Character recognition (was Re: Return...)

Alan Kay Alan.Kay at disney.com
Sat Nov 4 23:24:25 UTC 2000


Might be worth a try. I think anyone that is actually concerned might 
try them and see what happens ....

Cheers,

Alan

----

At 5:24 PM -0500 11/4/00, Kevin Fisher wrote:
>Hi Alan, et al:
>
>I've been following this discussion with interest...has anyone considered
>contacting BountyQuest about this?  (http://www.bountyquest.com/)
>
>Supposedly they will help debunk silly patents if you can find examples of
>prior art...which in this case we seem to have in abundance.
>
>I'm not sure how effective BountyQuest is since I've only recently seen them
>mentioned in the press, but it may be worth a shot..  Supposedly Jeff Bezos
>helped to found this thing and even put a bounty up on his 1-click shopping
>patent.
>
>
>>  Thanks Duane --
>>
>>  I looked at the patent and I don't anything particularly new,
>>  especially with respect to their claims. Gabe Groner's 1960s recog
>>  had all the features in Xeerox's and in Grafitti. (And BTW there are
>>  any number of good free recognizers that have been derived from the
>>  GRAIL one and from Ken Ledeen's, like a wonderful one by Steve
>>  Purcell at MIT/Harvard in the 70s).
>>        The reason I had not heard of Xerox's is that I left Xerox in
>>  1980 and the patent in question was granted in 1997 to someone I
>>  don't know.
>>
>>  Here is a pernicious situation, where the incompetence of the US
>>  Patent organization has loosed yet another nuisance out into the
>>  world. Because of the clear prior art from the sixties, most modern
>>  character recognition will be found derivative of ideas that have
>>  been in the public domain for decades. But why should companies still
>>  be allowed to take actions in such cases that then will require time,
>>  energy, court costs, etc., to merely get back to ground zero? You can
>>  imagine that I have been involved as a deposition witness in many
>>  many dispiriting disputes over ideas whose provenance is clear, but
>>  that have been wrongly patented.
>>        I believe that the entire US patent system has been broken to a
>>  deep enough extent for a long enough time to be absolutely useless in
>>  carrying out its charter functions. Fortunately, they weren't willing
>>  to even start patenting programs until the very late 70s or maybe
>>  even the early 80s. The first suits involving SW that I had to
>>  testify at were in the early 80s, involved "look and feel", and the
>>  deep legal precedents that were used were based on a ca. 1910 patent
>>  on player piano roles(!) This is how bad the whole area is. It's like
>>  radioactive pollution seeping into the drinking water.
>>
>>  Here is a wierd idea with regard to this particular subject. Gabe
>>  Groner's recognizer fit into 2K of the 360/44 at RAND that was used
>>  as a single-user (yes!) machine for GRAIL. I don't know where Gabe is
>>  these days (or Ken Ledeen), but like the rest of us geezers from the
>>  60s, they are likely still alive and kicking. Squeak can emulate the
>>  various machine codes of the 360 much faster than it could run them
>>  itself -- Dan's emulation of the Alto to make Smalltalk-72 run again
>>  is 20 times faster than the original Alto.
>>        So getting the original code from Gabe and emulating it would
>>  give you a workable recognizer that CAN'T infringe those patents.
>>  Come to think of it, somewhere we do have the Smalltalk-76
>>  Ledeen-type recog code, and it CAN'T INFRINGE for the same reasons.
>>        Moreover, I believe that any recog simply implemented from one
>>  of these writeups, like Gabe's and like Sproull's of the Ledeen),
>>  can't infringe -- though anyone can be paid to argue this, if
>>  meaninglessly.
>>
>>  With regard to the current recognizer (and most recognizers). If your
>>  tablet supplies subpixel resolution (the good ones do) and it is set
>>  to bypass the "convert to mouse" SW, then you can draw very small
>>  characters and have them recognized (you should antialias the strokes
>>  also).
>>        However, Nathanial's is so good that I've been using it instead
>>  of the one-pager now in Squeak. With a smart recog like his, one
>  > careful training session will fit most people without any further
>>  training.
>>
>>  It would be a good idea to trace the provenance of Ken Perlin's
>>  ideas. The particular idea of using direction strokes as meanings has
>>  been around for a very long time, so this could be yet another
>>  nuisance patent ...
>>
>>  Cheers,
>>
>>  Alan
>>
>>
>>
>>  At 5:35 PM -0800 11/3/00, Duane Maxwell wrote:
>>  >  >>Sorry to "poop in the punchbowl" again, but I've recently 
>>been reviewing
>>  >>>the rulings in the Xerox v. Palm Computing case wherein Xerox 
>>attempted to
>>  >>>assert its patent rights in single-stroke character recognition systems.
>>  >>
>>  >>Do you have a reference to this patent (I wasn't aware of any patent).
>>  >
>>  >The Xerox Unistroke patent is Patent No. 5,596,656, received January, 1997.
>>  >The inventor is listed as David Goldberg.  Xerox sued 3Com in April 1997,
>>  >and the case was dismissed in June 2000.  The patent was held valid, but
>>  >3Com was found non-infringing due to certain technicalities, namely the
>>  >occasional use of multiple strokes (for instance, X), and identical strokes
>>  >being interpreted differently based on where they're made (ie. letters
>>  >versus number areas).  In my non-legal opinion, 3Com won because of
>>  >mistakes that Xerox made developing the patent - assuming the patent had no
>>  >prior art.
>>  >
>>  >http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05596656__
>>  >
>>  >I'm afraid I can't find the patent that Palm has, though I remember seeing
>>  >it - it was apparently acquired from some external developer, back when
>>  >they were with 3Com and it was still called US Robotics.  The code was
>>  >apparently originally developed and deployed for the Newton.
>>  >
>>  >>Not possible. The current one was derived very directly from the
>>  >>original GRAIL recognizer at RAND done by Gabe Groner in 1965 (and
>>  >>written up in a RAND report in 1966). Sponsored by ARPA and free to
>>  >>all (as it should be). It was the original and truly great single
>>  >>stroke recognizer. I have a great movie of it from the late sixties.
>>  >
>>  >I'm sure you're right, but at the moment, the patent is in force.
>>  >
>>  >>Patents are granted willy nilly these days. The patent office long
>>  >>ago wimped out on trying to vet patents and have left matters up to
>>  >>the courts (a terrible situation that gives rise to an infinity of
>>  >>useless and usually meaningless disputes).
>>  >
>>  >Yes, we know :)
>>  >
>>  >>         This is why there are a number of companies in Silicon Valley
>>  >>that do nothing but demo prior art on old machines.
>>  >
>>  >I think many people would be happy if this group of patents were 
>>invalidated.
>>  >
>>  >(Re: QuikWriting):
>>  >>Well, maybe I should try to talk to Ken about all of us being able to
>>  >>use it. (I'm personally not a big fan of QuikWriting, but it would be
>>  >>fun to have in Squeak.)
>>  >
>>  >It was a very quick hack to write (about two hours) and is somewhat more
>>  >reliable than the current recognizer in that it doesn't need to be taught.
>>  >Other than that, I would agree that it falls in the "isn't that neat"
>>  >category with a number of other Squeak features.  We developed it because
>>  >we have some keyboardless tablets and didn't want to teach anything -
>>  >besides which the current recognizer needs some "breathing room" that makes
>>  >it unsuitable for  filling in little text boxes.
>>  >
>>  >Good luck with Ken - although I think he assigned it to NYU and the last
>>  >time I looked, they actively peddled licenses on their site.
>>  >
>>  >-- Duane





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