Re: ARC patent

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 15:07:30 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Jan Wieck wrote:
>> On 1/17/2005 1:15 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
>> > Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)com> writes:
>> >> FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the patent
>> >> application is still pending, although the USPTO site is a little
>> >> hard to grok):
>> >
>> >> http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220040098541%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20040098541&RS=DN/20040098541
>> >
>> > Ugh. We could hope that the patent wouldn't be granted, but I think
>> > it unlikely, unless Jan is aware of prior art (like a publication
>> > predating the filing date). I fear we'll have to change or remove
>> > that code.
>> >
>> > regards, tom lane
>>
>> Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for
>> PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File & Storage Technologies Conference
>> (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA.
>
> Oh, OK. Good news!
>
>> I am seriously concerned about this and think we should not knowingly
>> release code that is possibly infringing a patent.
>>
>> If we need a different cache algorithm again, we might want to yank out
>> the ARC part right away now and work on another one for 8.1.
>
> If you want to poke around for 2 hours, I bet you wil find more patent
> infringements. And not looking doesn't protect you from patent
> violations.

Not looking does protect you from a "willful patent violation lawsuit", as
I understand it. Personally I'd be surprised if any commercial entity
wanted to take the risk that 15 years down the track the patent is granted
retrospectively and that IBM wouldn't come knocking.

Especially since 8.0 is now out in the field with the ARC code.

"Friends don't let friends read patents".

Cheers,
Anand
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