When using the RPG, an expert selects the type of case, type of report, types of technologies involved, types of tools used, and expert background profiles from a GUI. Then a Microsoft Word draft report is generated that includes all of the selected generic information intermixed with blank sections where case-specific information should be filled in manually.
Currently, many experts either dig through their prior works to find specific descriptions or write them from scratch each time. Maintaining a library of generic report elements is a challenge, especially when multiple experts are involved. RPG acts as a version control system between multiple experts who can upload and download detailed descriptions of experts, technologies, and tools from a central server. The reports are generated according to specific formats, so an entire team of experts can easily produce reports that are consistently formatted with the most up-to-date descriptions.
RPG also keeps synced descriptions of CodeSuite, so it can include the most up-to-date descriptions and pricing of the tools without having to search the S.A.F.E. website or CodeSuite help files.
If you’re interested in trying out RPG, contact our Sales Department.
]]>Still confused? So are many others. Except for Bilski who now knows for sure that he doesn’t have a patent. Looking at it as an inventor, I see that the court has broadened the scope of patentable materials, which is good, but has made the test for patentability muddier which means I will spend even more time and more money arguing with patent examiners. Looking at it as an expert witness for patent litigation, this ruling is sure to cause a lot more disagreements, which means a lot more litigation, which means a lot more business for me.
An excellent discussion of the Bilski ruling can be found at Patently-O, written by Dennis Crouch,
Associate Professor at the University of Missouri School of Law. His regular columns on patents are the best ones available anywhere.
This always sounded intriguing, but I wondered whether anyone had ever tested this theory. We could find no articles or papers on the subject, except for one inconclusive paper, and I dreaded to think that some programmer was convicted based on an untested theory. I decided to have my consulting company, Zeidman Consulting, do some carefully controlled research. If the results turned out well, SAFE Corporation would add whitespace pattern algorithms to CodeSuite to further enhance its ability to detect copying.
Our results were published in a paper entitled Measuring Whitespace Patterns as an Indication of Plagiarism that was recently presented at the ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law. Our results are summarized in the final paragraph:
This whitespace pattern matching method can be used to focus a search for evidence of similarity or copying, but this method cannot stand by itself.
What we discovered is that even very different files have often have similar whitespace patterns. At Zeidman Consulting we’ve used whitespace patterns to confirm copying that was already detected through the use of CodeMatch to find correlated programming elements. In those cases, the whitespace patterns offered further confidence in our findings and in some cases showed which program had been developed first. For a copy of the paper, email us at info@SAFE-corp.biz.
Our next research project is to look at sequences of whitespace within files. Maybe there we’ll find some clues to copying. But for now our results show that whitespace patterns without any other evidence should not be used to determine that copying occurred.
]]>The North Face didn’t get the joke. Their lawyers scheduled a deposition of Winkelmann’s father, James Winkelmann Sr. That didn’t go too well. It turns out that Winkelmann Sr. was once a partner at the St. Louis brokerage firm of HFI Securities where partner Don Weir Jr. pleaded guilty a year ago to charges he stole more than $10 million from clients (Winkelmann was never implicated in any wrongdoing).
I suggest you download the reply and the deposition when you want to have a good laugh at the expense of the legal system. The reply is pretty sarcastic and it’s not clear to me who it’s supposed to appeal to (except readers like us, but not necessarily the judge). The deposition reads like a Marx Brothers skit and is every bit as funny. Litigation has never been so much fun.
]]>Download the report to report to get the details.
]]>Although I believe that the standard tests I have used are not biased, it occurred to me that there could be a better way to eliminate even unintentional bias. The solution would be to take the source code for certain open source programs and announce a new open source project that would involve purposely plagiarizing the code. Programmers from around the world would be invited, perhaps in a competition, to change the source code while retaining the functionality. The original programs and the plagiarized versions submitted from others would be stored in a database known as the Depository of Universal Plagiarism Examples or DUPE. Plagiarism detection programs would then be run on DUPE and comparisons of the results could be made to determine which programs best detected copying. Also, important statistics about plagiarized code could be determined, as well as patterns identified in order to improve the plagiarism detection programs.
SAFE Corporation has begun looking into creating this database. However, we realize that we would like to work with partners in academia and industry. We believe that there are several key issues that need to be resolved in creating DUPE. These are:
Please contact me if you’re interested in working on this important and groundbreaking project.
]]>Background
Though each attempt at patent reform is slightly different, the major points are usually the same. Those who support the bill tend to be large engineering companies. Those who do not support the bill tend to be universities, small inventors, and pharmaceutical companies.
Proposed changes to which I object:
Proposed change that I like:
Proposed changes that about which I don’t have enough information
to evaluate:
There are other provisions about which I don’t hold strong opinions and don’t seem particularly controversial, but almost everyone involved
with patents has strong opinions about patent reform. It will be interesting (and possibly scary) to see what, if anything, eventually happens.
Actually no. The real inventors of the digital computer were physics professor John Atanasoff and his student Clifford Berry who created the first digital computer in a laboratory at Iowa State University. The ABC (“Atanasoff-Berry Computer“) was built in 1939, yet by the time of ENIAC’s introduction to the world, the ABC had been forgotten. What had happened? World War II broke out and the University of Iowa as well as Atanasoff and Berry simply didn’t realize the power of what they had created. Atanasoff was called up by the Navy to do physics research, eventually participating in the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.
When Atanasoff returned to Iowa state he found that his invention was gone to make room for other equipment—because the ABC was built piece-by-piece in the laboratory, it was too big to move out and so it had to be dismantled. Iowa State had decided that a patent was too expensive and so never filed one. John Atanasoff went on to gain recognition for a number of inventions involving physics, but the ABC was mostly forgotten.
In the 1970s there were a handful of companies that saw the great potential in the electronic computer. Sperry Rand Corporation, which was formed through a series of mergers and acquisitions including the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, held U.S. Patent 3,120,606 for the digital computer. In 1973, Sperry Rand sued Honeywell, Inc. and Honeywell reciprocated. Thus began one of the most important intellectual property cases in history.
During the research for this case, Honeywell found out about John Atanasoff and the ABC, which became pivotal information. The case was tried for 7 months after which Judge Earl R. Larson handed down his decision that stated, among other things, that the Eckert-Mauchly patent was invalid.
Some people have disputed this finding, arguing that this was a “legal” finding or a “loophole” or that a lawyer or a judge simply couldn’t understand the complex engineering issues involved. Here’s my take on this.
In fact, it became clear that Mauchly and Eckert attempted to claim much more credit than they deserved and tried to deny credit to others. They had actually greatly improved on Atanasoff’s original design. Had Eckert and Mauchly been more humble, had they added Atanasoff’s name to their patent, had they patented their own improvements instead of the entire invention, they may have given Sperry Rand the most powerful IP in technology history. Instead the invention of the computer entered the public domain without restriction, and the rest is history…
For a good book on the subject, read The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story by Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks.
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