Microsoft Patents 'IsNot', Enlists WTO

Milhouse102 writes "I was just reading an article on The Register about Microsoft's offshore patent war following Ballmer's recent outburst in Asia. I came across this little nugget, it seems MS has patented BASIC's IsNot operator."

Prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

int* x;
int* y;

int foo = x != y;

hmmm...

[loid_void]

Would this be considered a preemptive strike?

Is the 'Is' operator patented?

[TreadOnUS]

If so, the 'IsNot' operator is obvious and therefore not a good candidate to be patented. Of course what MS is really trying to do here is patent a representation of logic.

Attention Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

See what is going on? do you want this, too?

This is disgusting!

[kuwan]

If ever there were an example of how completely broken and useless the current patent system is then this is it. This makes you think, what other obvious and trivial functions have been granted patents? Can I get a patent on strcmp? I'll just apply for a patent on my new, special function that I just recently came up with. It's called StringCompare!

As I right this my colleagues are writing up patent applications for the !=, ==, &&, ||, &, and | operators. I expect these applications to be granted shortly, after which we'll own all your code and Microsoft will be my bitch.

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Only pertains to BASIC

[Christopher_G_Lewis]

From the Patent
1. A system for determining if two operands point to different locations in memory, the system comprising: a compiler for receiving source code and generating executable code from the source code, the source code comprising an expression comprising an operator associated with a first operand and a second operand, the expression evaluating to true when the first operand and the second operand point to different memory locations.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the compiler is a BASIC-derived programming language compiler.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the operator is IsNot.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the compiler comprises a scanner, a parser, an analyzer and an executable-generator.

The patent only applies to the BASIC language.

This is like me patenting the color Blue only in my living room.

Nothing to see here.

Re:Patents should be denied to convicted monopolis

[Suidae]

Would it matter? Microsoft could pay any random employee to own the patent and license it to them on an exclusive basis.

Laws could be made to to try to avoid that, but realisticly it doesn't seem like it could be prevented.

Re:So am I infringing if...

[k4_pacific]

Perhaps the intent is to keep implementations of Visual BASIC from springing up on other platforms. A great deal of software out there is still written in VB and this code often stands in the way of getting off of Windows for good.

Absurdity will NOT stop Microsoft...

[Anita Coney]

Microsoft will attempt to get patents on EVERY single aspect of computers, whether we find it funny, outrageous, or dangerous. What Microsoft is doing is perfectly legal.

The threat of patent lawsuits is the only chance Microsoft has against Linux. And for Microsoft even a little competition is an all out war.

Isn't mathematics unpatentable?

[yeremein]

I know some patent applications are obfuscated enough that USPTO workers can't tell whether they're patentable so they just rubber stamp them--but this is absurd. If it weren't on uspto.gov, I'd assume it was a hoax.

The != operator does essentially the same thing in C++, and it's been around for decades. Why is applying a well-known, absolutely trivial concept to another domain patentable? Heads should roll at the USPTO for this.

This is not laughing matter!

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless the fact that is stupid , they have a patent on this.
Maybe we should check to see if somebody else got a patent on FOR loops or do..while.

Crazy!:-(

Re:This is disgusting!

[freepath]

Apparently the patent is still pending. If it is granted I would call it an example of how the system is broken. Until then it's just fluff that doesn't mean much.

Anyone can file an application for a retarded patent, but it won't necessarily be granted. More to the point, this is so stupid it makes Microsoft look bad. What kind of company wastes their investment dollars filing this crap?

Re:Prior art

[Waffle Iron]

Python also has this operator:

a is not b

Microsoft's incredible insight here seems to involve taking Python's 10-year old technology, porting it to BASIC, and heavily optimizing it by removing the whitespace sytactic sugar between 'is' and 'not'. (This saves over 16% space!)

If anything was more worthy of patent protection, I don't know what it could be.

Actually, it's pretty obvious that the motivation for such a stupid little patent that applies to one language is simply to prevent people from reimplementing the language as a whole. Nobody cares about IsNot itself, including Microsoft. However, since 100% code compatibility is required to do a full reimplementation, this essentially would grant them a 20-year monopoly on compatible implementations of VB.

This is one of the worst things about the current patent system. Patent holders are allowed to use patents on small things to control access to huge things. Patents should somehow be changed to only protect the claims in the patent, they should not be allowed to use compatibility issues to amplify small patents into generalized barriers to entry of a whole industry.

Re:So am I infringing if...

[jkabbe]

Each claim stands on its own unless it makes reference to another claim. Claims 1, 15, and 21 are independant claims - that do stand on their own. The others are additional "inventions" that are narrower than the independantly claimed "inventions."

So if Claim 1 would cover something that C or another language already does, the claim is invalid and should be rejected.

Re:IsNot Microsoft?

[Qzukk]

IANAL, but does this mean that any language which wasn't BASIC derived would be free to implement this?

No, because 1 stands alone, you can't use it anywhere. 3 combines with 1, but isn't affected by 2, so if you wrote your own language that wasn't basic but used the word isnot, you'd still be infringing 1 and 3 (and any other claims that might apply)

Re:So am I infringing if...

[Alsee]

scope of the patent seems so narrow as to really not be worth the hassle.

You are misreading the patent. It is incredibly broad. Claim 1 *is* the fundamental patent. There's legal reasons for tossing in the other stuff, but for our purposes the isolated claim 1 is itself a full "patented invention" (presuming the application is approved).

If granted, it covers absolutely any system and any language complier with any expression accepting two pointers and returning TRUE if they are different.

There are also extra claims on the act of running such a complier or on any media with instructions for such a compiler.

Welcome to the wonderful world of software patents.

The "prior art" and "obviousness" battles over individual software patents are a waste of time. The problem is the very idea of patenting software at all. The US fuxored the system when we REVERSED our rule stating math and mental steps were not inventions and thus non-patentable. And now the US is attempting to armtwist the rest of the world into reversing their rules to also allow patents on math and mental steps.

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This is an abuse of the patent process...

[dtjohnson]

This illustrates very well how companies abuse the patent process to their own ends. This is obviously prior art, obvious, and in wide use. Yet Microsoft will focus an army of attorneys and carpetbaggers on the patent examiner's office and shower the process with money to persuade the patent examiner that they should be granted an exclusive franchise to use this, while denying it to everyone else. Then Micrsoft will point to this as another example of its 'intellectual property' that must be protected.

Re:IsNot IsNot in BASIC yet

[multipartmixed]

> I don't remember anything about pointers in BASIC 20 years ago

Sure it did. We just didn't call 'em pointers.

10 FOR I=49152 TO 49152 + 8192
20 POKE I,0
30 NEXT I

I here is clearly a pointer. Now, mind you, the pointer read/write operators were a little clumsy (POKE and PEEK), and it was a pain in the ass to have pointers to native language variables (but doable if you knew your interpreter well enough), but the concept was clearly there.

Re:Not Quite

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

If the purpose is to create uncertainty, then even the merest hint, of thinking about, possibly, applying for a patent, may actually be as effective as being granted one!

Re:Am too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, IsObvious IsPriorArt ???

Makes me think of another way to save money on govt spending. Simply replace all patent examiners with a rubber stamp that says "approved". Think about it, would we notice any difference?

Re:oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky for us the Knuths, Dijkstras, Prims, Kruskals did not patent the algorithms - otherwise we may all be using bubble sort or may not be able to sort anything without paying someone or violating something.

Of course, on the other hand, its good that these patents (IsNot, IsToo) are not as basic as the algorithms and thus we do not really loose anything.

Re:Prior art

[ultranova]

if such sillyness is ever in fact patented in the US

"If" ? In the US ? In the land where both swinging sideways and teasing a cat with a flashlight are patented ?

Be serious. Of course the paten is going to be approved.

What are they going to do? Take you to court for writing a piece of software run before the compiler does to ensure the code doesn't have any patent violations in it?

Why not ? They are likely to have more money than you, and can thus simply drag on the case until you go banckrupt.