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Intel Owns Patent on Distributed Computing

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the patent-office-follies dept.

GnrcMan writes "Now here is something frightening: This patent describes a method of using an ISP subscriber's CPU cycles to process the ISP's data." As if Distributed.net, SETI@home, and other, similar projects hadn't been doing essentially the same thing all along, eh?

2 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. 'Inside' view from the patent office by alanl · · Score: 4

    I was at a dinner with a patent examiner a few weeks ago (he was not a software guy but was pretty knowledgeable ..).. so I dumped on him .. His point was that the patent office has to follow the law, and a court ruled that software patents were fare game (also business models etc). Turns out the P.O. doesn't like the result either but they do _not_ make the law and so are powerless.

    What they are thinking about doint is adopting the (European?) system of posting patent applications on the web to get peer review (i.e. us) for prior art etc.

    Bottom line -- the P.O. is overwhelmed with applications not of their own choosing and knows they are up the creek. They could do with help, not flames -- right your congressperson.

    Tnx
    Alanl

  2. More details by GnrcMan · · Score: 5

    Since my submission got cut to a one line quote (sniff, it's okay) I thought I'd give some more details:

    I'll start with a quote from the patent itself:
    Service providers, such as American Online.TM. ("AOL") and Compuserve increasingly must buy more powerful computers to service the additional members and the new content that is
    constantly being updated. These service providers could save on computer costs if some of the computational requirements of their system could be serviced by remote personal computers
    owned by private individuals and other independent entities who subscribe to the Internet provider services.

    While it's true that this patent relates to distributed computing, that's not what this is about. What they've really got here is a patent on a method of stealing subscribers CPU cycles. Better check out the ToS when you sign up with an ISP cause, guess what? If this idea comes to be, you might just be required to do some of the processing for your ISP. Another quote to illustrate exactly what they're looking to process:
    Computers, including
    servers, must perform many tasks including the providing and generating of WEB pages, compressing Moving Pictures Expert Group ("MPEG") and Joint Photographic Expert Group
    ("JPEG") images, and serving up WEB pages.

    Everyone who wants to serve AOL's web pages for them, raise your hand. Everyone who feels comfortable letting AOL initiate processes, raise your hand.

    --GnrcMan--