back to article Chinese patent app tries to own Wine on ARM

A group of coders from China is trying to patent the ability to operate the popular Wine environment on ARM processors. The patent application by Insigma Technology was turned up by Phoronix, http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY0ODI here. In the patent application, the inventors claim the following steps to …

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  1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Just like any other patent

    I am sure that prior art, obviousness and the utter jibberish that is supposed to be the disclosure will be no barrier to getting the patent. Nuisance litigation to follow. Who is more stupid - the Americans for insisting China create a patent system or the Chinese for actually making one? (My vote is for the UK for reducing the tax rate on troll income.)

  2. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    This is an elaborate April fool's joke, isn't it?

    Looking at the end of the patent...

    "The above are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto. Any person skilled in the art within the technical scope of the present disclosure, may be appropriately changed or changes, and such changes or variations are encompassed within the scope of the present invention."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is an elaborate April fool's joke, isn't it?

      You'd have to be a particularly dim patent office employee to even bother reading it otherwise ... only fools grant patents that are so stupid, and only a bunch of morons would employ such people as patent examiners ...

      1. Tim99 Silver badge

        Re: This is an elaborate April fool's joke, isn't it?

        @AC

        Take a down vote for deliberately conflating a design patent with a software patent.

        If the USAian patent people had used the superior UK name of "Registered Design" instead of design patent the whole rounded corners meme might not have happened, and most of us would have been aware that the Apple/Samsung thing was initially about "trade dress" - Wikipedia Link.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Paris Hilton

          Re: This is an elaborate April fool's joke, isn't it?

          the whole rounded corners meme might not have happened, and most of us would have been aware that the Apple/Samsung thing was initially about "trade dress"

          It is still about someone claiming "ownership" of the general characteristic of "rounded corners". Putting "because of reasons" instead of "because I invented it" after "I own rounded corners on mobiles" does not make it any less idiotic.

  3. Byz

    Code patents are a nightmare

    This is a classic example of business stealing others work, thank goodness they don't apply in the UK :)

    I'm sure I wrote programs in the 70's and 80's that I could have held to whole industry to ransom with, however I just was just delighted to come up with something new and original, that can't be patented.

    Even today it is fun when you come up with a solution that is better than solution you can find on stack overflow etc.. and the joy of sharing the solution with your fellow coders is it's own reward (had one recently that was infinitely simpler and efficient than any other solution, it was just neat and I was very pleased shared it straight away) :)

    This is what helps innovation where people share ideas and build something better, thank goodness Sir Tim had the same view with www.

  4. frank ly

    They learned a lot from Apple

    It would seem.

  5. MacroRodent
    Facepalm

    So they try to patent a port of an existing program!

    Unfortunately, given how patent offices work (not just in U.S) the possibilities of this going through are good. For a software guy, if you know how to program X once, then making X in execute in a loop, or making X a parametrised subroutine, or making X work on a different hardware platform are obvious stuff. But patent offices have issued bad software patents for these variations of a known operation.

  6. Uwe Dippel

    Hold your horses ....

    This is a patent *APPLICATION*.

    Over. It is good practice in a democratic state that pluralities of opinion are allowed; and as well it should - rather must - be allowed to FILE whatever an individual considers her invention; be it the wheel as such, or legally available code and ask to protect its usage. No need to get excited.

    Only if the - alas too often stupid - patent examiner GRANTS anything like that, then we MUST get excited!

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Hold your horses ....

      And before getting excited we should glance at our calendar

      1. Steve the Cynic

        Re: Hold your horses ....

        "And before getting excited we should glance at our calendar"

        We should also note that Phoronix claims that its piece was written on 30 March...

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Hold your horses ....

          ... and the patent was filed on 24th of June 2011 (and worse, granted).

          http://www.google.com/patents/CN102364433B?cl=en

          1. Hans 1
            Headmaster

            Re: Hold your horses ....

            > ... and the patent was filed on 24th of June 2011 (and worse, granted).

            >

            >http://www.google.com/patents/CN102364433B?cl=en

            Click on the "Find prior art" and you have a link to:

            http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?26233-Wine-1-3-4-Adds-New-Features-Supports-ARM

            So this patent is invalid, period.

            1. Dan 55 Silver badge

              Re: Hold your horses ....

              Wouldn't that be for a court to find?

  7. heyrick Silver badge

    Don't you have to INVENT something?

    See title.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Coat

      Re: Don't you have to INVENT something?

      Sadly, no.

  8. Valeyard

    A waste of money

    Patents are often granted by things that don't really deserve to be patented, it's when you try to enforce it and a judge tears it up that you realise you've paid for something completely worthless, and that's before the lawyer-cost of actually trying to enforce it in the first place

    1. A J Stiles
      Pint

      Re: A waste of money

      it's when you try to enforce it and a judge tears it up that you realise you've paid for something completely worthless
      Ah, if only that happened .... That would be a pay-per-view moment.

      Or at least an excuse for a beer.

    2. Remy Redert

      Re: A waste of money

      And in the real world meanwhile, the big company with patents takes the other companies to court and either wins by default when the other company can no longer afford to defend itself or settles with the other company for an undisclosed amount.

  9. dogged

    Doesn't matter

    Emulating x86 windows code on ARM is always going to be so slow as to be practically unusable anyway.

    1. User McUser
      Boffin

      Recursive Acronym

      WINE Is Not (an) Emulator

      1. dogged

        Re: Recursive Acronym

        Yeah, and the NHS is not being privatized.

        Right.

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