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Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

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Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#2
And immediately patents it... so no one else can use it.

EDIT: and for some other methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_%28number_format%29, particularly the latest one being the Posit method: http://superfri.org/superfri/article/download/137/232

EDIT2: of course other people can license it, but the other way to bring a new floating point to the scene would be through the same process that happened with IEEE 754. There are plenty of people who wouldn't touch anything patented at all, sometimes even with a patent clause.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#3
post #2

And immediately patents it... so no one else can use it. EDIT: and for some other methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_%28number_format%29 , particularly the latest one being the Posit method: http://superfri.org/superfri/article/download/137/232 EDIT2: of course other people can license it, but the other way to bring a new floating point to the scene would be through the same process that happened with IEEE 7…

I mean, it's unfortunate, but can you blame him?

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#4
post #2

And immediately patents it... so no one else can use it. EDIT: and for some other methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_%28number_format%29 , particularly the latest one being the Posit method: http://superfri.org/superfri/article/download/137/232 EDIT2: of course other people can license it, but the other way to bring a new floating point to the scene would be through the same process that happened with IEEE 7…

I mean, it's unfortunate, but can you blame him?

Yes.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#5
post #2

And immediately patents it... so no one else can use it. EDIT: and for some other methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_%28number_format%29 , particularly the latest one being the Posit method: http://superfri.org/superfri/article/download/137/232 EDIT2: of course other people can license it, but the other way to bring a new floating point to the scene would be through the same process that happened with IEEE 7…

He's an inventor. Inventors usually work towards patents. Also, it's not so "no one else can use it". It's so that he can license out his work to a company like Intel. The patent is to protect him from a company like Intel going "sweet, thanks for the fix." And then profiting off his work. Or do you expect this guy to work for free?

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#6
post #2

And immediately patents it... so no one else can use it. EDIT: and for some other methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_%28number_format%29 , particularly the latest one being the Posit method: http://superfri.org/superfri/article/download/137/232 EDIT2: of course other people can license it, but the other way to bring a new floating point to the scene would be through the same process that happened with IEEE 7…

Patents don't necessarily mean nobody else can use it. For example, he could license the technology which means people have to pay to use it.

Re: Inventor Claims to Have Solved Floating Point Error Problem

#9
Without reading the patent it sounds a lot like interval arithmetic [1] which sounds like a really good idea at first but is not without its own problems. For example the inverse 1/x for an interval x like [-1,+1] containing 0 consists of two intervals (-∞,-1] and [+1;+∞).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_arithmetic

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