In this case, the patent is considerably narrower than the headline would leave one to believe.
Even if someone did manage to get a patent granted on something like "bitfields", this would be an annoyance and not a tragedy, as the patent would never hold up-- it would be trivial to produce prior art to invalidate it.
I'm all for discussing patent reform, but it's a lot easier to do in terms of specifics. And, in this case, I don't see anything egregious. At least, not yet.
A (hypothetical) US patent on the Turing Machine would have stopped any attempts to build a mechanical device to Turing's Specifications (like this one: http://aturingmachine.com/index.php) for a period of 20 years.
It wouldn't stop anyone from building a device that is computationally equivalent to a Turing Machine; it wouldn't stop anyone from using the abstract notion of a Turing Machine as an intellectual device.
In short, a patent would have had no practical effect at all.
Now, let's imagine another alternative: one where Turing invented the Turing Machine, but chose not to publish it, as he was afraid of some better-financed competitor learning his "trade secrets" and exploiting the device before he could implement it himself. Where would we be then?
Patents are a trade-off. The inventor gets a monopoly for a limited period of time, in exchange for the idea being passed into the public domain after the monopoly expires. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it's not easy to dismiss out of hand.
I don't know--Alonzo Church might have a claim, but a digital computer made by anyone else is obviously derivative and covered by a well-written patent claim.
Bitfield functionality and related operations are even incorporated in many old CISC processors. The 680x0 family for instance, starting from the 68020 and up, released in 1984, has several opcodes for advanced bitfield manipulation of data/address registers as well as memory.
Comments
Laughable. This would never stand the test of prior-art. I think I'll go patent merge sort...
Chances are that you'd get it if you clothed it in the appropriate terms. Heck, why settle for merge sort, why not sorting as a whole?
"Method for the creation of order from chaos in the memory of a digital computing device".
Isn't that what we all do, every day?
That was sort of the point ;)
By making it so broad you could theoretically sue any company.
...and lose, badly, when they provide "prior art".
Just because you are awarded a patent doesn't mean it's enforceable. Over-broad patents get challenged, and struck down.
I think you should probably read the rest of the thread.
I have.
In this case, the patent is considerably narrower than the headline would leave one to believe.
Even if someone did manage to get a patent granted on something like "bitfields", this would be an annoyance and not a tragedy, as the patent would never hold up-- it would be trivial to produce prior art to invalidate it.
I'm all for discussing patent reform, but it's a lot easier to do in terms of specifics. And, in this case, I don't see anything egregious. At least, not yet.
And if you could sue based on the title of your patent, that might mean something.
Hrm.
I think I should submit an application for "Method for mechanically solving all problems which are in principle computable."
Actually, that's a really good point.
What if Alan Turing had patented the 'Turing Machine', would we be where we are today in computing or would we be stuck somewhere in the 70's?
I vote for "where we are today."
A (hypothetical) US patent on the Turing Machine would have stopped any attempts to build a mechanical device to Turing's Specifications (like this one: http://aturingmachine.com/index.php) for a period of 20 years.
It wouldn't stop anyone from building a device that is computationally equivalent to a Turing Machine; it wouldn't stop anyone from using the abstract notion of a Turing Machine as an intellectual device.
In short, a patent would have had no practical effect at all.
Now, let's imagine another alternative: one where Turing invented the Turing Machine, but chose not to publish it, as he was afraid of some better-financed competitor learning his "trade secrets" and exploiting the device before he could implement it himself. Where would we be then?
Patents are a trade-off. The inventor gets a monopoly for a limited period of time, in exchange for the idea being passed into the public domain after the monopoly expires. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it's not easy to dismiss out of hand.
I don't know--Alonzo Church might have a claim, but a digital computer made by anyone else is obviously derivative and covered by a well-written patent claim.
Actually, we're not even as far as we got in the 70's in research labs. (Mainstream-wise)
Indeed. Since C has had built-in syntax for bitfields since (I think) the 70's, if such a patent ever were valid, it would have long expired by now.
Ideally, you should figure out how to patent patent trolling.
actually someone did think of that :)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/10/halliburton_patent/
Already been done (seriously).
Can someone still patent the meta-patent?
Bitfield functionality and related operations are even incorporated in many old CISC processors. The 680x0 family for instance, starting from the 68020 and up, released in 1984, has several opcodes for advanced bitfield manipulation of data/address registers as well as memory.