Exclusive: Microsoft Patents The Search Engine

[eddieroolz]

Although I'm a supporter of Microsoft, I'd have to raise an eyebrow at this one. This patent should never have been awarded to any company.

 

[jsc]

"Additionally, an affinity ranking scheme to re-rank search results by optimizing diversity and information richness of the topic and query results has been developed. Such practices model the variance of topics in groups of documents."

Whaat?

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]Although I'm a supporter of Microsoft, I'd have to raise an eyebrow at this one. This patent should never have been awarded to any company.[/citation]
Of course, it remains to be seen if they will own the patent for the purpose of commercialization or for the purpose of releasing it into freedom.

If Google had patented it I would expect the former, but MS is part of a group that buys up some patents solely for the purpose of freeing them so that no-one can exploit them.

As this is MS it could go either way, but one thing I know for sure is that if it was Google it would definately NOT be headed for freedom.

 

[jsc]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Thomas Edison patented the lightbulb and is universally recognised as it's inventor ...[/citation]
The second part of that statement is unfortunately true. The first part isn't. He patented an improvement in an electric lamp. That improvement changed the electric lamp from a lab curiosity to a practical development.

And about RAMBUS: we are lucky they didn't write their patent a little more broadly. They were focused on memory - particularly moving data between CPU and memory via a high speed serial link, instead of just moving data around.

Everybody see where I am going? They could have locked up the PCI Express bus.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]jsc[/nom]The second part of that statement is unfortunately true. The first part isn't. He patented an improvement in an electric lamp. That improvement changed the electric lamp from a lab curiosity to a practical development. And about RAMBUS: we are lucky they didn't write their patent a little more broadly. They were focused on memory - particularly moving data between CPU and memory via a high speed serial link, instead of just moving data around.Everybody see where I am going? They could have locked up the PCI Express bus.[/citation]
That is the problem with today's patents.
Using Edison as an example again, people have some rosy-eyed view that before him the world was a cold dark place and he invented everything that the modern world takes for granted.

Edison is just another Steve Jobs, "reinventing", then slapping a patent label on it.

As far as RAMBUS goes would anyone really be upset if someone nuked their head office?

 

[eyemaster]

Maybe I'll patent the "Bubble sort". Sure it's been used for the past decades, since computers have been invented, but if I can collect royalties for the past 50 years, that'll make me rich!

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]That is the problem with today's patents.Using Edison as an example again, people have some rosy-eyed view that before him the world was a cold dark place and he invented everything that the modern world takes for granted.Edison is just another Steve Jobs, "reinventing", then slapping a patent label on it.As far as RAMBUS goes would anyone really be upset if someone nuked their head office?[/citation]
He (Edison) was also a major SOB to deal with.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]maestintaolius[/nom]He (Edison) was also a major SOB to deal with.[/citation]
Has anyone traced a direct family link to Edison from Jobs?
Some sort of distant illigitimate sprog?

 

[malikxaxu]

The article says "Microsoft main claim..." and goes on with some excerpt from the detailed description portion of the patent specification... this CANNOT be the main claim, because the claims are at the end of the spec and the language used in claims is NOT exactly the same as that one used in the description, e.g. a claim consist of a single sentence (only one dot) and cannot start with two categories, i.e. "method" and "system".

Because it is the CLAIMS that define the monopoly, care should be taken when writing these articles to correctly report on what CLAIMS were actually granted. The scope defined in the claims can and usually is more restricted than what is found in the detailed description portion of the patent specification.

Just my two cents.

 

[NoCaDrummer]

things will only continue to get worse and worse in the future.
judgment day as in Terminator is coming and MS will be the source.. lol

Yeah, but the Blue Screen of Death [BSoD] will stop Judgment Day in its tracks.