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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