From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,a883dc07df0d6bb1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: Decoding an octet stream Date: 1999/12/01 Message-ID: <824a8c$4p9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 555347201 References: <877lj2q36g.fsf@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> <81u247$kc3$1@hobbes2.crc.com> <821rc5$bim$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <822o4d$ehh$1@birch.prod.itd.earthlink.net> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x43.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Dec 01 23:16:32 1999 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-12-01T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <822o4d$ehh$1@birch.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "David C. Hoos, Sr." wrote: > But, from my previous employment with a company that was > fanatic about patenting everything in sight, and the education > I received in their attempts to obtain a patent on one of my > electronic component designs, one principle that seems > applicable here is that what is "obvious to one skilled in the > art" is not patentable. You would be surprised how difficult it can be to prove that something is obvious. In particular, there tends to be an assumption that if there is no prior art, then how can it be so obvious. Case law would surprise you here! I quite agree this is indeed obvious :-) > Nevertheless, I am eager to learn what patent might be > infringed by this small, and to my thinking, "obvious to one > skilled in the art," snippet of code. If my memory serves right, and I am not sure (where is Greg Aharonian when we need him :-) :-) Mark Williams holds the patent on the idea of converting to a common canonical format as a solution for big-endian to little-endian conversion. But it was a while ago and may have expired. I heard about it in the context of actual litigation, so it is not just a paper patent! > If it does infringe, I shudder to think > what other infringements might be buried in the hundreds of > thousands of lines of code I've written over 41 hears of > 'practicing the art. Yes, indeed, and that is why software patents are so worrisome. In some cases you cannot avoid infringing however much diligence you put into avoiding infringement, because at some stages in the process the patent can still be confidential, yet still protected retroactively. Bob Duff asked me in a private email how come I was so insistent on enforcing patents. But that's a misintepretation of my position, my concern is more that people should be aware of the threat that software patents pose to innovation and advancement of science (phrase chosen intentionally to echo the commerce clause). This is of course a bit off topic for comp.lang.ada, so probably followups should go to one of the many groups that discuss software patents. Sorry to drift off topic! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.