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Judy arrays are patented

en.wikipedia.org

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Re: Judy arrays are patented

#21

Post by rayiner »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #13
wheaties wrote: post #2

You can patent a data structure!? Seriously? This is straight up an abstract idea. I think non-abstract patents are beneficial and help society. This is just plain idiocy.

Regarding patents, people always complain a particular patent couldn't have been granted because it's not novel enough, anyone could have thought it, or that it's math. Patent law is a black-on-white subject, either you support it or not. It's impossible to grant some patents under subjective premises and be fair at the same time.

Patent law is not a black-and-white subject, and you certainly don't have to support all of it to support some of it. All law necessarily involves line drawing, and line drawing is subjective. Welcome to the wonderful world of being human and dealing with human society.

Re: Judy arrays are patented

#22

Post by mpyne »

0x09 wrote: post #12
mpyne wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strictly speaking the LGPL is a license that relates to copyright, not patenting. A separate patent license would also be required, unless you use a copyright license that also includes patent terms (I haven't reviewed LGPL in awhile to confirm, and obviously you need to specify about what exact version of LGPL you're referring to anyways).

Any GPL (any version) explicitly forbids distributing the software with external conditions restricting its ability to be redistributed. That puts it at odds with almost any conceivable patent license.

I think you're underestimating the creativity of patent lawyers a bit.

For instance, just off the top of my head, consider this: "OK, you can distribute the source all you want, but as soon as you compile it, you've created a patented product, the binary of which you can't distribute."

After all, the patent itself is supposed to give all the description one needs of how to implement the patented invention, it's when you fix the patent into something real that you violate the patent.

Edit: What drove me to mentioning the separateness of patents and copyright was some of the discussion around GPLv3, e.g. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/gplv3/patents-and-gplv3.en.html#Ex...

Re: Judy arrays are patented

#25

Post by wheaties »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #13
wheaties wrote: post #2

You can patent a data structure!? Seriously? This is straight up an abstract idea. I think non-abstract patents are beneficial and help society. This is just plain idiocy.

Regarding patents, people always complain a particular patent couldn't have been granted because it's not novel enough, anyone could have thought it, or that it's math. Patent law is a black-on-white subject, either you support it or not. It's impossible to grant some patents under subjective premises and be fair at the same time.

As others have said, it is not black and white. You can support patents on "things" and not patents on "ideas." There's a big difference.

I can tell you mathematically how a windmill grinds corn but that does not make my description into a windmill. On the other hand, laying down the mathematical description of a Judy Array IS the array itself!

Re: Judy arrays are patented

#26

Post by dakimov »

That's no problem, actually, even if it is patented, because Judy Array is not a concise algorithm or a data structure, but instead a compilation of a number of well-known unpatented data structures and algorithms, so you can basically change a couple of algorithms used there, and get out of the patent.

Re: Judy arrays are patented

#28

Post by kleiba »

At the same time, Doug Baskins, the author of Judy, open sourced an implementation under the LGPL [1]. This license insists "that any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be consistent with the full freedom of use specified in this license." [2]

[1] http://judy.sourceforge.net/downloads/10minutes.htm

[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html

Re: Judy arrays are patented

#29

Post by cma »

jlgreco wrote: post #16
cma wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All inventions are complicated math.

No, some inventions are describable with math. Some 'inventions' are math. A Wankel engine is not math. You can model it and describe it with math, but that is irrelevant. Any equation that you can make will merely describe a Wenkel engine, not be one. Equations for mathematical concepts are those concepts (expressed in a particular format).

A distinction without a difference.

Re: Judy arrays are patented

#30

Post by aspensmonster »

Since the article has been updated and the "Drawbacks" section removed, here's the diff showing the original contents of the "Drawbacks" section that the story linked to, along with the deletion by user Fintler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judy_array&dif...

"Removed speculation that this subject is related to the referenced patent. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball or a place to discuss how the law MAY be applied."

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