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> You might be thinking of “clean room” techniques which protect against claims of copyright infringement. Ah yes, that's what I was thinking of -- thanks. Spe
by nickjj 5y ago
> You might be thinking of “clean room” techniques which protect against claims of copyright infringement.
Ah yes, that's what I was thinking of -- thanks. Specifically a scene from an episode of Halt and Catch Fire (I won't describe it due to spoilers).
That's a real bummer for patents though and makes me wonder how something like Amazon's 1-click checkout was able to be patented. I wonder how "save billing details for future use" can be considered a novel idea.
- Dangeranger 5y agoI believe those scenes were an amalgamation of Tim Paterson’s clean room implementation of DOS from the CP/M manuals [0] and Compaq’s IBM compatible BIOS implementation[1]. They are a some of my favorites, and are fun to watch. [0] https://dfarq.homeip.net/did-microsoft-steal-dos-from-cpm/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/did-microsoft-steal-dos-from-cpm/ [1] https://dfarq.homeip.net/first-compaq-computer/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/first-compaq-computer/
- bccdee 5y ago> Amazon's 1-click checkout For a long time, software patenting law was famously lax. You could basically patent anything software-related if you knew the right legalese. The situation has apparently gotten better after a 2014 SCOTUS ruling, but in the '90s and '00s it was pretty dire. https://www.eff.org/issues/stupid-patent-month https://www.eff.org/issues/stupid-patent-month https://www.infoworld.com/article/2608772/the-battle-against-stupid-software-patents-is-on.html https://www.infoworld.com/article/2608772/the-battle-against...