If you can’t read and understand the patent in question just say so…

Mr. Amado is not some poor peasant from Guatemala trying to blackmail MShit. he was a Stanford Ph.D. student when he came up with his very clever way of linking spreadsheet and database progams.

You are just complete morons, leave Mr. Amado alone …

Practically every modern programming language/paradigm is “turing complete.” And thus, technically, there is no more powerful computer than a Turing Computer — it can compute anything that is computable. This isn’t a performance claim, it’s an expressability claim.

The reason this is somewhat damning, is because of the so-called doctrine of equivalence. The doctrine of equivalence is usually used by a patent holder to broaden the scope of infringement, giving patent holders the right to claim not only inventions that work as described, but ones that work in an ‘equivalent’ manner.

The problem here is that Amado is claiming he has invented a turing machine equivalent, and Turing machines have been around since when, about 1930? So not only is this a prima facie admittal that he knew he wasn’t doing something new, but also an insanely broad description of the “full power” of his invention.

The fact that the examiner didn’t reject a patent with such obviously bad claims (any 2nd year CS student understands this garbage) is a damning statement of how expert USPTO examiners really are.

Depends on whether your referent is an actual replication of the device Turing imagined (physical tapes and all), or more generally a member of the class of devices which are functionally indentical to a Turing machine.

In the first place, yes, in the second, no.

Sorry to be pendantic, but you did say is was an aside for geeks…

That is basically my entire point. The patent is so full of jargon that certainly a patent examiner is going to have trouble determining what it means. I think many/most patents rely on the use of obfuscation via jargon, in an attempt to purposefully create the mistaken impression that their “ideas are unique”.

I also agree with your point about “borrowed code”. Code borrowing would qualify for a royalty. I wonder what’s going to happen if/when people start patenting more medical procedures. Does that mean that only certain hospital would be allowed to perform certain combinations of life-saving treatments? I wonder if this is aleady a problem.

By the logic of most software patent holders, combination therapy for illnesses can be patented. Scary.com.

More vomit, more vomit, more vomit.

That is basically my entire point. The patent is so full of jargon that certainly a patent examiner is going to have trouble determining what it means. I think many/most patents rely on the use of obfuscation via jargon, in an attempt to purposefully create the mistaken impression that their “ideas are unique”.

I also agree with your point about “borrowed code”. Code borrowing would qualify for a royalty. I wonder what’s going to happen if/when people start patenting more medical procedures. Does that mean that only certain hospital would be allowed to perform certain combinations of life-saving treatments? I wonder if this is aleady a problem.

By the logic of most software patent holders, combination therapy for illnesses can be patented. Scary.com.

More vomit, more vomit, more vomit.