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Re: Strawmen and Urban Legends


From: Roger Schlafly
Subject: Re: Strawmen and Urban Legends
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:15:59 -0800

"Lee Hollaar" <hollaar@antitrust.cs.utah.edu> wrote:
> Actually, much much earlier than that.  See United States patent
> 3,568,156, "Text Matching Algorithm," granted on March 2, 1971,
> to Kenneth Thompson (who went on to write an operating system of
> some repute).

There were also software patents long before that. Samuel F. B. Morse
got US Patent 1647 in 1840 for the Morse Code. Its reissued version
included:

Claim 5. The system of signs consisting of dots and spaces, and of dots,
spaces, and horizontal lines, for numerals, letters, words, or sentences,
substantially as herein set forth and illustrated, in combination with
machinery for recording them, as signals for telegraphic purposes.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATRE117

The US Supreme Court upheld that claim in 1853.
http://www.law.pitt.edu/madison/patent/supplement/oreilly_v_morse.html

You can also read Morse's original claims here.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT1647




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