Another case of MS "Patent Everything"?

[lwill]

Plus there is a link to "Sue everyone because we can't think for ourself" (Walking into traffic)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57354 ... ps-patent/

Who will be the first to sue MS for getting mugged in a "good" area?
Will the communities in the "ghetto" areas sue MS as well?
The thing I found amazing as well is in the patent there are over 100 patents listed in "References Cited" section.
I think I am going to apply for a patent on "The Process and Method for Filing a Patent". Maybe if they had to pay ME a royalty each time it would cut down on this nonsense!

(I found it funny too that my wife is from near Youngstown, OH shown in the map!)

[tallboy]

What a gift to every drug pusher, MS providing a map to the market!

Tallboy

[disciple]

WT?!

Can you patent whatever you like over there? All this is doing is taking the sort of thing people have done for years with GIS (although they probably don’t usually do it to avoid ghettos ), automating it, and putting it in a GPS. Is that their idea of "innovation"?
Did they do the same thing with cellphones?
- patent the idea of putting a clock in a phone
- patent the idea of putting a camera in a phone
- patent the idea of putting a calculator in a phone
- patent the idea of putting a browser in a phone
- patent the idea of putting a gps in a phone
- ...

What about desktop computers? Did they patent the idea of the word processor?

[tallboy]

Take a look at the funny stories here; google-scoops-up-ibm-patents.html.

I quote from the article:

One patent, called "Using Semantic Networks To Develop A Social Network," says it "identifies other users with common interests." These interests could be determined "by calculating a ratio of the number of words in a content source to the time spent viewing the content," according to the patent description.

For example, if you were looking on a social network for a person knowledgeable about say, higher education, the technology could recommend someone for you to speak with even if that individual didn't necessarily list "higher education" as an interest. It works by analyzing the amount that an individual in your extended network spends discussing a certain topic online as well as how often it is read by others.

I really did not think that such ideas could be patented, it sounds more like a student assignment in a programming class!

Tallboy

[8-bit]

Till maps for GPS devices are updated correctly, we will get all sorts of BS.
On my GPS, there is a street that it showed I should use in a short route home.
The street has the same name on both sides of a creek.
The problem is that there is no bridge across the creek on that street.
I knew that though and the map on the GPS did not.

I had another instance of a route shown that had me driving around one block continually part way through a route.
It was a case of a cement divider in the intersection that did not allow one to drive straight across to the street with the same name.
It makes me wonder if their maps are farmed out to someone that does not know the areas.
It is off topic slightly from the patent everything one, but with an "aviod gettos" route and the way those GPS maps seem to have major errors, it seems one just might end up in the middle of the area they were trying to avoid.
And if bodily harm was received due to an error, could one sue and collect for thier folley of that patent?

It would be like if I drove into that creek trying to get home could I sue the GPS maker for damages?

[Sylvander]

patent the idea...

I believe IDEAS CANNOT BE PATENTED.
It's the specific method of applying an idea that is patented.
e.g. a device or system.
Not the idea itself.

I'm open to correction though.

[disciple]

Follow the link and read the MS ghetto patent. It doesn't sound like a very specific method to me.

[Dewbie]

Bill Gates' godfather :

Patent play
Prolific inventor Jerome Lemelson died in 1997, but a partnership representing his interests lives on. Hundreds of companies, including Jabil Circuit Inc. in St. Petersburg, have received letters urging them to pay licensing fees on Lemelson's patents or face an expensive lawsuit. Is it extortion or the protection of one man's ideas?

http://www.sptimes.com/News/81599/news_ ... play.shtml

[GustavoYz]

Have you seen this movie yet?

[jpeps]

If this innovation makes it to my GPS, it will cross off Oakland, Richmond, South Berkeley, San Pablo.....in fact, the only route available will be through the Berkeley, Oakland Hills. Unfortunately, that's the route that generally lead you down bicycle paths, etc, in your car.

[disciple]

No, this "innovation" is specifically for GPS for pedestrians, so it will send you down the bicycle trails on foot, not in your car. Thankfully I can't imagine many people would actually buy a GPS to walk around town...

[jpeps]

No, this "innovation" is specifically for GPS for pedestrians, so it will send you down the bicycle trails on foot, not in your car. Thankfully I can't imagine many people would actually buy a GPS to walk around town...

My reading was that they are making the GPS software put into iphones more pedestrian friendly. For better or worse, there are lots of people who use the GPS devices in their cars...they speak to you, so it's fairly easy to do. Hopefully there will be a "pedestrian" setting, although I doubt people are supposed to be driving with them.

[disciple]

Yes, looking again I realise you're right, it isn't just GPS devices, but "1. Computer storage media having embodied thereon computer-useable instructions..." which could be anything. So they probably are thinking primarily of phones (but Windows ones, not iPhones).

[tallboy]

I believe IDEAS CANNOT BE PATENTED. Wink
It's the specific method of applying an idea that is patented.
e.g. a device or system.
Not the idea itself.

I totally agree! By allowing an idea to be patended without having a physical implementation of it, is just a way to block other smarter people from making the product you are not able to make yourself. Not very productive, in my view.
In many countries, many patents were not applied for in the electronics industry, because in a patent application you also had to show how the product was designed, and that was always something your competitors could loook into and make a new design to do the same thing, without spending time and money on research.
I think that is the same situation in most countries in our part of the world, Sylvander, that a patent must be a spesific product, not just an idea. If an idea is enough, I would have to hire a secretary following me 24-7 and making notes of all my sick ideas!

Tallboy

[disciple]

A patent certainly does not require an actual implementation.
The patents I've read (not many, and possibly all software patents, but I can't remember) are not even pseudocode - they just describe in general terms how the software would work, but the software has never been created.

[Aitch]

It seems to me, that if you give a software routine, or sub-routine, a methodology label, you are'n patenting the code, you are patenting a methodology labelling system

How does an idea get bound by that?

I agree that the whole issue of software/process-as-now-defined patents is absurd, and is as much a misinterpretation of words as if we took words out of history and tried to apply them to today's ideas

It's all so much sweotolum!

Aitch

[disciple]

No, they're not patenting the code, because:
1. As far as we know they haven't actually written any (and some people file patents never intending to write any).
2. Code is protected by copyright (and trade secret?). A patent applies more generally to the methodology or algorithm or something.

[Aitch]

An algorithm is a mathematical law, very often a natural process identified by mathematical philosophers for human benefit, and again, should not be patentable - it is a misinterpretation of the natural use of the word 'process'

or, 'theft' for want of a better description

Aitch

[disciple]

Well, the oxford dictionary doesn't say anything about an algorithm being a law, just that it is

a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer:

It looks like the US Supreme Court uses your definition, but I'm inclined to think they're the ones stealing words - not the people who write the Oxford dictionary...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patentability