

Apple patent: Method and apparatus for executing program code  - jhack
http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=16&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22Apple+Inc%22&OS=%22Apple+Inc%22&RS=%22Apple+Inc%22

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reitzensteinm
It's a patent for a specific set of steps to execute vector code in loops in
parallel, which means the HN title is needlessly linkbaity. The truth is
ridiculous enough.

Your average HN reader would probably 'invent' the same technique if CPU
design was their profession and they were tasked with the continuous march of
CPU performance.

There wasn't anything in there that didn't seem straight forward enough to me
after casually reading Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach five
years ago, and I make _flash games_ for a living.

At least in the case of patents on CPUs, though, your average company is well
financed enough to fight a lawsuit around this patent, which was the
particularly annoying thing about Lodsys.

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GuiA
>Your average HN reader would probably 'invent' the same technique if CPU
design was their profession and they were tasked with the continuous march of
CPU performance.

In French law, you can only patent something if it is not something that would
be evident to a trained professional in the field ("Pour un homme du métier,
une invention ne doit pas découler de façon évidente de l’état de la technique
; on considère que l’homme du métier est le technicienmoyen dans un secteur
donné"- art. L611-10, Code Propriété Intellectuelle.)

Is it not the case in the US?

~~~
ken
Trained professionals in the field don't tend to work in the patent office (it
probably pays less well, especially in software), so the patent office errs on
the side of granting too generously, and lets the courts decide later whether
to actually let them stand.

How does France deal with this situation?

~~~
darkestkhan
I love how Polish law deals with this situation - software is algorithms and
algorithms are math and math isn't patentable :)

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duskwuff
Careful with the title -- this patent is much more specific than the name of
the patent implies. There's a human-readable version of the claims in the
"Description" section of the patent (past the initial, incomprehensible-
unless-you're-a-patent-lawyer "Claims" section).

It looks as though it's a patent on a particular model for implementing a
highly parallel CPU, with a focus on making vectorized loops work better.
Interesting stuff.

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mikhael
> (past the initial, incomprehensible-unless-you're-a-patent-lawyer "Claims"
> section)

On the contrary, the claims are meant to be understandable to any reasonably
technical person (anyone "highly skilled in the art"). On the other hand, your
average non-technical lawyer would be completely unable to read them.

This doesn't mean it won't take time to fully digest a patent's claims, as
they tend to be written with a very high degree of precision.

~~~
excuse-me
they tend to be written with a very high degree of obsfurcation since you are
trying to both claim absolutely everything and yet be specific when it comes
to the court case.

Fortunately patent cases now tend to get decided out of court based on who has
the biggest portfolio, or when they do go to court it's a jury in East Texas
deciding which lawyer they dislike least. this has taken a lot of the work out
of trying to write elegant claims!

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mikhael
The obfuscation comes as a result of the patent examiners whittling down the
overly broad claims made by the authors. This is a process that goes on for
numerous rounds, back and forth. Personally I see the result as "precision" --
an agreement between the authors and the patent office about what has truly
been invented -- rather than any kind of purposeful obfuscation. (I make no
claims that this is a good process, that the patent examiners are as competent
as they ought to be, or that authors in general are not trying to scam the
system).

~~~
btilly
Also part of it is from the form - a series of separable claims. That way if a
judge finds prior art and strikes down part of the patent, they are leaving as
much leeway as possible to leave as much of the patent as possible standing.

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antiterra
This is related to what Apple apparently calls "macroscalar architecture."
Here's an excellent writeup and collection of links on what is involved:
[http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/asampson/blog/macroscalar...](http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/asampson/blog/macroscalar.html)

(Someone previously posted that URL to HN as
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3887700> and it received little response.
Maybe the title wasn't sexy enough.)

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monochromatic
Here we go again. Another HN submission about a patent, pretending that the
title of the patent means __anything at all __about what it covers. Gotta read
the claims, people.

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crazygringo
I don't think the title is accurate, this seems to apply to parallelizing a
particular type of loop, not "executing program code" in general.

But I don't understand the area enough -- what are vectorized loops, and what
is Apple doing here? Can someone explain this patent in an easy way?

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nullspace
Seems like you have a vector of functions and a set of control functions. Each
control function resolves dependencies, in such a way that the vector of
functions can execute parallely while maintaining a "correct" order of
execution.

It's definitely clever, but I can't believe they were granted a patent for
this. It would be like patenting the map reduce framework. :|

~~~
taligent
People really need to calm down about whether or not the patent was granted.
The fact is that the patent office is basically rubber stamping most patents
and relying on patent invalidation processes within the legal system to
resolve issues.

Not every patent clerk is going to be Albert Einstein. Nor should we expect
them to be.

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shmerl
> The fact is that the patent office is basically rubber stamping most patents
> and relying on patent invalidation processes within the legal system to
> resolve issues.

Which is expensive. It should work other way around. Those who file such
patents need to spend money to prove that this stuff is really innovative and
for some real experts. Current patents system is pure farce.

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derekerdmann
Careful, I don't think this is a "Apple patented executable code" situation.
It looks more like the process is to build instructions to help concurrency,
not just generalize program execution and compilation.

When the titles of most patents are taken in isolation, link bait is usually
the result.

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chris_wot
Patenting instructions to help concurrency is not much better.

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wolf550e
I am not an expert in patents or the subject matter, but it seems the patent
only covers some encoding of (possibly automatically) vectorized loop. Maybe
using LLVM, maybe in Apple's GPU drivers effort. No at all as general as the
submission's title claims.

I would like to hear from more knowledgeable people what the invention is and
how novel is it really.

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jMyles
I am not a big fan of the sensationalist and misleadingly terse headlines that
sometimes accompany posts like this, but this one is pretty serious. Apple is
claiming domain over a very fundamental operation here - one that is at the
core of human thought and consciousness if not performant software.

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eta_carinae
Stop paying attention to trash patents that get filed every day (too many to
count and of little consequence) and start getting outraged at companies that
actually sue based on trash patents (Apple is the #1 offender here, but sadly
not alone).

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mistercow
Scoffing at the _titles_ of patents is usually a sign that you don't
understand how patents work. A patent covers a _specific method_ for achieving
a goal, not the goal itself.

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Zenst
WTF there desribing a vector processor. These were about and prio-art back in
the 70's. INTEL have added instructions to handle this type of processing.
This is not new and how they got that patent again highlights what a crock of
shit this whole patent mess is.

Are patents realy down to wording a known process in such a complex way that
it appears to be new - as thats how I see alot of patents.

Bottom line if you can't sumarise it on the back of a postit note without
duplicating somebody elses work then you have created nothing new at all.

I think bad patents like this should be fined, submit prior art patent then
you should be fined - big time. Help pay for all this courtroo bullshitting
about patents.

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fchollet
While the patent is not literally for "executing code", it still completely
ridiculous and should not have been granted. Does anyone at USPTO actually
reads the content of these applications, I wonder?

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sliverstorm
More important than reading them, I think, is the question of whether they
have staff that understands computing well enough to discern whether something
is novel or not.

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yalogin
Glad to see most of the comments here are from people that read the patent,
understood it and not the general lets go with the now popular Apple is a
patent troll line of hating.

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mjcohenw
Makes me think of the Hughes/Raytheon SPE (Signal Processing Element) that I
programmed when I worked at Raytheon about 2006. Loops to control parallel
processing to/from multiple memories, ... It's at least 20 years old.

How can they get a patent on this? There must be lots of prior art (such as
the SPE).

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rbanffy
They get away with it because the USPTO clerk isn't particularly inclined to
check for prior art.

There should be a way to sue the patent office for patents you had to spend
money invalidating. Better: to Sue them for approving bad patents and enabling
trolls to thrive.

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ericingram
Is it clear yet, that "intellectual property" is not property at all? Rather,
it is a government sanctioned monopoly on ideas that are not scarce like
physical property.

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alttab
Looks to me they are patenting event queues? If I don't understand this I
can't imagine the government agent that approved this patent did either.

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duskwuff
No, not really. Read the "Description" section of the patent.

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shmerl
I'm surprised they don't attempt to patent Von Neumann architecture, or even
the concept of algorithm itself.

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wmf
Come on people; flag it and move on.

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ThePherocity
Can we just kill software patents already? Seriously, they need to go away.

