Thread: [Fwd: AW: More UB-Tree patent information]

[Fwd: AW: More UB-Tree patent information]

From
Justin Clift
Date:
Hi everyone,

This is Prof. Bayer's response to the question "is it alright to use
UB-Tree's in Open Source projects?".

It's a "No, but we can discuss a licensing model" type answer.

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: AW: More UB-Tree patent information
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 15:26:05 +0200
From: "Prof. Rudolf Bayer" <bayer@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>
To: "Justin Clift" <justin@postgresql.org>

Dear Justin,
I am personally holder of the patents.
concerning your question:
> Specifically wondering if it's alright to use UB-Tree's in
> Open Source projects.
the answer is NO, unless there is a patent agreement with me.
Please let me know, what specifically the interests and business models
are,
then we could discuss a licensing model in line with the already
existing
license agreements,
best regards,
R. Bayer
*************************************************************************
Prof. Rudolf Bayer, Ph.D.
Institut fuer Informatik, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Orleansstr. 34, D-81667 Muenchen, Germany
tel: ++49-89-48095 171     email: bayer@in.tum.de
fax: ++49-89-48095 170     http://www3.informatik.tu-muenchen.de

> -----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Justin Clift [mailto:justin@postgresql.org]
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 9. April 2002 23:04
> An: Professor Rudolf Bayer
> Cc: PostgreSQL General Mailing List
> Betreff: More UB-Tree patent information
>
>
> Hi Prof. Bayer,
>
> Haven't heard anything back from you regarding the patents on
> UB-Tree's.  Specifically wondering if it's alright to use UB-Tree's in
> Open Source projects.
>
> On a related topic, in your paper "The Universal B-Tree for
> multidimensional Indexing"
> (http://mistral.in.tum.de/results/publications/TUM-I9637.pdf) you
> mention a German "Patent Pending" number of "196 35 429.3", is this the
> one which was approved in Europe?
>
> In the paper "Bulk Loading a Data Warehouse built upon a UB-Tree"
> (http://mistral.in.tum.de/results/publications/FKM+00.pdf) it mentions
> the Japanese Patent filed on 22nd May 2000, Application Number
> 2000-149648.  Is this the Japanese patent for UB-Trees which hasn't yet
> been approved?
>
> :)
>
> Regards and best wishes,
>
> Justin Clift
>
> --
> "My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those
> who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the
> first group; there was less competition there."
>    - Indira Gandhi
>

Re: [HACKERS] [Fwd: AW: More UB-Tree patent information]

From
Justin Clift
Date:
Hannu Krosing wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 16:32, Justin Clift wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > This is Prof. Bayer's response to the question "is it alright to use
> > UB-Tree's in Open Source projects?".
>
> Have you found out _what_ exaclty is patented ?
>
> Is it just his concrete implementation of "UB-Tree" or something
> broader, like using one multi-dimensional index instead of multiple
> one-dimensional ones ?

Is there any way of finding out instead of asking him directly?  Maybe
the patent places have online info?

Professor Bayer isn't being overly informative.

Anyone know?

:-)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift


> ---------------------
> Hannu

--
"My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those
who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the
first group; there was less competition there."
   - Indira Gandhi

Re: [HACKERS] [Fwd: AW: More UB-Tree patent information]

From
Hannu Krosing
Date:
On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 16:32, Justin Clift wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> This is Prof. Bayer's response to the question "is it alright to use
> UB-Tree's in Open Source projects?".

Have you found out _what_ exaclty is patented ?

Is it just his concrete implementation of "UB-Tree" or something
broader, like using one multi-dimensional index instead of multiple
one-dimensional ones ?

---------------------
Hannu



Re: [HACKERS] [Fwd: AW: More UB-Tree patent information]

From
Michael Loftis
Date:
Patents are as much designed to confuse and dissuade someone from using
something as they are to patent something.  Reading a patent is often
harder than killing the nearest chicken, strewing it's entrails allover
the yard, and then trying to make some sense of it.

Justin Clift wrote:

>Hannu Krosing wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 16:32, Justin Clift wrote:
>>
>>>Hi everyone,
>>>
>>>This is Prof. Bayer's response to the question "is it alright to use
>>>UB-Tree's in Open Source projects?".
>>>
>>Have you found out _what_ exaclty is patented ?
>>
>>Is it just his concrete implementation of "UB-Tree" or something
>>broader, like using one multi-dimensional index instead of multiple
>>one-dimensional ones ?
>>
>
>Is there any way of finding out instead of asking him directly?  Maybe
>the patent places have online info?
>
>Professor Bayer isn't being overly informative.
>
>Anyone know?
>
>:-)
>
>Regards and best wishes,
>
>Justin Clift
>
>
>>---------------------
>>Hannu
>>
>



Re: [HACKERS] [Fwd: AW: More UB-Tree patent information]

From
Tycho Fruru
Date:
> Hannu Krosing wrote:
> >
> > Have you found out _what_ exaclty is patented ?
> >
> > Is it just his concrete implementation of "UB-Tree" or something
> > broader, like using one multi-dimensional index instead of multiple
> > one-dimensional ones ?

(I know it is OT, please reply in private, I can summarize any reactions
to the list ...)

Patents are supposed to be only applicable to an industrial application
(with external side-effects).  So ideas in themselves are not patentable.

Anyway, this is once more a good example of the danger of software patents
- you know what to reply when people say "software patents promote
innovation"

IANAL, just my 0,02 Euro.

see also : http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/savingeurope.html (also
interesting for non-europeans, of course !)

--
Tycho Fruru            tycho.fruru@conostix.com
"Prediction is extremely difficult. Especially about the future."
  - Niels Bohr


Re: [HACKERS] [Fwd: AW: More UB-Tree patent information]

From
Hannu Krosing
Date:
On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 21:55, Justin Clift wrote:
> Hannu Krosing wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 16:32, Justin Clift wrote:
> > > Hi everyone,
> > >
> > > This is Prof. Bayer's response to the question "is it alright to use
> > > UB-Tree's in Open Source projects?".
> >
> > Have you found out _what_ exaclty is patented ?
> >
> > Is it just his concrete implementation of "UB-Tree" or something
> > broader, like using one multi-dimensional index instead of multiple
> > one-dimensional ones ?
>
> Is there any way of finding out instead of asking him directly?  Maybe
> the patent places have online info?

I did a quick search at USPTO at
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html
on "UB and Tree and index and database" and found among other things a
US patent no. 5,826,253 on mechanism very similar to LISTEN/NOTIFY,
afforded to Borland on October 20, 1998 based on application from April
19, 1996.
We should be safe as already Postgres95 had them ;)

when I searched for "UB and Tree and index and database and Bayer"
0 results came back.

when I omitted UB and searched for "Tree and index and database and
Bayer" I got 27 results, first of them on "Method and composition for
improving sexual fitness" ;)

the one possibly related related to our Bayer was nr 6,219,662 on
"Supporting database indexes based on a generalized B-tree index"
which had reference to :

Rudolf Bayer, "The Universal B-Tree for Multidimensional Indexing:
General Concepts", Worldwide Computing and Its Applications,
International Conference, WWCA '97, Tsukuba, Japan, (Mar. 1997), pp.
198-209.

and German patent 0 650 131 A1 which may be also relevant

----------------------
Hannu