Haven’t even done the “real” search and already have a winner. From IBM, of course.
U.S. Patent No. 7,487,425 “Low cost symbol error correction coding and decoding”
1. A method for encoding input digital electrical signals into blocks of n bits and subblocks of at most b symbol bits, said method comprising the steps of:
generating check bit signals from said input digital electrical signals so that said check bit signals satisfy parity check conditions determined by a binary parity check matrix derivable from a matrix of the form H=[H.sub.1 H.sub.2 . . . H.sub.N] wherein each symbol column, H.sub.j, j=1, 2, . . . , N, is a column of M disjoint binary submatrices having b rows and at most b columns and wherein at least one of said N symbol columns has been modified to provide a minimal number of ones in said symbol column; and
combining said check bit signals with said input signals so as to produce a block of n signals having redundancy for improved error correction and detection.
I don’t think there is much question that this kind of abstract mathematical matrix manipulation fails the machine or transformation test (or perhaps even Nuijten, for that matter). But what makes this case so delightfully ironic is this: it was filed in May 1993, claiming priority to 1989. And here’s more: there was a first action allowance of 7/20 of the claims in April 1995, and 19/20 of the claims were allowed by December 1996. IBM missed the first office action in the mail and fought the second one with an unsuccessful appeal. Most likely they kept pushing this, rather than just cutting their losses, because the patent term would be a pre-GATT 17 years from issuance. But they weren’t planning on Bilski…
So, instead of having a patent that could have been in force for 13 years already, by greedily trying to extend patent term they now have a patent with method claims that are probably worthless. (There is an apparatus claim, but it probably suffers the fate that the BPAI has been handing out lately as covering unpatentable subject matter).
Moral: As they say in football, “Don’t take points off the board.”
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