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

[Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d]

On Sun, 2014-08-31 at 22:56 -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
> On 8/31/2014 10:15 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> > I guess it must be a "keep patent lawyers in work" scheme.
> 
> There's another aspect at work with this one. I'm a bit irked that something 
> Andrei and I came up with in 2007 is claimed by others to have been invented 5 
> years later. A number of features pioneered by D have been showing up in other 
> languages, and D has not been acknowledged.

But the USA patent law was changed from "first to invent" to "first to
file" so it doesn't matter a jot who invented the invention, only who
had the nous and cash to file. Irked no longer matters in the USA patent
system, only having the cash to file. The USA patent system is a total
mess and must be fought against, especially with the USA trying to
enforce it on the rest of the world. EU patent office is already trying
to be a subsidiary of the USPTO and it really stinks.

Maybe get the EFF to help get a prior art notice registered with USPTO.
Prior art is now the only tool and it is likely the USPTO will totally
ignore submissions unless you have big-time lawyers on the case.

> I'm happy to acknowledge ideas from other languages that have made it into D, 
> and it is right for other languages to reciprocate.

In the world of corporations this isn't going to happen, they do not
give a shit about science, unless you have a massive offensive patent
portfolio.

> What I don't intend to do is patent D's innovations. What D has done is our gift 
> to the programming community. I'm also glad we're using github, as it is a fine 
> way to document and timestamp the provenance of D's features.

So prior art notification is the tool. EFF may be the best recourse.

Lawyers will be able to prove that the repository history is fabricated
by calling on high profile shills, aka expert witnesses. You have been
involved in all this sort of stuff previously, as have I from a
different perspective, nothing has changed except that sane people
require even more cynicism to appreciate what is going on.

The only good side of this is that if you ignore the USA market all the
problems go away. Until the USA takes over the world – if the Chinese
let them.


-- 
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