The code has been solved. It was a substitution code based on the Fibonacci sequence. The judge gave a few clues: that it had something to do with what was on page 255 of the British version of Da Vinci Code (which deals with the Fibonacci sequence), and that it had something to do with his own Who's Who profile (in which he mentions his affinity for Jackie Fisher, former British Admiral.).
The sequence originally was:
SMITHYCODEJAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ
Removing "SMITHYCODE," what was left was:
JAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ
To decode, you go apply a substitution, based on the first eight Fibonacci numbers:
J A E I E X T O S T G P S A C G R E A M Q W F K A D P M Q Z V Z
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21
Then, you find that letter in an alphabet starting at the fibonacci number given. So, "J" and "A" are the same. "I" is the ninth letter of the alphabet normally. The fibonacci number associated with that "I" is 3, and the ninth letter of an alphabet starting at the third letter (C) is "K."
There were two twists: The twos mean to count backwards two instead of forward (so the "E" becomes "C"; this quirk was drawn from one of the books in the litigation, Holy Blood, Holy Grail), and there is an intentional (at least he claims intentional) typo: The first "T" should be an "H."
The resulting message was:
"Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought"
Kind of a lot of work to get to what turned out to be a tribute to a military hero from 1920. Nonetheless, the judge confirmed that this decryption was correct.
This study examines a detailed panel data set of patent examination procedures that affect patent quality. A main conclusion is that the most important of these inputs (examiner hours and examiner actions) have remained largely consistent over time despite an increasing examination workload. Other measures of examination quality (pendency and interference hearings) have declined. Inputs to examination quality are inversely correlated with the rate at which patents are involved in legal complaints, and the expense of increasing examination inputs may be more than offset by the consequent reduction in litigation costs.
In the paper, there's a table of time spent by patent examiners on various categories of patents. What takes the longest to review? Technology for "Information processing, storage, and retrieval" with an average of 27.52 hours.
Slashdot Mirror
The code has been solved. It was a substitution code based on the Fibonacci sequence. The judge gave a few clues: that it had something to do with what was on page 255 of the British version of Da Vinci Code (which deals with the Fibonacci sequence), and that it had something to do with his own Who's Who profile (in which he mentions his affinity for Jackie Fisher, former British Admiral.).
The sequence originally was:
SMITHYCODEJAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ
Removing "SMITHYCODE," what was left was:
JAEIEXTOSTGPSACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ
To decode, you go apply a substitution, based on the first eight Fibonacci numbers:
J A E I E X T O S T G P S A C G R E A M Q W F K A D P M Q Z V Z
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21
Then, you find that letter in an alphabet starting at the fibonacci number given. So, "J" and "A" are the same. "I" is the ninth letter of the alphabet normally. The fibonacci number associated with that "I" is 3, and the ninth letter of an alphabet starting at the third letter (C) is "K."
There were two twists: The twos mean to count backwards two instead of forward (so the "E" becomes "C"; this quirk was drawn from one of the books in the litigation, Holy Blood, Holy Grail), and there is an intentional (at least he claims intentional) typo: The first "T" should be an "H."
The resulting message was:
"Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought"
Kind of a lot of work to get to what turned out to be a tribute to a military hero from 1920. Nonetheless, the judge confirmed that this decryption was correct.
Here's a study on patent quality by John L. King of the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309086361/html/54.html
From the abstract:
This study examines a detailed panel data set of patent examination procedures that affect patent quality. A main conclusion is that the most important of these inputs (examiner hours and examiner actions) have remained largely consistent over time despite an increasing examination workload. Other measures of examination quality (pendency and interference hearings) have declined. Inputs to examination quality are inversely correlated with the rate at which patents are involved in legal complaints, and the expense of increasing examination inputs may be more than offset by the consequent reduction in litigation costs.
In the paper, there's a table of time spent by patent examiners on various categories of patents. What takes the longest to review? Technology for "Information processing, storage, and retrieval" with an average of 27.52 hours.