Linked List Patented in 2006 477
An anonymous reader writes "Congratulations are in order to Ming-Jen Wang of LSI Logic Corporation who, in patent #10260471 managed to invent the linked list. From the abstract, "A computerized list is provided with auxiliary pointers for traversing the list in different sequences. One or more auxiliary pointers enable a fast, sequential traversal of the list with a minimum of computational time. Such lists may be used in any application where lists may be reordered for various purposes." Good-bye doubly linked list. We should also give praise to the extensive patent review performed by Cochran Freund & Young LLP."
This is a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where to submit prior art? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got personal programming I've done that uses linked lists. I've got an instructor who's been teaching them in a 200-level C++ course for god knows how long. Hell, Herb Schildt's "C++: The Complete Reference" was published before this patent was filed in 2002.
Re:To be fair, he invented a doubly linked list (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is a good thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is a good thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Previous Slashdot discussion of this patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Prior Art (Score:3, Insightful)
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.sys.ibm.as4
What I describe, doccumented on the usenet, Is a multple linked list. I dont claim that I invented this method by any means - I'm sure someone must have come up with this b4 me as it is the next logical progression from a single linked list. BUT, At least I posted the method on the internet way back then, so prior art can definatly be proven.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:2, Insightful)
All patents need to be abolished. They do nothing but hold back progress.
Sure hippie. Just as soon as you explain to me how, without patents, a drug company would invest $100M in R&D for a drug that will take comptetitors $1M to copy, driving the price down to the point that they never recover their initial investment. And if your answer is "the government will do it!" look at the fantastic job they do running US public schools.
Patents are a necessary part of scientific development. Doesn't mean I'll defend the current system, but pretty much any scientist will admit that some form of patent protection is abolutely necessary for many forms of research. This is particularly true for fields in which the barrier to market entry is low compared to the one-time research required to invent a product - like drug development.
Re:Patent is on multiply-linked lists (Score:3, Insightful)
Luckely, the data structure descibed by the patent has very limited use. A more generic version would allow any number of pointers per item, and is typically called a graph. Still it is a terrible shame that the US patent office grants such patents.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
The there is the issue that computer science moves along at such a clip that one company having a monopoly on an idea for the standard patent term could seriously stifle innovation in the field, which is directly against what the entire point of patents are.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:5, Insightful)
Other patents from this examiner (Score:5, Insightful)
How about slocate [google.com]?
Or rsync [google.com]?
Oh and data muxing [google.com].
Fantastic!
One of two things will happen with this though. (Score:1, Insightful)
Either:
1) the "inventor" will hold it strictly for bragging rights, or
2) he will attempt to litigate and the patent will be found invalid and thus will be issued a trip to the shredder.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:3, Insightful)
Serious question: How well would academia do?
Well, they often do the basic research now, before selling the results to companies The problem is the very expensive development - the clinical trials, and all that. We'd be in the position of having colleges do all that, but it's really not what they're set up for. And of course the gov. would have to subsidize it.
And look at it this way too - let's say we have the government spend $100M per drug developed (even if academics do it, the gov pays). Now companies come in and take the result and sell it on the cheap. Basically, what we've just said is "Hello, Merck, Phizer. Would you like the US government to take over your R&D? Oh, we'll do it for free." Seems like the US taxpayer gets screwed (at least, more directly than he is now). Also realize that since drugs are used internationally, we'd basically be doing free R&D for the entire world, where even rich European nations would be able to take our results - unless the patent-free zone applied domestically only.
At the end of the day, it's a problem of game theory. Assuming all people do what's in their best interests (which doesn't always apply, but still), drug development will basically stop without patents, or under your case the US taxpayer ends up footing the bill for worldwide drug development, which we can't realistically do.
Let's keep this up (Score:3, Insightful)
We should continue to submit rediculous patents just to show how counter productive software patents in general actually are. Anyone still have their first year CS course notes? There should be plenty of material to patent!
I don't mind they patent a hammer but not how it's actually used.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, when discussing patents (or copyright), everyone must agree that this is an artificial concept developed to try and achieve a purpose. The purpose in the U.S. is (arguably) to promote innovation. There's no natural or inherent quality of such concepts beyond an inconsistent and ill-defined sense of possessiveness.
Second, with that in mind, if we look at your question, there are a few ways to approach it. "more patentable" could mean a few different things. I'll argue the discussion about "should be more patentable" i.e. I'll be arguing achieving the purpose, not the current letter of the law legality, of which I'm not fully clear (patents aren't copyright, and that's where the bulk of my limited legal knowledge is).
When a device is patented, there are a few areas of benefit:
1) The industry benefits, because the patent is (theoretically) detailed and recorded, meaning that the knowledge will not be lost, and that knowledge will eventually become public domain.
2) The inventor benefits, because his/her device is recorded, and for a time, no one can use that device or claim credit for it without getting permission.
3) Licensees benefit, because they can develop new inventions that improve upon or use or otherwise rely upon the patented device.
4) Competitors benefit, because there is new idea introduced, and though they can't copy that implementation, they can try their own ways of achieving that idea. (knock-offs) In some cases, these prove to have some benefit over the original (a better method, cheaper production, etc)
I would argue that #4 is why algorithms, business processes, and the like shouldn't be patented. Patenting Babbage's engine doesn't prevent the next guy from trying his luck at building a better mousetrap, so long as he doesn't actually copy Babbage. Patenting the algorithm (effectively the concept) does. Less competition means less benefit, and if I build a better mousetrap that doesn't rely on anything from your mousetrap, I'm not violating your work.
That's a "should" argument from my personal views. It could well be that patents expressly try to protect ideas and concepts, though I suspect otherwise.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeaaaaaaaa (Score:4, Insightful)
oh wait - none of these are valid in this universe - all these are happening in alternate universes.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:5, Insightful)
True. So it is just slightly less ridiculous than the headline makes it out to be. For crying out loud, I implemented various sorting methods on my linked lists by adding multiple pointers to them two decades ago as a teenager, and I don't believe for a second that I was doing anything remarkable at all. Once you have heard of linked lists then doubly-linked lists, triply-linked lists or whatever-linked lists are pretty much obvious.
Anyhow, what is really missing in all of this discussion is a response from the patent submitter or the persons in charge of accepting the patent; we never get this on Slashdot nor the stories referred to. Since the patent appears to be so unbelievable, I am very curious as to what their official response would be. Perhaps some IT journalist can get one?
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking those compounds and ensuring they are safe to administer in humans (rather than just animal models), and that they are as efficacious or more efficacious than other existing treatments is a costly, time-consuming process that requires managing a huge staff, coordinating clinics and hospitals, managing information systems, etc. This is not something universities or most research labs are set up to do properly.
If you eliminated patents, you clearly wouldn't stop the scientists, but you'd put a huge damper on industry and financiers wanting to back the latter part of this process. This would result in far fewer drugs getting through the FDA approval process.
It may be the case that there is a more societally efficient way to do this than the current system, but I'm not sure what it is. One problem with the current system is that one effect of it is that the US effectively subsidizes other countries drug availability, because drug companies expect to earn a large portion of their profits here, and have to deal with centrally negotiated pricing and other issues in foreign markets. But I don't see how you'd think that eliminating patents entirely would help the situation.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, the R&D bill needs to be paid. Right now, a ton of it is going into researching new lifestyle medicines that can be marketed via tv adds to affluent aging baby-boomers. That's where the big money is, not curing diseases. Academics are less inclined to pour $100M into researching a new arthritis medication simply because their old (though highly effective) one has gone out of patent.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a good point. I would add a second situation that for me is the worst with algorithms:
A patent shouldn't be granted if there's a good chance that someone will come across the same exact solution with no knowledge from the patent. By "good chance" I mean probability... in Information Theory terms this would mean that an algorithm should yield some amount of information before being patentable.
IMHO the n-linked lists don't meet the "amount of information" quota because it's very likely someone comes across this solution on his own when faced with certain types of problems. The same way that many people with no knowledge on sorting come across their own versions of bubble sort... or the same way you can "build" (i.e. emerge) quicksort out of some sorting theory.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:2, Insightful)
1970 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Prior art is a defense if they try to enforce the patent on you. They never should have been given the ability to enforce the patent in the first place.
Just to be clear, for people who might read this and have no idea what all this linked-list business is about, this ia a data structure that is taught in every 200-level com sci "algorithms and data structures" class, and is so ubituitous that it would certainly be on any exam based on that material. Put in terms in another domain, this would be like patenting "the use of horse hair for the application of water, oil, or acrylic-based substances in an effort to produce a visually aesthetic experience" - that is, a paint brush. Linked lists are in the basic toolset that software engineers use every day. If you are reading this post electronically, then there are probably hundreds of them swirling around inside your computers memory at this very second.
corporatism run amok (Score:1, Insightful)
What this is, is corporatism. Dwight Eisenhower warned of this when he warned of the rise of the "military industrial complex." Folks, this is it.
There is no reason for the current sorry state of IP in the USA, other than this is what the corporations want. They bought seats in congress, and grateful representatives (I use that in the loosest possible way, because it's the corporations who bought the seat that is being represented, not the voters) enacted the laws that the corporations wanted.
That's how we got software patents. The whole concept of software patents goes against the patent system. The idea was to patent real, physical things -- products and machines. Until software patents, you couldn't patent ideas. The reason behind patents is to encourage R&D of new and innovative products - to give the inventor improved prospects of being able to recover the R&D costs, which in turn encourages further R&D. This was when developing a new widget could take years of work. Not the few hours that developing a triply linked list did -- it only took me a couple of days to develop my six pointer linked list to compete with a b-tree (hey, it got me out of the exam so don't knock it).
If you think this patent is a scam, you are right. It's a scam that we not only allowed, but encouraged. Because we, as a group, aren't really engaged in the political scene. Because we seem to think that it doesn't matter, when clearly it does matter a great deal.
Re:Prior Art? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:2, Insightful)
The actual COST of a pill is almost nothing - no more than the cost of generic acetaminophen in your local grocery store. Any organic chem graduate could take almost any of the major drugs on the market and design a workable and mostly efficient synthesis method. Any chemical engineering graduate could probably take one of these methods and upscale it to million-pill quantities. Ensuring that these drugs are safe is where most of the cost is.
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that in software its too easy to confuse a method and a concept. Even experienced developers will sometimes have problems. Where the PTO understands that patents on physical objects represent only the means of accomplishing the task and not accomplishing the task by any means, they haven't figured it out when it comes to software. Too many patents are granted for accomplishing a task rather than accomplishing a task using a given algorithm.
This doesn't mean that we should scrap the patent system entirely (for software, at least). What it means is that we need to push for education and reforms that reduce the abuse that we're currently seeing. For one, patent examiners need to be better educated, perhaps to the point where no examiner is not a specialist in the field of the patent. There are a ton of other things that would help too, but that's beyond the scope of this post.