Re: Does this patent application affect named graphs?

Dear paul,


There may be some truth to your allegation.

This isn't the first time we are confronted with clever uses of the deficiencies in the USPTO methods for evaluating what is acceptable and what not.

As a mathematician by training I am really appalled by this, we because we are rapidly nearing the threshold where in fact areas of mathematical theory and applied mathematics are being harvested for patentable items.

We should draw the line at concrete algorithms, but conceptual visualizations which are so general that homomorphic conceptual formalizations may also be captured by the scope of the patent may actually lead to intellectual property ownership of mathematical theories which are public domain knowledge.

This is despicable.

Regards

 
Milton Ponson
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________________________________
 From: Paul Houle <ontology2@gmail.com>
To: Linked Data community <public-lod@w3.org>; semantic-web@w3.org 
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 11:06 AM
Subject: Does this patent application affect named graphs?
 
      Hi,  I was checking out a rather good patent search engine and
was surprised to see this

http://ip.com/pat/US20100223224

      A few years ago I did a patent search for things that could have
come out of the Cyc project and was a bit surprised to find that I
couldn't find any.  It looks like somebody is trying to patent
microtheories about 16 years after Guha's thesis presented
microtheories as an extension of FOL.

     The language in the patent application looks pretty broad to me,
but I've got no idea if it will hold up.