Re: Patents Unleashed and the future of Java Programming

From: George Neuner (gneuner2_at_dont.spam.me)
Date: 05/21/04 

Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 03:39:32 -0400

On Wed, 19 May 2004 20:36:49 GMT, metzger@convex.hp.com (Robert
Metzger) wrote:

>In the U.S., you can't patent something that can be proved to be
>prior art. Or, if you manage to get something past the patent examiners,
>someone else can get it overturned it they care about it.

The first problem is that US examiners don't know where to look for
prior art. IEEE and ACM have been working for a number of years to
put together a prior art database for them but it is still very
incomplete.

The second problem is that US examiners are required to grant a patent
if they cannot find prior art. CS is still more of an art than a
science and much knowledge has been passed by tradition and never
published. The result is that a lot of techniques that everyone knows
and uses are now suddenly being patented by unscrupulous companies who
have wet dreams of getting a 5 cent royalty every time an array is
indexed.

AFA getting an issued patent overturned ... that is *VERY* difficult
and expensive to do. It is presumed that the patent holder already
adequately proved the case and the bar is set very high for anyone
seeking to disprove it. No one will do it who doesn't have a lot of
money invested in whatever the patent addresses.

>As the author of a book on algorithm recognition
>("Automatic Algorithm Recognition and Replacement:
> A New Approach to Program Optimization", Metzger & Wen, MIT Press, 2000)
>I can tell you that algorithm recognition of bytecode is a **VERY** hard
>problem.

Good to know.

George
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