Software Patents are Stupid
I just stumbled across this: System and method for compile-time checking of units. I can't believe something so simple was awarded a patent! I've used this technique in code I've written, and my friend Dean Rettig was doing it back when I worked at Vermeer. Basically, you make a Unit template class with integer parameters that represent the exponent of units. So for distance, the value Distance would be 1. For acceleration, the value Distance would be 1 and Time would be -2. Then you define operators that only accept certain combinations of units. (You can only add the same unit type. Multiplying adds all exponent values. Etc.)
Arg. Silly software patents suck.
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The Patent Office is in disarray. Simply put, the federal government has failed to educate patent clerks about the differences between algorithmic patents and patents of invention. This is research work, not patent material.
These kinds of things fall flat in court. That's so simple... it doesn't even rely on things developed specifically by the individual, like external system paradigms. I mean, it's a specific use of an existing standard. As I understand it, mathematics cannot be patented.
If I came across the possibility via my own derivations, I'd use it regardless of what any unethical individual such as the author of this patent says about it. That this "patent" was even propsed is reprehensible, it represents everything wrong with business in America.
Yuck... reminds me of Unisys' pathetic wrangling. Heh heh... the W3C sure showed them, huh? :) That reminds me, if a mathematician can work out the math behind this compile-time system, it can be, effectively destroying the patent. I'd go for it if I had to.
Gah, I could go on and on about this wicked patent forever.... The developers thereof have places set aside for them in hell.
...OK, I've read over it. This guy is... ugh. That patent is so broad... it is trying to patent techniques that have already been standardized long ago.
We can't let wicked people like these attempt to control the spread of word information and ingenuity. IGNORE this wicked blasphemy of entreprenuership, I know I will.
Now I have yet another reason to distrust the Bush administration.
*WAIT Oh yeah, get those usage instances of this system you said you have made on file. Include all notes specific to the usage of the system and its implementation in your own work. Include dates if you can, ink dating tests if you can't. You can present these notes as "prior art" and destroy the patent, if this jerk ever tries to pull something on you or someone you know.
Whatever you do, don't contact the "author" about his debauchery. This person is obviously quite irrational.
Um. I'd say you're the irrational one, based on that response. Morgan McGuire isn't that bad of a guy. He just has a silly patent. :P
What the heck does Bush have to do with this?
And what did the W3C show to Unisys?
Unisys began to demand royalties from all who employ technologies using the LZW compression algorithm a few years ago. (never mind that it is quite simple in nature) It claimed to the media that it was only defending its intellectual property rights, but its real purpose was to capitalize on the dominance of GIF, which the W3C, Microsoft, and Netscape had unwittingly established as one of the two defacto image formats of the Internet. (the other is JPEG) The W3C retaliated by developing PNG. How do I know that the W3C consciously retaliated? Because before Unisys began demanding royalties there was no mention at all of "PNG" or "MNG" on the W3C website. PNG uses a public education-sanctioned algorithm to compress images, in contrast to the LZW patent.
Hey man, you should check out what a patent is. We are talking total legal control of the claimed technology. This guy could sue you today, if he wanted to.
The W3C didn't develop PNG. They've just taken it into their bosom. http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pnghist.html
I know what a patent is. I've been interested in patent law for some time now. (My dad holds ten.) Sure, Morgan McGuire could sue me for some code I wrote a long time ago. But why would he? Who cares?
I agree, the patent office as it stands is in need of a lot of reform. But I wouldn't damn them to hell. I even know a good guy who works for the USPTO.
Morgan Mcguire, not the patent office. :)
He, I'm just saying that his patent was not the right way to go and he should rescind it. Of course I realize that is probably not gonna happen because he surely invested about one and a half thousand dollars into the patenting process itself.
I just submitted a powerful editorial to RPGamer. Check it out next week.