On 20 Mar 2005, at 12:30, Joseph Kiniry wrote:
>> No. Because so many patents are held on what would otherwise be
>> termed
>> basic techniques (eg: the XOR trick to highlight an area of the
>> screen),
>> it is extremely difficult to write unencumbered software. The trouble
>> with the current system is that patents are held on many methods and
>> devices which are trivial yet essential.
>> How does this contradict my point? Even the technologies covered by
> "basic technique" patents are easily implemented in other, innovative
> ways.
The problem with "basic technique" patents is that they ARE so basic
and are often NOT easily implemented in other, innovative ways. The XOR
trick is a very good case in point (though that patent was granted in
1978, so I presume it's expired by now) because it is so basic, obvious
and simple to implement, and importantly when it started being used,
very cheap in CPU cycles. I don't know if sprite based systems infringe
that patent, because I think many of those use a hardware overlay
plane. I do know that Autodesk was a licensee of that patent for
AutoCAD, and I imagine other CAD vendors and other large visible
targets using this idea were too.
> Note that I *do* think that the existing US patent system is extremely
> broken, particularly with regards to software and business patents.
Indeed - one click comes to mind straight away. I grew up as an
engineer being told that a patent was on the implementation of an idea,
not on an idea, but those halcyon days are gone.
>> History has shown that existing trivial patents are voided once they
> reach the courts or once an enormous corporation forces the USPTO into
> a review. Of course, this is often a quite costly process.
Exactly. And in the U.S., where in the majority of cases AIUI each
party pays its own court costs, simply being threatened with a court
case will make most companies cave in, because even if you win the
court case, you lose financially. I wonder what's the general practice
in patent infringement cases in Ireland, where in general in civil
cases the losing party pays the costs of both parties.
Niall
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