[Patents] Konno 1995: The Karmarkar patent and Software -- does math patenting work?

[srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

Konno's book exaggerate the problems of the Karmarkar patent.  Sloppy
research which question the rest of the book.  For example, hartmut
includes the following quote:
        "However the Karmarkar patent did not create very significant
        revenue for AT&T while causing significant inconvenience to
        the industry and destroying much of the positive interaction
        dydles that had previously characterised the cooperation
        between linear programming research and industry in the US.

Nonsense.  One of the reasons why ATT didn't make much money off the
algorithm and its patent, was that mathematicians were quickly able
to come up with alternative implementations of linear programming
solving algorithms, while in the spirit of Karmarkar, did not
infringe his patent.  In short, they engaged in the time-honored
practice of working around a patent technique, some of which were
even better than Karmarkar's approach.  Which is the very point of
the patent system.  Companies didn't have to buy ATT's custom
supercomputers that ran Karmarkar's algorithm (ATT set up a 
subsidiary I think to sell these machines), because they could run
their own implementations on their own supercomputers, without fear
of infringing the Karmarkar patent.  Challenging the patent was
a waste of time because a) the patent was novel and unobvious and
enabled and statutory, though b) of limited offensive use.

So far from being some plague on the patent system, the Karmarkar
patent was a good example of the system working.  To criticize
software patents using Karmarkar is a really weak attack on the
system.

Greg Aharonian