Yes, the title is long – and it is also the name of the United States Patent
No. 5,893,120.
This is the patent that Bedrock Computer Technologies LLC claims that a total of 10 companies is infringing. You can read the filing here.
So what does this patent say?
“A method and apparatus for performing storage and retrieval in an information storage system is disclosed that uses the hashing technique with the external chaining method for collision resolution. In order to prevent performance deterioration due to the presence of automatically expiring data items, a garbage collection technique is used that removes all expired records stored in the system in the external chain targeted by a probe into the data storage system. More particularly, each insertion, retrieval, or deletion of a record is an occasion to search an entire linked-list chain of records for expired items and then remove them. Because an expired data item will not remain in the system long term if the system is frequently probed, it is useful for large information storage systems that are heavily used, require the fast access provided by hashing, and cannot be taken off-line for removal of expired data.”
It was registered by Richard Michael Nemes of Brooklyn, New York on January 2, 1997.
When I start reading the article, I am noticing that it is referencing, among others, DE. Knuth – The Art of Computer Programming. The “inventor” also references Knuth later in the application.
I am therefor questioning: Is this really an invention by Richard Michael Nemes?
What he is doing is using the work and knowledge of other persons and creating his own variation of it – probably enhancing it and probably also making it better. Searching (again, use your favorite search engine) for Richard Michael Nemes and you will find some rather interesting “inventions”.
- Methods and systems for electronic transactionsIn the preferred computer system, the user is provided with a separate Internet-accessible entity referred to here as the “personal page.” A personal page, preferably, includes memory for storing information related to the user. For example, on his/her personal page the user indicates what he/she wishes to purchase, possibly along with other criteria associated with the purchase, such as, for example, a time that the purchase should take The user is provided with the ability to create personalized bidding rules that vendors that offer goods and services must respect. Vendors have the ability to specify similar criteria, which describe the goods and/or services they offer. Vendors can indicate, for example, the prices of their goods, times and places that their services are available, etc. Preferably, these specifications, called “vendor scripts,” are embodied in active software/data entities (agents) that traverse sites on the Internet visiting sites hosting users’ personal pages. Thus, preferably, vendor software/data agents (comprising vendor scripts) are the mobile, active elements in the system and purchasing requirements are stationary and more passive in comparison.
- Electronic Transactions Based on Deal Forms In the preferred computer system, the user is provided with a separate Internet-accessible entity referred to here as the “personal page.” A personal page, preferably, includes memory for storing information related to the user. For example, on his/her personal page the user indicates what he/she wishes to purchase, possibly along with other criteria associated with the purchase, such as, for example, a time that the purchase should take The user is provided with the ability to create personalized bidding rules that vendors that offer goods and services must respect. Vendors have the ability to specify similar criteria, which describe the goods and/or services they offer. Vendors can indicate, for example, the prices of their goods, times and places that their services are available, etc. Preferably, these specifications, called “vendor scripts,” are embodied in active software/data entities (agents) that traverse sites on the Internet visiting sites hosting users’ personal pages. Thus, preferably, vendor software/data agents (comprising vendor scripts) are the mobile, active elements in the system and purchasing requirements are stationary and more passive in comparison.
But this would mean that I could take any Computer book that I own, read up on what the author is teaching me – enhancing and probably making the code (algorythm) better, and then file for a patent.
Honestly, this does not make sense. But I am just a humble Norwegian that happens to be a programmer. I am no lawyer and so I have no interest in creating a patent just to create one and then claim that some company has used it – even though I could make a sh*tload of money from it.
Again, I can use my typical example from back in the Commodore 64 days. In those days (mid 1980s) I created some assembly code (yes, I programmed in 6502 assembly) that moved some sprites back and forth on the screen. All done while I could write text on the screen. It used raster and interrupt techniques.
So I could create a stupid patent called: “Methods and apparatus for moving a graphical object on a computer screen without interruption of the operating system.”
Another issue related to this patent lawsuit is the company that has filed it: Bedrock Computer Technologies LLC. Do a search (use your favorite search engine (probably patent secured)) and you’ll find that they really don’t do much technology work, except for reading up on patents (buying some as well) and filing suits against large companies.
The worst thing in this lawsuit is that Bedrock also claimed that the small Web consulting company CitiWare Technology Solutions. Some websites claimes that the only reason why Bedrock added CitiWare to the list of infringers is that this company was the only one based in Texas, which was where Bedrock filed the lawsuit. Nice move.
Patents on such basic algorythms and/or techniques in programming must be put to an end.
Doing a search for David Garrod who is the man behind the Bedrock company on freshpatents.com I came over quite a few interesting results, one of which is called Distributed computing which is described as this:
The invention provides an off-the-shelf product solution to target the specific needs of commercial users with naturally parallel applications. A top-level, public API provides a simple “compute server” or “task farm” model that dramatically accelerates integration and deployment. By providing built-in, turnkey support for enterprise features like fault-tolerant scheduling, fail-over, load balancing, and remote, central administration, the invention eliminates the need for customized middleware and yields enormous, on-going savings in maintenance and administrative overhead.
This “invention” is so general that it cannot even be called a patent. It is more a specification for a job where you want to do distributed computing…
The abstract is even worse: “A distributed computing system manages execution of jobs and their associated tasks. Multiple scheduling strategies respect job priority preferences. A graphical user interface allows viewing of job status information and on-the-fly modification of job priorities”
Can we now put an end to this patent bulls*it? Please?
Links to organizations who’s trying to put patent trolls out of practice:
Linux Defenders: http://www.linuxdefenders.org
Open Invention Network: http://openinventionnetwork.com/
One last note: Does this lawyer know how to actually use the patent. Can he see in code where this patent has been used?
