4 ms·

Would you mind explaining how the feature described is novel and hasn't been done before? Because I wasn't able to discern anything I haven't seen before in one

Would you mind explaining how the feature described is novel and hasn't been done before? Because I wasn't able to discern anything I haven't seen before in one form or another.

twoodfin 13y ago
You can point to a text authoring tool with a mode that will dim all but a selected syntactic unit of text for focused editing? I am not versed in the hundreds of text editors out there, but if one were commonly known surely a link to a screenshot would have made the candler argument much more convincing? It sounds to me like the author doesn't like software patents regardless, and was offended by a misreading of the word "cheap": I don't think the original blog post implied that copies would be cheap-as-in-crummy but cheap-as-in-easy.
- alok-g 13y ago
  Not exactly what you are requesting, but related: http://www.wordbanter.com/showthread.php?t=110660 http://www.wordbanter.com/showthread.php?t=110660 This is enough to make the concept of highlighting a syntactical unit a prior art (assuming the date on the said invention is not older), and the invention may now at best claim a method of solving this. The latter would barely be an invention on grounds of obviousness. Note: IANAL, and haven't read the claims of the said invention.
  - endersshadow 13y ago
    That's not anywhere close to prior art. Syntax control highlights words based on their syntactical unit, not just doing a *ly grep.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - alok-g 13y ago
      But going from a *ly grep to a syntactic unit is merely a matter of using a context-free grammar instead of regular expressions. The latter extension is obvious.
- shawn-furyan 13y ago
  I would distinguish the dimming aspect from the selecting syntactic units of text aspect. The former clearly isn't new[1], and adding an obvious technique to the equation doesn't make the entire method non-obvious. So then the question should be: Is selecting syntactic units of text unique? I don't know of any specific applications that do this, but I imagine that there are programs or libraries used in the field of machine learning that do exactly this or make doing it trivial and obvious. [1] It's basically applying a dimming effect to an inverse selection. Off the top of my head, this is a common technique for highlighting passages from documents in video documentaries.
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  Prior art: http://www.mrspeaker.net/2012/03/24/syntax-highlighting-for-writers/ http://www.mrspeaker.net/2012/03/24/syntax-highlighting-for-... http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ https://github.com/adib/ColorizeWords https://github.com/adib/ColorizeWords These are all linked to from other comments here. This is not new or unique. Sure, the design is different, and they are probably the first "big" name writing app to include it, but being more popular doesn't mean you invented anything.

Would you mind explaining how the feature described is novel and hasn't been done before? Because I wasn't able to discern anything I haven't seen before in one form or another.

twoodfin 13y ago

You can point to a text authoring tool with a mode that will dim all but a selected syntactic unit of text for focused editing? I am not versed in the hundreds of text editors out there, but if one were commonly known surely a link to a screenshot would have made the candler argument much more convincing? It sounds to me like the author doesn't like software patents regardless, and was offended by a misreading of the word "cheap": I don't think the original blog post implied that copies would be cheap-as-in-crummy but cheap-as-in-easy.

alok-g 13y ago
Not exactly what you are requesting, but related: http://www.wordbanter.com/showthread.php?t=110660 http://www.wordbanter.com/showthread.php?t=110660 This is enough to make the concept of highlighting a syntactical unit a prior art (assuming the date on the said invention is not older), and the invention may now at best claim a method of solving this. The latter would barely be an invention on grounds of obviousness. Note: IANAL, and haven't read the claims of the said invention.
- endersshadow 13y ago
  That's not anywhere close to prior art. Syntax control highlights words based on their syntactical unit, not just doing a *ly grep.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - alok-g 13y ago
    But going from a *ly grep to a syntactic unit is merely a matter of using a context-free grammar instead of regular expressions. The latter extension is obvious.
shawn-furyan 13y ago
I would distinguish the dimming aspect from the selecting syntactic units of text aspect. The former clearly isn't new[1], and adding an obvious technique to the equation doesn't make the entire method non-obvious. So then the question should be: Is selecting syntactic units of text unique? I don't know of any specific applications that do this, but I imagine that there are programs or libraries used in the field of machine learning that do exactly this or make doing it trivial and obvious. [1] It's basically applying a dimming effect to an inverse selection. Off the top of my head, this is a common technique for highlighting passages from documents in video documentaries.
jasonlotito 13y ago
Prior art: http://www.mrspeaker.net/2012/03/24/syntax-highlighting-for-writers/ http://www.mrspeaker.net/2012/03/24/syntax-highlighting-for-... http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ http://www.linusakesson.net/programming/syntaxhighlighting/ https://github.com/adib/ColorizeWords https://github.com/adib/ColorizeWords These are all linked to from other comments here. This is not new or unique. Sure, the design is different, and they are probably the first "big" name writing app to include it, but being more popular doesn't mean you invented anything.