Microsoft's 'IsNot' Patent Continued...

An anonymous reader writes " According to the patent application--filed in mid-November by Paul Vick, lead architect for Visual Basic .Net at Microsoft; Amanda Silver, a program manager on the Visual Basic team; and an individual in Bellevue, Wash., named Costica Barsan--the IsNot operator is described as a single operator that allows a comparison of two variables to determine if the two point to the same location in memory." This article continues the tale started last november, and here is an eWeek story on the same subject.

Re:Changing code again

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if ptr1 and ptr2 are pointers to pointers as you are comparing the contents of the memory locations, not the locations itself.

Sue the Patent Office?

[wren337]

Let's pretend this patent goes through; could RealSoftware Inc. sue the patent office for failing in it's duty? I mean, there has to be some liability here. If Microsoft can start patenting any crazy thing with their immense resources, and then everyone else has to scramble to get these patents knocked down, something has really gone wrong. Raise the patent fees so the USPO can really examine these patents. Make them liable for costs when a patent gets stricken for being obvious.

Stupid patents are not the problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

They can always be overturned. The problem is the non stupid patents. At LinuxWorld last week, I was discussing a relatively new and unknown technique with someone. They asked if it would work with something else. I didn't know the answer then, but thinking it over I realized it was a huge unexplored area of application. Anybody who got there first could patent everything in that area simply because they got there first. It's pretty close to patenting a new technique "in conjunction with" an existing technique, e.g. internet in conjunction with buying things, but slightly less obvious than a grammatical construct. Which makes it all the more insidious.

Sorry, can't give the specific example since I don't want to give anyone ideas.

Once again Slashdot misses

[Meor]

Patents arn't a broad encompasing thing. They are very specific to *exactly* what the patent clauses claim. Their patent on the isNot operaton comparing two memory locations in a BASIC programming language is exactly that. Before Microsoft came up with it, it simply did not exist, you had to do it another way or it existed in some other language.

You guys should be thankful that MS will waste 750$+ patenting something this simple. If you guys ever need to patent something in the future you'll be happy the application fee is so cheap because large corporations waste money on simple mundane patents.

Re:Thats nothing!

[Yurian]

Huh. I'm a computer scientist, and I've always pronounced "Xor" like "Zor".

Yes, I know, everyone else says X-or, but that never seemed to roll off the tongue.

Not quite

[WindBourne]

It is major companies that are trying to aquire patents to be able to stop small start-ups. Basically, MS is moving into a defensive posture. That makes sense WRT the article that was written earlier about MS starting to decay. [slashdot.org]

NAND

[DugzDC]

NAND. You can build any logic operation from only NANDs. If they patent that, they've got us all.

Microsoft patents evil?

[Jedi_Knyghte]

According to Thomistic philosophy, being and good are equivalent. Therefore, not-being is evil. Therefore Microsoft is attempting to patent evil.

Re:Also today...

[Lonewolf666]

And the Deutsche Telekom has actually sued other companies over the letter T and the color Magenta. They are just as bad as Microsoft.

Re:Oh please!

[dnoyeb]

And that is the suttle truth is it not?

!= is a single operator eventhough it uses two characters.

My guess is this is just the fruits of an internal employee reward patent policy. MS execs probably did not even know about this, and its the engineers going wild. Just a guess.

Please, let this patent be granted

[Flyboy Connor]

It would be a great boon for the anti-software-patent lobby if this patent would be granted.

Think of it: it should be easy to convince even a judge that this is an absolutely ridiculous patent claim. So invariably the judge will arrive at two conclusions: (a) this patent is invalid, and (b) the USPTO cannot do a good job. Especially (b) will go a long way in going back to a saner patent system.

Re:Patent schmatent

[Smallpond]

That's funny because XOR is logically the same as isNot. The output is true when the two inputs are not equal. The Cadtrak patent on XOR is 4,197,590. A company that I worked for got the threatening letter for using this patented technique for graphics displays.

I always thought that a good example of prior art is analog TV sync signals. The H and V sync are XORed because its easy to separate them using another XOR.

Re:Oh please!

[LizardKing]

The IsNot operator described in the patent also differentiates between objects with the same address in different memory spaces.

I'm sure CORBA has been doing this for years with one of the methods in the base CORBA::Object class. I think the method's called equivalent(), but it's been a while since I did any CORBA - in fact I'm having to endure the pathetic MicroSoft alternative that is SOAP.

Re:Oh please!

[killjoe]

"MS is not going to be a company to sue without good reason"

What are you talking about. Both Ballmer and Gates have said publicly that they intend to "defend their intellectual property vigorously". That's CEO speak for we are going to sue. Furthermore according to Perens MS has told HP that they intend sue open source projects for patents and sendmail was mentioned by name.

Finally just google. Ms has sued many people for intellectual property violations. Remember Mike Rowe? If Ms is willing to sue a 16 year old boy you think they are not going to sue for patent infrigement?

Re:Ridiculous IP claims have been the death of SCO

[Compholio]

I think GNU actually has the prior art:
GNU isNot Unix

Re:For all the people complaining..

[phuturephunk]

Corporate_Drone beat me to it, but yeah, not calling them morons would be a great first step forward in the right direction. People, in general, aren't stupid but they will quickly form irrational mobs and defensive groups if they feel threatened by an outside force.

This banding together is a good way to explain why we've seen the rise in fundamentalism and the seemingly standoffish posture of everyone in the very religious, very rural south (not to mention parts of the midwest and west). For years the intelligista in the Northeast and California has looked down upon the 'less savvy' unwashed masses of the heartland.

Well you know what? Now they're making their voices heard, and unfortunately the things that they want (Bibles, guns and prevention of gay marriage) takes up about 1% of the average politico's day. You know what the other 99% is spent doing? Taking phone calls from huge special interests and passing legislation and preserving the status quo so that said special interests (usually corporate) can artificially protect broken and outdated technology and process, not to mention strip you of your rights while you're asleep at the wheel.

So please, taking that 99% percent into account, at least TRY to reach out to the 'morons' and explain to them that we're all in this creaky plywood boat together.