On 19-Mar-07 21:29:52, Anders Johansson wrote:
On Monday 19 March 2007 21:37, Ted Harding wrote:
Now, while the standard "doubl{e|y} linked list described at [1] above has been around since the year dot (or shortly thereafter), and is found everywhere, the second kind described at [2] above (though it has undoubtedly been implemented many times) could conceivably be considered sufficiently novel to provoke a patent application!
It certainly fails the "obvious to one skilled in the field" test
So my question, for clarification, is: Can anyone supply any reference of sufficiently long standing to demonstrate that the second kind of "double linked list" at [2] above is well established prior art?
They are sorting the list in various ways, and storing the previous results so they don't have to do them all over again when they need them again. If
struct foo *next, *prev
is old hat, why would
struct foo *next[100], *prev[100]
be a patentable invention.
They are storing various paths in traversing a tree or graph. There is absolutely nothing about that that isn't patently (if you'll pardon the pun) "obvious to one skilled in the field"
I absolutely agree that it's an obvious generalisation, and I'm
pretty sure that it's been used many times. But the "trick" when
making a claim for novelty is to isolate, abstract and identify the
concept as adapted to a class of purposes, and give it a name.
So what I was after is whether there exists such an identification of
this technique that has been around long enough to well-established
prior art.
That has certainly been the case for
struct foo *next *prev
(see good books on C programming from 20 years ago) but what about
the other?
And, just to make it clear, I oppose the whole concept of patentability
of programming techniques, since in principle -- given the abstract
definition of any given programming language -- all constructs
stateable in the laguage are implicit in its definition; and
therefore to anyone "skilled in the field" they should be available
as an inspirational mental perception that "this is how to solve this
problem". To inhibit this by patent is to inhibit thought itself.
On the other hand, I think the concept of copyright in a publication
of a programming technique can be defended. What is then prohibited
is the unauthorised deliberate copying from the publication. But
then what has to be proved is the act of copying, not the fact that
it is the same technique. The same technique could arise by mental
inspiration, but then while the program's structures could be
identifiably the same, the precise details would differ (perhaps
in order and detail of definitions, or variable names, etc.).
However, if the copier's code were character-by-character identical
to the original, then this would justifiably be viewed is totally
improbable as an independent creation.
Thanks Anders!
Ted.
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