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Sadly patents are mostly used to protect a _discovery_ rather than _invention_. Who finds something first gets the cake and so on. For example when I was playin
by varispeed 6y ago
Sadly patents are mostly used to protect a _discovery_ rather than _invention_. Who finds something first gets the cake and so on. For example when I was playing with digital synthesis, it felt natural for me to modulate the phase within the grain of sample and then I learned it has been patented by Casio. Then recently I read about so called TMT technology, where company essentially patented adding tolerance to components when simulating circuits... I mean d'oh? If you want to do realistic simulation, that's one of the things to take into account, but now that it is patented, good luck. This whole thing needs to be scrapped.
- patentatt 6y agoJust because it ‘felt natural’ doesn’t imply that it’s a discovery rather than invention. Generally in IP the word discovery is in regard to a natural phenomenon, something found in nature. Natural laws are discovered, everything else is invented. So what you describe sounds like an invention rather than a discovery.
- varispeed 6y agoI would disagree. For example phase is one of the parameters of the grain, so to modulate the phase how come it an invention, but to modulate a filter cut off is not? The same tolerance is inherent part of analogue component, as it is very difficult to achieve exact value of e.g. capacitance, so components are manufactured with different levels of tolerance, so if you simply acknowledge this fact of life in your simulation how is that an invention?
- ncmncm 6y agoAt least US has a carve-out for obviousness to people in the field. It has been chipped away at for a long time, so there might not be anything left of it.
- varispeed 6y agoThe TMT I was talking about has gone through fairly recently. Please take a look https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170060527A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170060527A1/en It's crazy.
- jiggawatts 6y agoWhat they are describing is literally a vanilla Monte Carlo simulation! It's the bread and butter of applied mathematicians in thousands of fields. It reminds me of a patent for fire. Yes, fire. It was worded carefully to hide this, and it was approved. Something like: "A method by which a self-sustaining avalanche of thermal chemical reactions is initiated by an externally applied heat source." In other words: We lit it on fire with a match.