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From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.micro.68k,net.arch
Subject: Re: 68000 Memory Managment (Bechtolsheim patent) (SUID Patent)
Message-ID: <1611@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 1-Oct-86 17:41:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.1611
Posted: Wed Oct  1 17:41:29 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Oct-86 11:48:41 EDT
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 32
Xref: mnetor net.micro.68k:1300 net.arch:3173


Would you people all referencing systems which had/have SUID-ish
features "way back in 1976" note that UNIX and SUID pre-dates 1976*, I
am not sure exactly when it was introduced but very early 70's is a
good guess (the patent may have been dated 1979 but that's the date
the patent was granted, not the date all prior claims starts at.)

For example, someone mentioned a similar feature in TOPS-10, UNIX
completely predates TOPS-10 as far as I know tho not it's predecessor
TENEX, the person didn't mention whether this feature was in TENEX.
Just because TOPS-10 got old and died doesn't mean its older than UNIX.

Having had experience with some of these other similar schemes I would
say they would be very weak prior claims in that they mostly stunk.
It's like saying round tires shouldn't be patented cause someone had
come up with a square tire earlier...Be careful, it's the precise
description of the thing, not "a patent on a way to access a priv'd
file" which is what these arguments seem to be reducing it to to make
their point.

There is also an attitude problem here. Yes, a patent does indeed give
certain rights to the patent holder. It also gives certain rights to
the patent non-holder. A major reason for patents is to encourage
inventors to publish the details of their invention, with protection,
so the general public may benefit. It also puts some limits on those
protections (time limit, must be utilized etc.) You people speak like
it's some sort of con-job of no benefit to the industry in general,
that's patently untrue :-)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University

* I used UNIX with SUID around 1976-7, V6.