[linux-audio-dev] [Fwd: Graphical dataflow programs violate patents]

[Dave Robillard]

On Tue, 2004-14-12 at 10:59 +0100, Xavier Amatriain wrote:
> -----Forwarded Message-----
> > From: Xavier Amatriain <xamat at iua.upf.es>
> > To: iua-mtg at iua.upf.es
> > Subject: Graphical dataflow programs violate patents
> > Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 10:57:56 +0100
> > 
> > I read that National Circuits sued and won a case against Mathworks for
> > their Simulink product infringing a number of paterns (September this
> > year).
> > 
> > According to a summary of the claims (which you can read here
> > http://cafc.bna.com/03-1540.pdf): the dispute was about the term "data
> > flow diagrams" (which are interpreted) as a graphical computer program
> > whose execution follows a set of semantic or operational rules as
> > follows:
> > 
> > 1. The order of the operations is not completely specified by the user
> > 2. The order of operations is implied by data interdependencies
> > 3. a node may only execute after all its inputs have become available,
> > and,
> > 4. outputs are generated after a node completes execution
> > 
> > It turns out that most graphical audio programs such as Max, Pd, OSW or
> > CLAM's Network Editor may be infringing these patents. Luckily this is
> > still not valid in Europe and we hope will never be.

Om, a modular synth I'm working on, absolutely "infringes" on that
patent as well.  The code that would be considered infringing is an
elementary graph-traversal, very similar to a DFS (depth-first search)
algorithm you'd learn in any second-year computer science program.  No
kidding you can't execute a node if it's dependencies aren't run!
Geeze..

I'm Canadian, so I'm not sure if America's BS applies, but I'm hardly
worried.  What's next, getting sued for infringing on a patent for "a
method of executing sequential lines of code"?  Or perhaps evaluating
(2+3)*4 correctly?

There's absolutely no way that someone can't find prior art for this.
It's completely frivolous.


-DR-