Microsoft [to patent] Verb Conjugation

streepje writes "Here [to be] the latest egregious patent application. Microsoft [to be] [to apply] for a patent for [to conjugate] verbs. Future postings [to look] like this."

Already been invented.

It's called a language-to-language dictionary, or a stack of them in this case. Futhermore, many websites and applications already offer complete translation, from single words to long texts (clearly not a secret) and the conjugation of verbs is intrinsic to this type of software so that context is preserved. All that the patent seems to offer is comprehension of strings like "present indicative of [verb]".

From the article:
For example, the user may input "present indicative of sein," "prasens indikativ von sein," "1st person plural of sein," and "erste Person Plural von sein".

I think this is a nonstarter.

Re:Yep.

USPTO doesn't have one! ;)

Re:Already been invented.

IANAL, thank God, but it seems to me that that would only be prior art if you had publicized it somehow. Prior art has to be public, for obvious reasons.

If you didn't publicize it, your prior invention only gives you the personal right to use your version of the technology without paying Microsoft. Until they sue you of course, then you'll either pay them or lawyers.

This piece of software [druide.com] has been for sale since 1996 (for French), and it does much more than what the patent covers (conjugate verbs), it's also a dictionnary with definitions (partly in the patent application for verbs), a thesaurus, a grammar, a spell and grammar checker (way better than what's embedded in MS-Word... it's a totally different league), and much much more. It's a must-have if you're even only remotely interrested in the French language.

Re:Already been invented.

Dear Microsoft,

With regard to your patent, would you like to

a) fuck off
b) go fuck yourself or
c) get fucked

Re:This good.

indeed, doubleplus good
(adverbs are ok right?)

prior art?

Can I submit my seventh grade Spanish book as an example of prior art? It has an interface (a table in the back) that allows the user to select verbs based on tense and person.

Re:prior art?

http://perseus.org/ [perseus.org]Perseus conjugates on a computer Ancient Greek and Latin. It even declines nouns and adjectives. Take that, Microsoft!

Re:prior art?

Easy solution: Usage of a scanner!

Second function of this post: Demonstration of possibility of avoidance of verbs anyway. Result: No need of conjugation of verbs. Implication: Avoidance of patent problems.
Disadvantage: Overuse of colon.

Sorry, nonability of resistance :-)

Re:prior art?

Disadvantage: Overuse of colon.

Whatever you do in the privacy of your bathroom should stay in the privacy of your bathroom.

<shudder>

Oh please

I dislike Microsoft's business practices as much as the next guy, but give me a break. If you actually read the linked patent, it isn't a patent on conjugating words. It's a patent on automatically providing all of the different possible conjugation forms of any verb on the fly, which is something I, for one, haven't seen before and think could be pretty useful...

-Grym

Re:Oh please

And I for one, have seen things that are certainly similar. At best what you are creating is a series of like values (I live (Engliah) = Eu vivo (Portuguese) = Iskun (Arabic), etc), and that is if you are doing translation (where such things have already been around). If it is for one language, then it is basically taking a "501 X Verbs" Book and making it searchable electronically, and adding it to the grammar/cpell check of a writing application. Unless there is some that extends beyond the simple idea of large tables of word/phrase data and maybe some kind of expert system with grammar rules that accounts for some of the varied iregular verbs of somelanguages, what you have is a rather bogus patent application.

Re:Oh please

It's a patent on automatically providing all of the different possible conjugation forms of any verb on the fly, which is something I, for one, haven't seen before and think could be pretty useful...

Have you looked at a (good) dictionary?

Of course it is pretty useful. In fact, it is something fundamental to language. Which is why it is reprehensible that some company should have a patent on it. It is like giving them a patent on changing sentences from passive to active... no, it's worse.

(This Onion article [theonion.com] might not be too far from reality, after all. :-)

Re:Oh please

Looks like you're willfully misunderstanding the point as well. There is nothing difficult about listing all the possible conjugations of a verb: It's trivial to do it by applying the algorithms expressed in a good grammatical reference.

It's trivial to do it for a fixed language, and it's trivial to iterate over any set of candidate languages with a well defined grammar, doing it for each.

The fact that a book doesn't list all possible forms for each possible verb in an explicit table is irrelevant. The book is enough to generate those forms on demand, which is all an algorithm is required to do.

Now, there are certainly optimal (smallest number of operations, or maybe smallest RAM requirements, etc) algorithms out there which perform equivalently to any given published grammar book, but finding those is at best a cause for buying the programmers a case of beer, it's not worthy of a patent. After all, it doesn't significantly advance the state of the art.

Re:Oh please

It's a patent on automatically providing all of the different possible conjugation forms of any verb on the fly, which is something I, for one, haven't seen before and think could be pretty useful...

Yup, that described by your clarification has certainly never been done before [bestwebbuys.com].

Re:Oh please

>"If you actually read the linked patent, it isn't a patent on conjugating words. It's a patent on automatically providing all of the different possible conjugation forms of any verb on the fly,"

Yes, that is true, but that doesn't make it any less straightforward and simple.

>"which is something I, for one, haven't seen before and think could be pretty useful..."

...which most definitely does not mean that such a thing does not exist.
I, for one, have created a simple Perl-module which conjugates a given Latin verb in all tenses and forms. Let me tell you: conjugating a verb "on the fly" is trivial. Exceptions to every rule do, however, mess things up a little, but the exceptions themselves build up very simple and trivial rules.

Prior art? Hell, yeah!
Non-obvious? Hell, no!

Re:Oh please

You very likely don't work in natural language processing. People have been generating whole paradigms for a long time. For a set of published examples, check out the Xerox Finite State Morphology [fsmbook.com] software and textbook. The software provides ways of describing the morphology and lexicon of a language and compiling it into an efficient finite state transducer. Once you've got the transducer, you can run it in either direction, that is, you can parse, or you can generate. A common test, and exercise in courses on doing this, is to generate the entire paradigm of a particular word or set of words.

Microsoft help...

Clippie: It looks like you're typing a verb. Would you like:

• some help choosing another verb?
• some help conjugating your verb?
• to use the split infinitive wizard?

Re:Microsoft help...

if Clippy dangles his participle in front of me, I'm cutting it off!

Re:Microsoft help...

Surely you mean

• to boldly use the split infinitive wizard

Since Frankfurter copyrighted Bullshit,

can they do this without paying royalties to him?

Obligatory Simpsons Quote Thread

Me fail English? That's unpossible.

Yay, whatever

NJStar Japanese Word processor 5.01 [archive.org], released in 2004 (before filing date of the application). Note the features marked, respectively, "Instant English-Japanese/Japanese-English dictionary/translation" and "Japanese verb forms generator for Japanese study."

Irrelevant

It doesn't matter whether other systems have had on-the-fly verb conjugation. It only matters if they used the same implementation as described in this patent. If the MS implementation is new, then it's arguably patentable. Most here seem to intentionally misunderstand that.

Misleading headline....

It seems that slashdot routinely posts headlines claiming "Microsoft patents X!" Where X is something obviously nonpatentable. However, in almost every instance what Microsoft has actually done is patented a specific method or system of performing X. This is no exception. Microsoft has not patented conjugating verbs. They are applying for a patent for a specific type of system which helps users identify verb forms from verbs and vice versa. Again: patenting a method or system for performing X != patenting X. Can we get an end to all these misleading "Microsoft patents smiley faces!" type of headlines?

Re:Misleading headline....

Of course Microsoft has bullied programmers from releasing their code because it contains patents that Microsoft claims it owns. Yes, against small time people who cant afford the tens or houndred of thousands of money to get the patent revoked.

One highly publized example is VirtualDub which no longer support the .asf file format since Microsoft sent them a threat to stop VirtualDyb from using .asf files.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualDub [wikipedia.org]

So yes Microsoft has no qualms about using their patents to stop open software being developed.

Re:It's a method patent

Yes - but they are effectively patenting all methods of doing this. And that is the big problem. Amazon didn't patent one particular method of providing one-click shopping, they pretty much patented them all. As such, Microsoft will have a lock on anyone doing verb conjugation on a computer.

Nowhere in this patent do they describe the method in anything but the broadest generality - they are not patenting a specific implementation (which is what covers programs under copyright law).

As you imply - it's not unusual but it's still a bad idea to allow method patents like this.

Which language?

Would this patent only cover American English, or would it cover Spanish (verb conjugation galore) or Danish (no verb conjugation at all) as well?

The software patent system almost requires this

If you have been following recent history you will see that Microsoft have been sued for just about anything they do with software, and often they have lost for even things like including something like an interactive control on a web page.

Given this, it only makes sense for them, or any company for that matter, to patent any ideas for present or future functionality that they might have.

Software patents are here to throttle the rapid development of technology to the point that the powers that be can keep up with what's going on.

More prior art

In the spanish speaking world, unlike in english, there is an official academy of the language which monitors its development throughout all the spanish-speaking countries and updates the official Dictionary of the Academy accordingly. In their website they have a tool that does exactly the same as this patent describes. Would that count as prior-art or the fact that its in a different language might count as sufficient difference even though the process is about the same (if not more complex given that there are a lot more perks to spanish conjugation)?

Not that bad really

At least they didn't patent the letter E.

Conjugate?

Conjugate? I haven't even kissed a girl.

If we're thrown in prison for conjugating verbs...

Will we still be allowed conjugal visits?

A new way of thinking of patents

by religning their administration to the original stated goals. We have to reevaluate what we have patents for. When the founding fathers put them in the constitution, it was to promote progress and the sciences. They stated this themselves.

Yet, during WW2, the government invalidated many radio patents to spur progress (and help the war effort) and radio considerably advanced in that period. Also, computer science advanced very nicely in the US until software patents showed up.

It seems that, if anything, patents hinder progress in many cases. It seems to me that patents help in situations where there is no market yet or is very research heavy (drug industry) and help funnel research in such an area, but once a competitive market is established, it only hinders progress in many instances.

So a blanket ban on patents seem unfeasible but perhaps there should be a ban of patent by industry. Industries with rapid progress should have no patents because the promotion of science and advancement is obviously not needed.

OTOH, where there is very little market or industry itself has a high upfront/continuing costs - an extra incentive is needed (protection at the marketplace) and thus patents are necessary.

In other words, patents will be considered almost like tax incentives.

The problem with patents today, in lieu of manufacturing going overseas, is that the US is trying to pad its economy with IP, so the government as a whole has no incentive to be sparing of patents. This path is problematic and will impoverish us all over time. We really need to overhaul the patent system.

I would be particularly interested in hearing the opinions of historians who have studied scientific revolutions/industrial revolutions/economic upheavals of the past and what their opinions about the environment/variables that time has shown truly promote advancement/progress.

Yoda + Baseball

I suppose it'll make it easier to automate how Yoda talks.

I'm still waiting for them to surpass patenting "How to Tell When a Baseball Game is Exciting." or patenting their apple.

_________________________________________

It's going to take some work, although one never knows when opportunity will strike:

A local anchor once said, "...killed him to death..."

She left the city and returned (to a different station) and I was waiting for another one as she's also the "Health & Technology" reporter.

This time, however, it was the "alternative" anchor team (it's a mess) and the story was about acupuncture and overcoming issues in getting pregnant.

The anchor turned to her and said, "I guess it just takes a little prick, eh?". Deadpan.

If I'd have that taped, it would have been on YouTube about five minutes later, but alas...all I could do was change my boxers.

Major typo

Anyone else notice (or care) that the USPTO seems to have spelled Address as "Adress". Spelling-nazis are ten-a-penny, so you would expect the USPTO, of all organisations, to have one or two in their ranks!

US

You're kidding right? Their policy is to automatically grant every patent application, and let the courts figure out validity later. Basically, in order to show that they've reduced their budget, they fired all their patent analysts and let them work as consultants to civil courts at one hundred times the overall cost, once you factor in all the legal costs associated with resolving patent disputes the hard way. In a reasonable enlightened nation, this would get the government officials responsible for this decision horsewhipped in a public square before being exiled. In America, the people responsible were instead paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their efforts and will live some of the cushiest lives in the entire world, while the tax payer grapples the massive extra costs introduced by this monstrous decision (as well as paying for the officials' pensions, rather than for a few bullwhips and an exile-barge at a fraction the price). Nice, huh?