Judge Says Mathematical Algorithms Can’t Be Patented

Re:Judge Says Mathematical Algorithms Can’t Be Patented by lisper on Thursday March 28, 2013 @02:43PM (#5456821)

Does anyone know which patent is being asserted here? I thought Uniloc only had one patent, and it was related to try-and-buy DRM. But the description in the article says "processing of floating point numbers by the Linux operating system was a patent violation" which doesn't seem to fit. Is there another Uniloc patent?

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Re:Judge Says Mathematical Algorithms Can’t Be Patented by dangrossman on Thursday March 28, 2013 @02:46PM (#5456845)

This is the patent at issue:

> Method and apparatus for handling overflow and underflow in processing floating-point numbers

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

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Re:Judge Says Mathematical Algorithms Can’t Be Patented by joksnet on Thursday March 28, 2013 @05:11PM (#5457659)

Under "Related Art" says:

> In an effort to unify methods employed in computer systems for performing binary floating-point arithmetic, the IEEE in the early 1980's standardized computer floating-point numbers. > [...] > In reshaping the IEEE format, the present invention retains most of its benefits while offering the microprocessor designer and the real-time programmer a much cleaner and more efficient implementation.

For what I understand, is an extension of the IEEE standard.

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Re:Judge Says Mathematical Algorithms Can’t Be Patented by lisper on Thursday March 28, 2013 @03:05PM (#5456971)

Thanks.

But this is still perplexing: Surely, Linux just uses IEEE754 floating point, which predates this patent by 15 years?

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Re:Judge Says Mathematical Algorithms Can’t Be Patented by pavanky on Thursday March 28, 2013 @05:35PM (#5457814)

You would be surprised by the sheer number of idiotic patents out in the wild.

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Re:Judge Says Mathematical Algorithms Can’t Be Patented by sthu11182 on Thursday March 28, 2013 @05:57PM (#5457940)

a good sample - http://patently-useless.tumblr.com/

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