From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Tue Jan 18 2011 - 22:42:51 CST
I also think that the wording is extremely vague (for example, it does not
define the scope of application, and uses the term "character" without
defining it or making any reference to any meaning : the definitoon of a
"character" is highly dependant of cultures, applications, and standards
used, and how texts are analyzed, i.e. the character model).
In fact the description is not really about character encoding (something
that is in fact NOT described at all), but about generic lossless data
compression. Nothing is new, you can reread as describing basic compression
technics as well, including wellknown Huffman coding, arithmetic coding, or
dictionary-based compressors like Lempel-Ziv-Welsh and all their
derivatives, including many that are much more precisely described in
patents that are still enforceable and that this mere description wants to
embrace all at once.
Even if this text was presented as a patent application, it should be
attacked on almost all its terms, because there's a lot of prior art (many
in the public domain now, and many others in patented technics). Don't be
abused by the terminology ("device" and so on). In fact there's no invention
at all there.
This should have not been posted here, because in fact it is completely
unrelated to Unicode or text encoding or character encoding. All this is
only a general description of a statistical predictive/adaptative
compressor. I see absolutely nothing in this text that could not mean that
it would compress any kind of data or piece of information (including in
binary format, or containing presentation elements, styles, photographs,
vodeos, programs...), including "live" and unpredictable events with lots of
randomness (and very small predictability). It does not even says that the
"device" will generate a lossless compression, or that the represented
"characters" are uniquely decodable. It also gives no way for allowing
reprocessing of texts that could be processed by this pseudo-encoder.
Generally, when someone applies for a patent, he already has made his
homework on his invention to generate something that works and finds a field
of application. The idea alone is not enough, when one wants to protect his
invention, he will try to define what is so unique compared to other
solutions, that it offers a competitive advantage, and this advantage is
described in this field of application. Then he looks for prior art, he
references them, makes sure that the patent text will not cover them, and
precisely describes the unique set of links that makes it a true
invention. There's nothing about that here.
And more importantly, he will give strong enough definitions to the
questionable terms and concepts used (and give correct credits to respective
inventors of these prior arts, even if their inventions has fallen to the
public domain of the area where the patent will be applied and registered).
This is not even true for the term "device", which would mean that the
invention is really implementable with these concepts the way they are
described. It is missing so much definitions, that in fact, nothing can be
made with it.
Finally the grammar used is so strange that everything can be interpreted in
all sentences. Is it really a patent text ? I think it's just an extreme
joke against confusive patents. Clearly, the first post falls completely out
of topic here. The list is not speaking about random patents, but possibly
only about standardisation of text encodings for interchange, using technics
that *may* reference prior arts and *may* be covered by existings patents or
in some public domain.
But the Unicode standard is built for interoperability across all systems
and to be used worldwide, because the respective inventors have bee
ncredited, and have reserved their exclusive rights and agreed to not claim
royaltees, because they felt that it would be better for them to promote
these invention for use by anyone without tthe risk of such agressive and
vague claims against the inventors and promoters of the stabdard and its
very wide community of users (everywhere you have now a phone, or a
computer, or TV, or if you read or publish a book, even if it was originally
handwritten, today the Unicode standard is used, or will be used on those
texts).
I just see this "proposal" as an attempt to create some abusive "prior art"
by using the list as a communication medium fixing the date of first
application. The list is not made for that: if you want to protect your
invention, contact a lawyer, and your local patents application bureau, pay
the fee, have your text reviewed.
For now I just see this as an attempt to patent a generic concept that has
been used since centuries (even before the use of fmodenr computers),
including the writing systems themselves, and in fact all communication
means where one has to summarize the information using some representation
that will be understood by someone else, with minimal efforts, in order to
get a meaningful return of information.
NB: I really hate those patent texts and their confusive terms.
Unfortunately there are legions of these today. Some were registered, and
will remain valid as long as noone will refuse to pay for the licences or
royaltees. But the list is not there to discuss these patents on their legal
consequences. Many patents exist today and receive royaltees, and patent
holders are accepting money for licences, even though the patents are
invalid.
The only reason is that those paying them simply do n ot understand anything
in those patents, but they feel that it's simpler to pay what the patent
holder claims, than loosing time and money to defend in a court his
legitimate rights that an aggressive patent holder is claiming (often many
years after, during which the "invention" has been widely been used and
succeeded to become a foundation of our commons, even though the patent
holder refused to communicate during this time after using himself the
results of his supposed invention within fundamental later inventions that
he needs now). Not claiming in due time his rights after years, and lying
about the knowledge that his patented invention was used extensively, should
be a criminal offence. I call these practices "extorction" as it tries to
proft for enormous amounts of work made by many others, only because of a
small mysterious claim in a patent that noone could legitimately understand
(or could even know, when the patents were left secret and never publicized
by its applier).
2011/1/18 John W Kennedy <jwkenne@attglobal.net>
>
> On Jan 18, 2011, at 6:15 AM,
> =E0=AE=85=E0=AE=A9=E0=AF=8D=E0=AE=AA=E0=AF=81_=E0=AE=95=E0=AE=B5=E0=AF=80=E0=AE=9A=E0=AF=81=E0=AE=B5=E0=AE=B0=E0=AE=B0=E0=AF=8D_-_Anbu_Kaveeswarar
> wrote:
>
> > This serves to inform a new proposal. I reserve all the rights to this
> proposal. Please provide me with the characters in your encoding and each of
> their frequency of usage. I want to use it with my proposal. Please find
> this proposal attached as proposal.htm
> > <proposal.htm>
>
> For those who didn't wish to look at the attachment, it's incompetent (and
> unnecessary) HTML coding, incomprehensible English (written in the form of a
> patent application), and it doesn't seem to offer anything that wasn't well
> understood by Morse and Vail.
>
>
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