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| Authored by: mrisch on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 08:20 PM EDT |
Maybe, though I'm not convinced. I owned a palm with
graffiti, and though they have shape recognition in common,
the leap from a single letter by letter recognition to
swiping a full keyboard is bigger than that. One clue is
that the swype patent was filed 10 years after the unistroke
patent - given the myriad of keyboard patents in the
meantime, if it were obvious why didn't we see the solution
earlier.
On the flip side, we often see solutions when technology
catches up. Perhaps there was no earlier solution because
touch keyboards just weren't good enough to support the
solution until then.
I don't know the answer. My only point is that it is not as
easy a call as we might like to think.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- Curing the Problem of Software Patents, by Michael Risch - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 09:09 PM EDT
- Curing the Problem of Software Patents, by Michael Risch - Authored by: tknarr on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 09:15 PM EDT
- Curing the Problem of Software Patents, by Michael Risch - Authored by: ftcsm on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 10:16 PM EDT
- Whole words completely obvious - Authored by: ailuromancy on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 12:52 AM EDT
- Curing the Problem of Software Patents, by Michael Risch - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 04:21 AM EDT
- Just because its obvious does not mean everyone will rush to implement it. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 01:25 PM EDT
- 10 years isn't that uncommon - Authored by: JonCB on Tuesday, June 12 2012 @ 09:48 AM EDT
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| Authored by: celtic_hackr on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 11:34 PM EDT |
You're thinking in a limited framework. As well as being a physicist,
mathematician, rocketeer, and computer scientist, I'm also a linguist.
So while you see letters in shapes, I see letters, syllables, and entire words.
To someone who only thinks of words as comprised of letters rather than as
complete thought you are displaying a strictly Eurocentric point of view. Many
cultures developed first as word symbolic languages. Some "evolved" or
"devolved" into syllabic and or alphabetic languages.
The upside of alphabetic languages is a reduced set of very versatile very small
sets of symbols. To write a word you only need to know a few dozen symbols. But,
it becomes much harder to learn the process of writing. One symbol for one word
is easy to remember.
The current patent and copyright mess is similarly related to this
evolve/devolve cycle. As technology gets more and more complex, one must have
more and more knowledge to determine if it meets the current tests. The courts
are still in the process of building a new "word" for every new court
case. Rather than using an alphabet which can be combined more efficiently.
I disagree with your take that the patent office can handle it. I also disagree
that courts are efficient at this. I don't consider spending millions of dollars
over multiple years efficient by any means. It would bee more efficient to pay 7
independent with wide views on patent subject matter computer experts up to a
month's salary of $10,000 to exam each and every new claimed patent. Then if
those 7 find it patentable. It becomes unassailable. For a mere $70,000/patent
you'd know if it was good or bad.
Now let explain why it's a bad thing to let non-experts evaluate things they
could develop themselves. Imagine you were to hire the patent examiners to
examine a bridge designs for safe operation. I'm fairly sure that would never
fly. Why, because they don't have engineering expertise and when they screw up
people will die. That's why in order to a bridge or building approved it has to
have been vetted by someone actually "skilled" in the science".
You can call it "art" if you want.
But that's the real problem. The world sees this as "art", well anyone
can do art. Art is hard to understand, it's like magic. Science. People
understand science is understandable. You can learn science, even if it's too
hard for some people. I won't deny there is an artistic side to programming, but
good programming is built on a solid foundation of science and math. So until
the patent office actually has examiners who are experts in a particular field
or fields, they simply are no longer qualified to examine patent applications.
THAT's what broken the most. The world is too technologically complex to have
"general knowledge" people judging things beyond their ability to
define.
Two hundred years ago a general education prepared you for most every type of
technology you could find. A sixth grade education, and several years in a field
would prepare for most fields. A college education would put you in the top of
the knowledge chain. Today you'd need a dozen undergrad degrees in widely
different fields to equal a comparative level of knowledge.
There's simply too much knowledge, and too many things obvious to those skilled
in the field using it every day at a professional level, that seem like black
magic to others. But also, there's a real disease in the PTO. They just granted
a patent on a wedge. A freaking triangle! Who in their right mind gives a design
patent on a triangle!? Oh, that's right the same people who gave one on a
rounded rectangle!
Apple should only have been able to get a design patent on a rounded rectangle,
or a triangle with an Apple logo on it. I mean seriously a whole shape? This is
the system as you are currently defending. Granted you want to fix stupid things
like this, but like they say "you can't fix stupid".[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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