17 Sep
2012
17 Sep
'12
2:19 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I'm sure that if you delved into the mainframe
world software (which
may be hard to do), you'd find similar schemes. Hashing for filename
lookup wasn't all that uncommon--after all, it was used in just about
every compiler I ever ran into for symbol table lookup
However, using it for in-memory symbol table lookup isn't prior art for
using it to reduce disk access for filename lookup in a directory on a
storage medium, unless you can prove that it is an obvious extension.
You and I would probably think it is obvious. Unfortunately the patent
office "obviousness test", which is supposed to be about a "person
having ordinary skill in the art" (PHOSITA), as actually applied seems
only to consider persons that are complete morons, for whom nothing is
obvious.
But computer software patents weren't allowed back
then, which makes
the claim of "prior art" hard to make. --Chuck
Whether software patents were allowed back then has no bearing on
whether something that can be shown to have been done at the time
qualifies as prior art today.
Best regards,
Eric