Slashdot Log In
Linked List Patented in 2006
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Mar 19, 2007 08:11 AM
from the good-thing-that's-protected-now-as-well dept.
from the good-thing-that's-protected-now-as-well dept.
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This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Prior Art? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:5, Funny)
I think you misunderstood. To make the links, you take about 5-6 inches of reel-to-reel tape, wrap it around to form a loop, and then seal it with a bit of sticky tape. Then you take the next piece of reel-to-reel, and loop it through the first before sealing it, thus forming the link. The prior art the GPP mentioned is found in every school for five-year-olds in the country, around 15 December every year, and has been since long before your new-fangled punch cards were invented! :-)
Parent
make cast? (Score:5, Funny)
make cast? I've done make, make install, make clean, make menuconfig, make xconfig, make modules make modules install, but I've never done make cast...
But obviously I've never compiled anything with a linked list in it anyhow, since this dude just barely invented them.
Parent
Re:Prior Art? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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?
Parent
This is a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a good thing? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:Software vs hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the more likely scenario is that the drug companies are mainly working on chemical solutions to psychological conditions like depression which were often previously treated with counselling. Those 100 million dollar drugs aren't curing anything, they're alleviating symptoms marginally better than the previous patent-protected drug did.
Parent
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.
Parent
Doesn't patent insertion and deletion (Score:5, Funny)
Patent is on multiply-linked lists (Score:5, Informative)
Previous Slashdot discussion of this patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Previous Slashdot discussion of this patent (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Patent is on multiply-linked lists (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in lat 70s when I was a junior programmer, I did some hacking in SNOBOL to produce a list of thinkgs that had to be sorted two different ways. I had nodes that were in two separate list at the same time. Had I known I would have patented it (unfortunately I lost the card deck with the source).
Parent
Re:Patent is on multiply-linked lists (Score:5, Informative)
That's simply not true. Patent claims are frequently built upon prior claims in the same patent; if a later claim is built on an earlier claim (e.g. in this case where claim 2 cites claim 1) then you need to infringe both parts in order to fall fowl of the later claim. That said, infringing a stand-alone claim (like claim 1 here) is sufficient in itself.
As far as I can tell claim 1 really does hit a standard doubly-linked list; you have the plurality of data items, a primary order of traversal and an auxiliary order (e.g. reverse traversal). There is obvious prior art for this and the claim should be invalid. Claim 2 is therefor also invalid, irrespective of it's novelty, since it cites an invalid claim. Claims 3 and 4 also have obvious prior art.
Personally I think that patents like this are great, since they add substantial support to the argument that the USPTO are, despite their avowed best efforts, incapable of assessing the novelty of software patents, and that they should stop trying.
Parent
Oh yeah (Score:5, Funny)
I read about this technique about 23 years ago. What is going on here? This looks like material for a slashdot poll, viz:-
Why do you think that the latest LSI is bogus?
What about it, guys?
--E.
Aww Shoot... (Score:5, Funny)
Two things... (Score:5, Informative)
Other patents from this examiner (Score:5, Insightful)
How about slocate [google.com]?
Or rsync [google.com]?
Oh and data muxing [google.com].
Fantastic!
The Patent Examiner (Score:5, Funny)
My regime would require this for patents that are blatantly obvious or have as much published prior art as linked lists do. You can be there'd be a lot fewer frivolous patents issued if the examiner and the applicant were forced to eat the printouts if the patent turned out to be retarded.
Re:oh dear (Score:5, Funny)
*smack*
Go back to Algorithms and Data Structures, Do not pass go, Do no increment the Counter by 200
Parent
Re:oh dear (Score:5, Funny)
You cannot dereference the pointer; that's impossible. You must first realize that there is no pointer, and that you're only dereferencing yourself.
Parent
Re:To be fair, he invented a doubly linked list (Score:5, Informative)
What's worse? LibTomCrypt uses quad-lists (prev/next, parent/child) so it seems that I violate this patent. Gotta go cut a cheque to LSI.
Tom
Parent
Re:Thanks go to John Breene and Cheryl Lewis (Score:5, Informative)
I had a B.S. in C.S. and I was simply working on GUI patent apps. They wouldn't hire someone with a degree in an outside area (like Business or something) to do C.S. work, although there were a lot of EE's doing C.S. work (although I see that in the commercial realm a lot too, not always to great success, but sometimes).
Wouldn't recommend it for anyone other than an anti-social who wants to make bank and doesn't mind a boring, high-stress job.
Parent