slashdot_Lawyers.html

    Saying this is "too long - didn't read" tries to cover your fallacious post with a fallacious ad hominem attack. Your comment directly says his post was not long enough, so to discard the requested length below is a red herring.

    -----
    Section B - Poster's comment #2.

    "2. Aspirin was patented well after a similar process for making Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale was. The office decided, with no precidents, that making the same chemical in pure enough form that it was safe for medicinal use was novel. When challenged on it, the USPO said they were going through a bottle a day deciding patent claims and were not about to reject rewarding this claim no matter what the law said."

    "Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale"... also known as "Salicylic acid is commercially prepared from sodium salicylate, which is produced from sodium phenoxide and carbon dioxide at high pressure and temperature in the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction."
    http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Salicylic_acid

    (In about the mid 1840's) ...Kolbe also synthesized salicylic acid and showed its value as a preservative. The process was named Kolbe synthesis (or Kolbe-Schmitt reaction)...

    Going to
    http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/History/mid-nineteen.htm

    Then, in 1853, French chemist Charles F. Gerhardt synthesized a primitive form of aspirin, a derivative of salicylic acid.

    In 1897 Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist working at the Bayer division of I.G. Farber, discovered a better method for synthesizing the drug.

    Going to
    http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Aspirin#Synthesis_of_aspirin

    On March 6, 1899, Bayer registered Aspirin as a trademark. However, the German company lost the right to use the trademark in many countries as the Allies seized and resold its foreign assets after World War I. The right to use "Aspirin" in the United States (along with all other Bayer trademarks) was purchased from the U.S. government by Sterling Drug in 1918. However, even before the patent for the drug expired in 1917, Bayer had been unable to stop competitors from copying the formula and using the name elsewhere, and so, with a flooded market, the public was unable to recognize "Aspirin" as coming from only one manufacturer. Sterling was subsequently unable to prevent "Aspirin" from being ruled a genericized trademark in a U.S. federal court in 1921. Sterling was ultimately acquired by Bayer in 1994, but this did not rest

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    1. Re:Citation Gambit! (Sorry Mods, Offtopic!) by rxmd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your comment directly says his post was not long enough, so to discard the requested length below is a red herring.

      No, it doesn't. It says he should have provided some references for his three stories. It's possible to provide references in a short, concise way. You don't do that either, making your post unnecessarily teduous to read.

      Section B - Poster's comment #2.

      "2. Aspirin was patented well after a similar process for making Salicylic Acid on an industrial scale was. The office decided, with no precidents, that making the same chemical in pure enough form that it was safe for medicinal use was novel. When challenged on it, the USPO said they were going through a bottle a day deciding patent claims and were not about to reject rewarding this claim no matter what the law said."

      Your discussion on the chemistry, production and product history of aspirin is very lengthy, but does not constitute a substantial reference either for or against the GP's claim. It says nothing about the patent status of different *production methods*, only that they were different, which in my eyes seems to at least undermine the GP's argument. The rest is basically just a long list of links and pieces of text about aspirin that adds little to the discussion of patent practice at the USPTO, in addition to being largely orthogonal to either the parent or grandparent poster's statements. Also you mingle patents and trademarks in the discussion, which is careless and misleading at best.

      In the spirit of Karl Popper's criticism of what he calls the Neo-Dialecticians (the reference for which you can find on Google) you may add a few items to your signature, such as variations of "Cx, Drowns Fellow Human Beings in a Sea of Words, with x one of "1: Correct", "2: Wrong", and "3, Irrelevant to the Subject". Your post looks like a case of C3.

      --
      As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
    2. Re:Citation Gambit! (Sorry Mods, Offtopic!) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...libel (for written or otherwise published words)--is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, ... a negative image. It is usually.. a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed...

      Nice try. You can't call it libel, since you can't defame a person that is hiding behind an anonymous handle. Besides this, that person would have to prove in court that the claims were actually damaging to him/her.

    3. Re:Citation Gambit! (Sorry Mods, Offtopic!) by quantumplacet · · Score: 1

      so to sum this up, you "opened seven tabs" and spent clearly considerable time to ultimately prove that one of the posters three claims was unverifiable and at best an exaggerated anecdote, though no evidence exists that anyone other than the poster has ever told said anecdote before. oh, and you threw in a bizarre claim that challenging an assertion on a message board is libel, and made up numbers to go with it. nice work, and definitely time well spent.

  28. Overloading is a factor, it's not "the" cause by golodh · · Score: 1
    As other posts noted, patent examination isn't about verifying whether a patent application is in fact novel.

    Instead it's about seeing if a patent examiner, who must approve a certain number of patents per week or be fired (!), can spot any obvious prior art (read: "previous patents on the same subject") in the time budgeted for examination. Which is about 10-30 minutes apart from doing the paperwork retrieve and to file a patent claim and scan for existing patents.

    The USPTO largely relies on the public to conduct in-depth tests of patents (through court action).

    This probably isn't by malicious design, but it's a direct consequence of the USPTO being self-financing (and indeed a profit center) from patent application fees and being mandated by congress to remain that way. Our collective wisdom has probed the alternatives and settled for this particular solution.

    Of course the USPTO could be instructed to change its priorities and conduct rigorous and in-depth patent examinations. Only ... we (or our elected representatives) aren't willing to pay the price, which is a few billion $ extra per year from here on out to employ large swathes of new patent examiners.

    If you find that strange, I'm with you. Only don't tell me it's by an act of God that all kinds of stupid patents are granted. We're doing that to ourselves (if only by proxy).

  29. Re:CmdrTaco Has A Tiny Penis by Antiocheian · · Score: 1

    Truly laughing for the guy who moderated your statement as "Redundant"

  30. Suggested standard for patent reviews by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not fundamentally against software patents, so long as they follow some basic rules:

    • If prior art is found, but wasn't mentioned on the application, the person applying for the patent is shot.
    • If finding that prior art took less than 2 hours of Googling by a PhD in the field, the inspector is shot.
    • If all of the above are true, and the patent was asserted against someone, the lawyer is shot, and since corporations are "people", the entire corporation (if one was involved) is put in jail for its "lifetime" (e.g., until its incorporation is dissolved).
    • A patent is considered "obvious" if 10 top-notch PhD's in the field are put into a room (with access to the Internet), posed with the problem to be solved, and can't come up with a solution similar to the one being proposed within a week.
    • If a patent is overturned, whoever field the patent must pay all costs (including labor, and interest) to the person who did the work of getting it overturned. And must also participate in a last-man-standing cage match with Michael Tyson after having tatooed on his ass, "Mike Tyson, I'm going to make you my bitch!"
    • Patents last for 7 years.

    This would be completely acceptable to me.

    1. Re:Suggested standard for patent reviews by FlyingBishop · · Score: 1

      I'd settle for point six.

    2. Re:Suggested standard for patent reviews by Golddess · · Score: 1

      If finding that prior art took less than 2 hours of Googling by a PhD in the field, the inspector is shot.

      You want to shoot someone who probably has zero experience with the field the patent is in, who probably has much less than 2 hours per patent (that's only 4 patents a day, which the various patent articles over the years seem to imply is much less than patent inspectors are expected to review in a single day)?

      Not saying it's right or wrong that a patent inspector inspects patents under those circumstances, just that it isn't nice to "shoot the messenger" as could probably be said about your proposed solution.

      --
      "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
    3. Re:Suggested standard for patent reviews by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      You want to shoot someone who probably has zero experience with the field the patent is in, who probably has much less than 2 hours per patent (that's only 4 patents a day, which the various patent articles over the years seem to imply is much less than patent inspectors are expected to review in a single day)?

      Good point. On the first offense, just publicly whip the patent investigator. On each subsequent offense, kill the investigator plus all of his management chain, totally one more level of discipline after each offense.

  31. That is what you get with limited budgets by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    Say you are a developer and don't get enough funds for a project. Do you then

    A: do your job in your own time because quality is everything

    B: code what you can and shove the bugs/problems off to the next person in line?

    They are passing the buck because they don't have enough money to do the process properly, with so many patents being applied in a world that has ever more existing material, the job size increases each day. In the dawn of human history the job was easy, get patent application #2, check if it conflicts with patent #1 and isn't fire, then grant it. Bit harder these days.

    So more money is needed, that ain't available, so the problem is shoved on to someone else.

    Same with other things, not enough jails, release the criminals early and shove the problem onto someone else. Not enough mental wards, lock the mental patients in regular jails, overfilling them etc etc.

    And all because you want a 300 dollar tax rebate you spend in a day.

    People want top grade government for cut-rate taxes. Don't happen in the real world, only in election promises.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:That is what you get with limited budgets by SlappyBastard · · Score: 1

      For the record, I'm supporter of raising taxes. There's a pretty strong correlation between higher taxes and higher standards of living.

      --
      I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
  32. The GMP mailing list discussion is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...here and here.

  33. BigNum? by Frankie70 · · Score: 1

    I, for one, welcome this.

    HP's bignum is based on regular numbers which I patented a few years back.
    So HP would have to license my patent to do anything useful with their patent.

  34. Patent trolls are law firms. Ever met a poor one? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Patent trolls are law firms. Ever met a poor one?

    And a patent troll IS NOT TRYING TO ENTER. They're trying to parasitise the market, not enter it. So your point fails on one small and a fucking great HUGE one.

  35. Re:Simple solution with a flaw? by robot256 · · Score: 1

    If you're going to look up a patent application, see that it is worthy of being granted, and then infringe/continue to infringe on it, then I'd say you deserve prosecution. If the invention was truly original, there should be no "unwitting" infringers at the time of review--they would have to deliberately reverse-engineering a proprietary patent-pending product shortly after it came to market to know about the invention. This kind of transparency would possibly have the effect of encouraging compliance with the law rather than litigation--infringers would have added awareness and incentive to seek out licensing agreements or work-arounds rather than wait for litigation if the penalties are steeper.

    If, on the other hand, the invention was not truly original, and there were "infringers" at the time of the application, then the patent should not be issued in the first place. If patents like this still get issued even after the added transparency and peer-checking, then we know the system really is broken.

    Anonymity or pseudonymity might work, but at the same time ever level of immunity you grant adds to the possibility of spam and/or illegitimate claims cluttering up the message board and wasting examiners' time.

    For the record, I am squarely in the "no software patents, ever" camp, but proposed this solution for the sake of argument and because working within the current legal structure is always a challenge.

  36. HP could use it in this HP LCD I have by noidentity · · Score: 1

    Apparently HP could use this in the HP LCD I'm using, which shows 99999 backlight hours (even though the display was manufactured less than a year ago).

  37. Re:CmdrTaco Has A Tiny Penis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, I have a 2 inch penis! Oh, wait.... you meant lengthwise....

    Nevermind.

  38. I object to this joke due to prior art. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every right-winger in the last ten years has made this joke, so it's played out.

  39. Re:Collecting dust for 834 days? - No, bad summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's not how it works.

    During a patent application process there is a lot of back & forth between the applicant and the USPTO. When the patent is finally granted, they take the application date, and add all the time that caused delays on the USPTO's side, and add that to the app date, and then that then becomes the effective patent date. (Or something like this).

    So no, the patent didn't sit there literally ignored for 834 days straight. That time is cumulative.

    All one has to do is look up the actual complete application documents and one can see the back & forth that went on and when/where gaps or delays happened.

    Go here: http://www.uspto.gov/
    Click Search.
    At bottom of page, click link that says "PAIR" at the end.
    Enter Patent #, and then click Image Wrapper.

    You get to view rejections, reasons for the rejections, and the applicant's responses.