[OT] Microsoft filled patent applications for scoped and immutable types

Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Mon Sep 1 12:11:51 PDT 2014


On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
[…]
> Isn't there some way to "open source" a patent? Or at least, make 
> some sort of formal publication that this was invented, and may 
> not be patented by someone else?

No. What you hint at is "prior art" and is a proper defence against (the
dark arts and) the award of a patent. At least in the UK. USPTO and
increasingly EUPO award well formed patents and do not care about prior
art. They treat this as an issue for the courts not for them. Thus
unless you have a lawyer who can be heard, you are cannon fodder to be
milked for royalties.

> Just because you don't want to "lock down" your inventions, 
> doesn't mean they are free to take...

In the "first to file" USA patent system, yes they are.

> Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to 
> put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions".

Aren't corporate and greed synonyms?

> Did we patent UFCS yet? It's an invention.
> How about CTFE? That seems like a *huge* invention?
> What about generic tuples? No language I know of uses these.
> Static if? Let's patent that too while we're at it.

In the USA, if you have a lawyer, yes do it. You might get away with it
in the EU as well.

"First to file not first to invent" – by the corporations for the
corporations. This should tell you everything you need to know about
technological innovation in the USA.

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel at winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder



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