

Patent: Compiler independent bit-field macros  - codesink
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6938241.html

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campnic
Patent reads a little different then the comments here are suggesting. He's
not patenting bitfields, he is patenting a method of making bitfields perform
the same way across compilers. He even uses the term bitfield to describe his
invention. Article title is misleading.

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resdirector
Here, here. It's misleading titles like these that make me not trust Hacker
News when a big story breaks. E.g., when I saw through HN that the Dow Jones
dropped by 1,000 points, I immediately corroborated with a few other sources,
before reading on.

~~~
campnic
I don't know if its intentionally misleading or just that the majority of
people don't know how to read the patent. If you actually look at the claims,
the claims include the word bitfield. As a hint to would be patent evaluators,
the only part of this document that means anything legally is the claims
section. Thats where you can find out what is being legally protected. This
patent actually has a lot of good supporting documentation as to why his
method is an improvement. You can hate patents, thats OK. Its just important
to get that hatred focused on the right target.

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jacquesm
Actually, I'm happy to hear that. The more ridiculous patents come to the
surface the shorter it will hopefully take before patents will be either
reformed or abolished.

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dctoedt
Gotta read the _claims_ before judging the patent.

Here's something I posted last month explaining how claims are like AND
statements -- if even one element of a particular claim is missing from a
method or device, then the claim doesn't cover it:
[http://www.ontechnologylaw.com/2010/04/how-patent-claims-
wor...](http://www.ontechnologylaw.com/2010/04/how-patent-claims-work-a-
variety-of-different-and-statements-all-ord-together/)

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pmiller2
I don't read patents, on principle.

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ZeroGravitas
There's a list of "references" with links to other patents. I don't know if
this patents references them, or vice versa. But one of them is case-
insensitive matching:

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6675354.html>

I just noticed, this is an IBM patent. What are they playing at.

Here's the flowchart for this "invention":

<http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6675354-0-large.jpg>

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wheaties
Laughable. This would never stand the test of prior-art. I think I'll go
patent merge sort...

~~~
danohuiginn
Ideally, you should figure out how to patent patent trolling.

~~~
nailer
Already been done (seriously).

~~~
stcredzero
Can someone still patent the meta-patent?

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pmccool
> Filing Date: 12/10/2001

I thought of patenting well-known, widely-used techniques (e.g. doubly linked
lists) as something that happened back in the 80s and 90s, but it seems I was
wrong.

They cannot honestly believe this will stand up to scrutiny, and I understand
that filing a patent isn't free, so what on earth are they hoping to
accomplish?

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rick_2047
Their fifteen minutes of fame? (at least in there peer groups)

Edit: changed Their to There (sorry grammar nazis)

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RiderOfGiraffes
Forgive me - I occasionally find English difficult, but it took me ages to
parse that.

I assume s/there/their/g ??

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username3
I assume s/the/The/g ??

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law>

I should perhaps, at the risk of being more correct but harder to understand,
have written "s/here/heir/g"

The original has now been changed, although not in the way it is stated, but
an error remains, as is so often the case, and no doubt will be in this
comment.

My point was serious. Sometimes I have real difficulty in understanding things
that have such grammatical oddities, so much so that I spend more time
decoding what must have been intended than I spend understanding the point
being made. I'm getting to the point where if I don't understand something
because the grammar or spelling is "odd" then I move on. The author has lost a
reader, for better of for worse.

There is too much to read, and a reader's attention is difficult to get. Don't
discard it lightly. Yes, many people have English as a second, third or even
fourth language, and all credit to them. But there is a trade-off to be made.
Written once, read many times (you would hope). Make sure it's easy to read.

This equates nicely with writing code. Take more time to write it more clearly
so that later readers (which may include you!) will be able to understand it.
This is a principle we all know, and we all know we should apply. It applies
equally to the written word as to the program.

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Debianero
Softwar patents are absurds and broke the system completly

More info at <http://patentabsurdity.com/>

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_delirium
Somewhat less ad-filled link:
[http://www.google.com/patents?id=kycWAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...](http://www.google.com/patents?id=kycWAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract)

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rick_2047
This is actually insane. If I know it correct you cannot patent discoveries. I
always find it funny that people are patenting algorithms. Come to think of
it, it is indeed a discovery. Even addition has an algorithm (x*n = add x, n
number of times). Imagine if someone patents multiplication and his son does
not get it in his math class he will just walk up to him and say "Hey dad can
you ban my school from teaching multiplication we own it anyways why give it
away to everyone?"

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loup-vaillant
Then, you may want to consider _any_ invention as a discovery: the discovery
of a mean to some end.

Now, mathematics had this debate a long time ago: some viewed it as something
you discover, others viewed it as something you build. Those two philosophies
spur different ways of doing mathematics. Those who viewed mathematics as
being build, for instance, tended to reject the `∀P ¬¬P = P` principle.

Also note that neither side really won the argument.

Regarding patents, the two philosophies obviously differ: the discoverers will
unconditionally reject patents, while the builders could embrace it. So, for
your argument to work, you'd first have to convince everyone that math is
indeed discovered.

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lightbeingsds
Cant we somehow find the named inventer on social networks such as fb and
linkedin and maintain a list like dirty phone book?

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hackermom
I ROL'd.

add.: oh come on, you bitter, sad downvoters.. this is good satire!

