Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Patents and Architecture Message-ID: Date: 29 Jun 90 15:16:05 GMT References: <4742@sunquest.UUCP> <63036@sgi.sgi.com> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 18 In article <63036@sgi.sgi.com> karsh@trifolium.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes: > It's a young field and there will be some mistakes made. Since software > patents were discouraged for a long time, there may also be some problems > with the patent office not being completely aware of what are really > inventions and what aren't. Amazing, Bruce. this is what everyone else has been telling you all along. The discussion isn't about patents. It's about bad patents. > But even so, usually I think I hear a lot of sour grapes. After the patent > is issued and after somebody is successful with it, people think "I could > have done that". Maybe so, but if so why didn't you. I don't know about anyone else, but I independently came up with the use of XOR for rubber band lines when hacking around on an Apple II in the late '70s. I'm sure that the same basic problem has been *independently* solved the same basic way thousands of times. It really *is* an obvious solution. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180.