15 Dec
2004
15 Dec
'04
1:11 a.m.
On Tue, 2004-14-12 at 10:59 +0100, Xavier Amatriain wrote:
-----Forwarded Message-----
> From: Xavier Amatriain <xamat(a)iua.upf.es>
> To: iua-mtg(a)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-