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Mailing lists / fpc-pascal / 2003-01

[OT] rant on patent issues

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Unknown author

Hi!,

I came across this (it's a s/w patent on method pointer).

http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='6185728'.WKU.&OS=PN/6185728&RS=PN/6185728

I was wondering if FPC implements method pointers the same way as is documented in the above patent. I also feel the above patent is the reason why C# delegates are slightly convoluted (having the same inventor!).

I presume LCL, FPGUI all use method pointers (its the single most beautiful feature of the language). So will there be any issues to contend with in regard to the above mentioned patent ?

No wonder S/W patents are a bad thing....

cheers,
-Krish

-----------------------------------------------
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you and then you win!
- "Mahatma" Gandhi
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Florian Klaempfl
to Unknown author
Show quoted text 9 lines
Hi!, I came across this (it's a s/w patent on method pointer). http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='6185728'.WKU.&OS=PN/6185728&RS=PN/6185728 I was wondering if FPC implements method pointers the same way as is documented in the above patent. I also feel the above patent is the reason why C# delegates are slightly convoluted (having the same inventor!).

Methode pointers are a common thing. The only problems could be the event delegation via method pointers. But see below ...

Show quoted text 6 lines
I presume LCL, FPGUI all use method pointers (its the single most beautiful feature of the language). So will there be any issues to contend with in regard to the above mentioned patent ? No wonder S/W patents are a bad thing....

Luckily enough, European countries don't know them (at least not yet :/).

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Jonas Maebe
to Unknown author: I came across this (it's a s/w patent on method pointer).…
Show quoted text 9 lines
I came across this (it's a s/w patent on method pointer). http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/ srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='6185728'.WKU.&OS=PN/6185728&RS=PN/6185728 I was wondering if FPC implements method pointers the same way as is documented in the above patent.

Yes.

I presume LCL, FPGUI all use method pointers (its the single most beautiful feature of the language). So will there be any issues to contend with in regard to the above mentioned patent ?

As Florian said already, software patents don't exist in Europe. I do wonder whether there isn't any prior art for it though, since this patent was filed in 1996 and there were already a lot of object oriented languages out there at the time.

Jonas

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Mikael Bak
to Jonas Maebe

This is almost like having patent on making love.
Something that people have done for ages before the one who's owning the patent "invented" it.

I think I'm going to run away to the patent bureu and apply for an "eating patent". This way noone can eat without my permission :-)

Mikael

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MPDJ
to Mikael Bak

I'll bag the patent on breathing then ;-)

As an aside, Intel have recently trade-marked the circle in their 'Intel Inside' logo. Not the actual whole logo, or the text (which I assume they already own), just the circle! Strange but true.

Thursday, January 9, 2003, 4:57:15 PM, you wrote:

MB> This is almost like having patent on making love. MB> Something that people have done for ages before the one who's owning the MB> patent "invented" it.

MB> I think I'm going to run away to the patent bureu and apply for an "eating MB> patent". This way noone can eat without my permission :-)

MB> Mikael

MB> _______________________________________________ MB> fpc-pascal maillist -
MB> http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal

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Unknown author
Show quoted text 5 lines
As Florian said already, software patents don't exist in Europe. I do wonder whether there isn't any prior art for it though, since this patent was filed in 1996 and there were already a lot of object oriented languages out there at the time.

Well, actually Objective-C in the OpenStep framework uses a similar technique (its called target-action paradigm). But the difference is Objective-C uses a central message dispatcher instead of a VMT based approach for dispatching messages.

cheers,
-Krish

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