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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>On Thursday, September 07, 2006 12:26 PM
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Corpora-List] Microsoft
patents verb conjugations</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><A title=padro@lsi.upc.edu href="mailto:padro@lsi.upc.edu">Lluís Padró</A>
<FONT face=Arial size=2>wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>>>>
All this is quite nonsense, what they are claiming for is a verb morfological
analyzer/generator, </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>>>>
and there have been scholar publications on that for at least 20 years, so the
patent claim </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>>>>
shouldn't be granted.</FONT><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If it has not been patented then there is the
opportunity, honest or otherwise, to apply for a patent. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There are apparently </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>companies paying protection money to patent pirates who discovered an
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>unpatented technique </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>by reverse engineering or other sleuthing means. </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>They were granted a patent </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>and then demanded </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>and obtained money from the true originators. The amount demanded is
usually </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>less than the cost of protection through the
judicial system. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Apparently the Assembler code routines which cause
a cursor to blink were at one time patented </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>and
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>may still be. </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>These
may be apocryphal stories but I have read </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>similar
accounts about economic life in </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Silicon Valley.</FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>
<DIV><BR>I understand that part of the problem is that patent examiners are more
familiar with tangible, </DIV>
<DIV>three-dimensional </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>inventions than with
software.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Kind regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Roger Harris.</DIV></FONT>
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