4 ms·
Good find, but a man can change his mind. Also, given the existing patent system, you're practically forced to seek patents to avoid getting trolled.
by bk 17y ago
Good find, but a man can change his mind. Also, given the existing patent system, you're practically forced to seek patents to avoid getting trolled.
- mahmud 17y agoGood find? [Edit: I just picked a computationally relevant number that approximates the patent counter circa the epoch.]
- omail 17y agoWay off. That patent is from 1912. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=1,048,576.PN.&OS=PN/1,048,576&RS=PN/1,048,576 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...
- randallsquared 17y agoRight order of magnitude; close enough. ;)
- bk 17y agoI was just flying by HN on a busy day. Syntax parsing: success. Semantic parsing: error. Looks like I failed the Turing test... I'm a bot. Damn. ;)
- kirubakaran 17y agoyou're practically forced to seek patents to avoid getting trolled How so? What if you released something in the public domain and made it unpatentable?
- mahmud 17y agoI can't speak of litigious trolls, but academics have to churn out papers and patents for their own stature and paychecks. Yes, big edu would troll even The Man himself. Of course, Knuth is notorious for his "churning out" of books; though none are as rigorous as his early VB6 stuff. http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200002/df20000210.jpg http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200002/df20000210.jpg
- michael_nielsen 17y agoIt's a joke. 2^20 = 1,048,576. And the patent sounds a lot like Knuth's scheme for getting corrections to his books...
- aswanson 17y agoAnd epoch time is a dead giveaway for the issue date.
- ZachPruckowski 17y agoEspecially since New Year's Day is a US government holiday...