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I'm working on fighting IBM's patent trolls. IBM slapped the words 'AI Interpretability' on Gauss' 200 year old continued fractions and was awarded a patent.

I'm working on fighting IBM's patent trolls. IBM slapped the words 'AI Interpretability' on Gauss' 200 year old continued fractions and was awarded a patent. Now they can charge rent if they encounter a continued fraction library in the wild. It's bizarre

jumpingbeans 11mo ago
Interesting. Do you have a link to the patent?
- muragekibicho 11mo ago
  Here it is: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20230401438 https://patents.justia.com/patent/20230401438 On Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230401438A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230401438A1/en The authors simply implement a continued fraction library in Pytorch and call the backward() function on the resulting computation graph. That is, they chain linear neural network layers and use the reciprocal (not RELU ) as the primary non-linearity. The authors reinvent the wheel countless times: 1. They rename continued fractions and call them ‘ladders’. 2. They label basic division ‘The 1/z nonlinearity’. 3. Ultimately, they take the well-defined concept of Generalized Continued Fractions and call them CoFrNets and got a patent. IBM's lawyers can strip out all the buzzword garbage if they feel litigious and sue anyone whose written a continued fraction library. Because, that's what the patent (without all the buzzwords) protects.
  - jumpingbeans 11mo ago
    Thanks for that. That is patently absurd. You sent me down a rabbit hole. In trying to track it down for myself I read a couple of others that I thought might be it, and was stunned by how obtuse these patents are. What sort of leverage does this stuff provide? You mentioned "charge rent". What does that look like?
    - muragekibicho 11mo ago
      Honestly, I don't even know where to begin. It's insane IBM owns the patent to continued fractions. If you wrote a continued fraction class in Pytorch and called backwards (or even differentiated the power series) then you're infringing on their copyright.
phendrenad2 11mo ago
Have they actually tried to sue anyone for infringement? Kind of a moot point unless they do.
- muragekibicho 11mo ago
  They haven't and that's the crux of it all: they can sue if they want or when they want.
  - phendrenad2 11mo ago
    > they can sue if they want or when they want If you're assuming that nobody will look at the patent and invalidate it, why would you assume that they can't just sue you for literally any patent they own for no reason? If the court won't care about the fact that the patent is nonsense?

jumpingbeans 11mo ago

Interesting. Do you have a link to the patent?

muragekibicho 11mo ago
Here it is: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20230401438 https://patents.justia.com/patent/20230401438 On Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230401438A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230401438A1/en The authors simply implement a continued fraction library in Pytorch and call the backward() function on the resulting computation graph. That is, they chain linear neural network layers and use the reciprocal (not RELU ) as the primary non-linearity. The authors reinvent the wheel countless times: 1. They rename continued fractions and call them ‘ladders’. 2. They label basic division ‘The 1/z nonlinearity’. 3. Ultimately, they take the well-defined concept of Generalized Continued Fractions and call them CoFrNets and got a patent. IBM's lawyers can strip out all the buzzword garbage if they feel litigious and sue anyone whose written a continued fraction library. Because, that's what the patent (without all the buzzwords) protects.
- jumpingbeans 11mo ago
  Thanks for that. That is patently absurd. You sent me down a rabbit hole. In trying to track it down for myself I read a couple of others that I thought might be it, and was stunned by how obtuse these patents are. What sort of leverage does this stuff provide? You mentioned "charge rent". What does that look like?
  - muragekibicho 11mo ago
    Honestly, I don't even know where to begin. It's insane IBM owns the patent to continued fractions. If you wrote a continued fraction class in Pytorch and called backwards (or even differentiated the power series) then you're infringing on their copyright.

phendrenad2 11mo ago

Have they actually tried to sue anyone for infringement? Kind of a moot point unless they do.

muragekibicho 11mo ago
They haven't and that's the crux of it all: they can sue if they want or when they want.
- phendrenad2 11mo ago
  > they can sue if they want or when they want If you're assuming that nobody will look at the patent and invalidate it, why would you assume that they can't just sue you for literally any patent they own for no reason? If the court won't care about the fact that the patent is nonsense?