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"You might think Google could deal with this by just not infringing Microsoft’s patents, but that’s not how software patents work. Android has roughly 10 millio
by mixmax 15y ago
"You might think Google could deal with this by just not infringing Microsoft’s patents, but that’s not how software patents work. Android has roughly 10 million lines of code. Auditing 10 million lines of code for compliance with 18,000 patents is an impossible task"
There's a great startup in that sentence for whoever cracks the algorithmic challenges.
- jamesaguilar 15y agos/startup/technological singularity/
- olsonjeffery 15y agofunction doesThisCodeInfrigeOnSomePatentSomewhere(codeString) { return true; }
- ImprovedSilence 15y agoyou should patent that.
- georgemcbay 15y agoNot really, unless you're looking to sell the software to the patent trolls and not other startups/legitimate businesses. Even if you could do this (it requires machine learning far beyond what is currently available), the answer would always be "this software violates many patents". And once you know that for sure you're liable for triple the damages when your business is successful enough for the patent holders to come around to wring their money from you. Unfortunately, it really is better to just be ignorant in this situation and let the lawyers figure it out.
- e40 15y ago100% correct. You never want to know if you violate a patent, so this idea will only be useful for patent trolls, as you said.
- alnayyir 15y agoKids, this is why we learn math. So we don't waste our time on what is impossible. Not to the business' advantage to know anyway, more damages.
- hvs 15y agoI'm pretty sure that "algorithmic challenge" is NP-complete.
- trurl 15y agoHah, quite the optimist. In most commonly used languages deciding the equivalence of two code fragments is undecidable.