I haven't looked at the patent in detail, but in my experience as a former patent examiner, likely the claims cover some new detail missing from the prior art. You need to look at what was claimed to know what is covered.
I'm not familiar with this technology and don't have time to take a closer look. But if I were to take a closer look, I'd check out what the examiner wrote in their allowance (Notice of Allowance and Fees Due) to see if they identified a specific feature that makes it patentable.
> But if I were to take a closer look, I'd check out what the examiner wrote in their allowance (Notice of Allowance and Fees Due) to see if they identified a specific feature that makes it patentable.
Thanks. That seems helpful.
To save people some digging and so it's easier to discuss, I've copied (actually retyped) something I found which seems relevant. At your second link, there's a document called "Notice of Allowance and Fees Due (PTOL-85)", and starting on p. 10, there's a section called "Reasons for Allowance", which reads:
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Reasons for Allowance
Claims 1 - 28 are allowed in light of the Examiner's Amendment and the Applicant's response filed on August 23, 2021.
The following is an Examiner's statement of reasons for allowance: Applicant has amended independent claim to incorporate detailed subject matter of the decoding process and apparatus.
The closest prior art Greenfield et al., (US 2016/0248440 A1), Li et al., (US 2015/0103902 A1) and Converse (US 2017/0164007 A1) do not disclose the claimed element, "during a first phase of the two-phase structure, selectively updating, depending on a determination of whether or not an output symbol from a previous iteration was generated, state of the RANS decoder using probability information for the output symbol from the previous iteration, the state of the RANS decoder being tracked using a value;" and "during the second phase of the two-phase structure, selectively generating, depending on a determination of whether or not the state of the RANS decoder includes sufficient information to generate an output symbol for a current iteration, the output symbol for the current iteration using the state of the RANS decoder, the state of the RANS decoder including sufficient information to generate the output symbol for the current iteration if the state of the RANS decoder is greater than a threshold". Therefore, the prior art references taken either alone or in combination fails to anticipate or fairly suggest the limitations of the independent claims. While using a range asymmetric number system (RANS) decoder was known at the time of the invention, Applicant's very specific claimed structure is considered patentable over the prior art of record.
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As a total layman, not knowing the tech here (or patents or law), it sounds promising to me, in the sense that it probably doesn't stop everyone from using RANS.
It mentions prior art and says "RANS" ... "was known" in conjunction with that. And it also says "very specific claimed structure", which also sounds like this doesn't cover all of RANS.
It's really hard to tell based on an article like this. The ANS creator is quoted as saying, "I don't know what to do with it - [Microsoft's patent] looks like just the description of the standard algorithm." However, who knows how much experience he has with patents? It may be that Duda invented the shoelace, and Microsoft invented the plastic sleeve at the tip of the shoelace.
As Timothy Lee says in the article, the problem with this type of patent is that it boxes in how you can use the original technology: you can freely tie your shoes with this shoelace, but if you use a double knot, now you infringe a patent.
In some ways, this mirrors the difference between copyleft and permissive copright licenses. By failing to patent the original invention, Duda made ANS useful and widely available, but he now has no leverage against Microsoft.
If you're implying that only filed patent applications are available as prior art, that's not right. Anything available to the public can be prior art in the US. (Even some private things can be prior art in the US, for example, an offer to sell the invention creates prior art even if completely confidential.) If MS filed a patent application before anyone else, they could still receive a prior art rejection for anything available to the public like code available online, academic papers, etc.
The US is hobbling itself with software patents. China pretty much ignores all patents and will win in the global market because of this. US companies need to quit the stupid patent wars, lest the become irrelevant on the world markets.
btrettel|4 years ago
Take a look at claims 1, 19 and 20 to see what is covered: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11234023B2/en
The application received 3 rejections before allowance, so it's not like the USPTO rubber-stamped it: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/#!/applications/16456602/ifw/...
I'm not familiar with this technology and don't have time to take a closer look. But if I were to take a closer look, I'd check out what the examiner wrote in their allowance (Notice of Allowance and Fees Due) to see if they identified a specific feature that makes it patentable.
adrianmonk|4 years ago
Thanks. That seems helpful.
To save people some digging and so it's easier to discuss, I've copied (actually retyped) something I found which seems relevant. At your second link, there's a document called "Notice of Allowance and Fees Due (PTOL-85)", and starting on p. 10, there's a section called "Reasons for Allowance", which reads:
----------
Reasons for Allowance
Claims 1 - 28 are allowed in light of the Examiner's Amendment and the Applicant's response filed on August 23, 2021.
The following is an Examiner's statement of reasons for allowance: Applicant has amended independent claim to incorporate detailed subject matter of the decoding process and apparatus.
The closest prior art Greenfield et al., (US 2016/0248440 A1), Li et al., (US 2015/0103902 A1) and Converse (US 2017/0164007 A1) do not disclose the claimed element, "during a first phase of the two-phase structure, selectively updating, depending on a determination of whether or not an output symbol from a previous iteration was generated, state of the RANS decoder using probability information for the output symbol from the previous iteration, the state of the RANS decoder being tracked using a value;" and "during the second phase of the two-phase structure, selectively generating, depending on a determination of whether or not the state of the RANS decoder includes sufficient information to generate an output symbol for a current iteration, the output symbol for the current iteration using the state of the RANS decoder, the state of the RANS decoder including sufficient information to generate the output symbol for the current iteration if the state of the RANS decoder is greater than a threshold". Therefore, the prior art references taken either alone or in combination fails to anticipate or fairly suggest the limitations of the independent claims. While using a range asymmetric number system (RANS) decoder was known at the time of the invention, Applicant's very specific claimed structure is considered patentable over the prior art of record.
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As a total layman, not knowing the tech here (or patents or law), it sounds promising to me, in the sense that it probably doesn't stop everyone from using RANS.
It mentions prior art and says "RANS" ... "was known" in conjunction with that. And it also says "very specific claimed structure", which also sounds like this doesn't cover all of RANS.
SloopJon|4 years ago
As Timothy Lee says in the article, the problem with this type of patent is that it boxes in how you can use the original technology: you can freely tie your shoes with this shoelace, but if you use a double knot, now you infringe a patent.
In some ways, this mirrors the difference between copyleft and permissive copright licenses. By failing to patent the original invention, Duda made ANS useful and widely available, but he now has no leverage against Microsoft.
inetknght|4 years ago
Except, he can challenge Microsoft's patent on prior art terms
HideousKojima|4 years ago
That's called the aglet
bell-cot|4 years ago
(No, the Patent Office does not have a good reputation for rejecting prior-art-plus-a-few-minor-tweaks patent applications up front.)
depereo|4 years ago
btrettel|4 years ago
(Source: I'm a former patent examiner.)
ratsmack|4 years ago