“If such a patent had existed in 1862 when Les Misérables was published, the novel would have infringed all three claims - all these things happened to Jean Valjean in the novel. Hugo could have been sued, and would have lost. The novel could have been prohibited - in effect, censored - by the patent holder.” Stallman on software #patents in 02005.
on 02025-11-26#history of #Lemelson’s shameless abuses of #patents and how submarine patents were eventually sunk by a case in 02004 (laches) and finally a case in 02021: “U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap tossed out a $308.5 million patent-infringement verdict against Apple, Inc. Judge Gilstrap found the plaintiff intentionally delayed its application (originally filed in the 1980s). The resultant patents didn’t start issuing until 2010. (...) The plaintiff, Personalized Media [Gilbert Hyatt], holds hundreds of patents and asserts them against Apple, Google, Netflix and others based on decades old technology. (...) The patent asserted against Apple granted in 2012 from a filing date in the 1980s.”
on 02025-11-26#Apple has to pay about a billion dollars for #patents on VPNs to patent pirates VirnetX
on 02021-01-24The Jagiellonian University in #Poland disputes #Google #patents on ANS
on 02017-08-22#Apache Software Foundation blacklists the #React license; Facebook explains its self-defense clause against #patents
on 02017-08-22patent lawsuit from pirate Blackbird against #Cloudflare and #Fastly #patents
on 02017-07-11US patent 4,201,965 from 1978 by Lubomyr #Onyshkevych, who did his master’s thesis in 1957 on #magnetic-logic and apparently then went to go work at RCA. It’s about building inductors into PCB #hardware. #patents
on 02017-05-30Ultrasonic digital modem patent for encrypted data above 17kHz. #patents
on 02017-04-30patent for sintering #glass #materials into #ceramics at only 750° by wetting 100-mesh soda-lime glass powder with PEG-8000 as a binder dissolved in isopropanol, drying it at 60°, dry-pressing it at 5000 psi (34 MPa) and then firing it. Apparently the absence of water in the process avoids foaming during firing. #patents
on 02017-02-09Magnavox got #patents on TV-display #video-games due to Ralph Baer’s kinda crappy Odyssey, and they (then their new owners Philips) started suing game makers in 1974; this was how the end of the legendary #interactive-fiction company Infocom came, because Activision had acquired them and were heavily bled by a Baer lawsuit. #history #toread
on 02017-01-10Ken Perlin’s simplex-noise software patent. :( #graphics #algorithms #patents
on 02016-11-21Judge Mayer in a concurring CAFC opinion declares that Alice outlawed most software #patents and also points out that patenting software can be an infringement on the First Amendment because software runs the internet. #USA #law
on 02016-10-06A 2003 US patent (filed in 2000) for an I-beam with a zigzag web, which it describes as a prefabricated truss. #patents
on 02016-09-22#Apple #censorship #patents dramatized as plans for “the new iPhone” #sousveillance #human-rights #phone
on 02016-07-07In 2014, #Amazon got an outrageous patent on the photo studio setup they use for photographing products for their web site. #patents
on 02016-04-29patent on a new version of IBM’s electrostatic clutch using the #Johnsen-Rahbek effect in 1979. #patents
on 02015-11-26a patent for a “digital differential analyzer” used in the rocket plane’s guidance system, filed in 1956. #patents
on 02015-11-1610 terabytes of #patents #datasets.
on 02015-09-28a galvanic aluminum etching process patent from the 1950s. #patents
on 02015-09-15a low-waste caustic aluminum etching process patent from 1990. #patents
on 02015-09-15Andrews’ Twigg and Byde patent application on #stratified-B-trees. Scumbags. #trees #patents
on 02015-09-09MSF is trying to save #India’s patent law exemptions that have stoppped the #AIDS epidemic from pressure by the US and other related countries. #patents
on 02015-09-01PQ says a NASA patent discloses how to produce a high-mole-ratio #potassium-silicate, patent 4,162,169. #patents
on 02015-08-30Somebody back in the 1960s got a patent on using alkyl silicates related to #ethyl-silicate as a hydraulic fluid. This sounds like a terrible idea but they were actually talking about pretty long chain alkanes with 12 to 40 carbons per silicon, mixed with 1–30% ethylmethylsiloxane to thicken them, and those should be more resistant to the hydrolysis that makes ethyl silicate so dangerous. #patents
on 02015-08-30US patent 7,151,541 on “scanimation” animations with a transparent plastic “shutter” sheet slid over a coded paper. Specifically he patented using hinges or sliders to keep the shutter-sheet properly oriented to the paper code and pressed down on it. #patents
on 02015-08-23Animations displayed by sliding a transparent plastic “shutter” sheet over a coded paper; apparently this Gianni Sarcone invented this in 1997, and some other dude got a patent on it in 2006. Related to #opacity-holograms. #patents
on 02015-08-23Another lapsed slingshot patent with pulleys and cords to achieve a mechanical advantage to propel the projectile, using cams and eccentric pulleys. #patents
on 02015-08-18Another slingshot patent that uses coil springs instead of elastic cords, this one with the idea of reducing the pull force at full extension so you can aim it accurately. Says the cords can be “nylon rope, cotton rope, or other pliable material and in this example are woven steel airplane cable.” This one is referenced by basically everything. #patents
on 02015-08-18Allain Serge’s slingshot patent (“FRONDE A MECANISME”), issued in France as FR2837918. #patents
on 02015-08-18Patent application PCT/FR2003/000938, filed in 2003 by Allain Serge with priority date 2002, suggests a slingshot (“fronde”) using nylon cords instead of elastic bands, block-and-tackle #pulley gearing to pull the cords, and a spring or compressed air, to fire your little rock or whatever. Google doesn’t have the images. #patents
on 02015-08-18A patent application for a kind of tubular #springs. #patents
on 02015-08-18this lapsed Japanese patent from 2002 talks about making lime plaster (#slaked-lime) #materials sticky and #thixotropic by using 0.1%–5% #carrageenan (dry weight), which is apparently not as sticky as methylcellulose and won’t crack your plaster by absorbing water later. Some carrageenan molecules (κ and ι) gel with metal ions, while others don’t and are therefore more desirable for this. I'm surprised carrageenan will still gel in the insanely alkaline conditions found in lime plaster. It says you can use up to 4% or 5% (or sometimes as little as 2%) before it starts to shrink and crack as it dries. #patents
on 02015-08-15A 2011 patent application for negative-#stiffness #seismic protection. #patents
on 02015-08-12