[9fans] The PATENTED IBM MULTI-PIPE : the evolution of unix pipes

[m***@sphericalharmony.com]

The amazing PATENTED IBM Multi-Pipe!

I wanted to post to let 9fans know about an exciting new software
patent that was just issued by the US patent office. United States
Patent #8,380,765 is for an incredible new Plan 9 related
supercomputing technology called the Multi-pipe. If you want to know
what a Multi-pipe is, its simple:

The basic idea of a multi-pipe is a natural evolution of the original
Unix pipes concept, updated to the modern networking era. Instead of
just having a single reader and a single writer on the ends of a pipe,
a Multi-pipe allows you to multiplex readers and writers. This
upgrade to unix pipes - especially when combined with network
transparency such as that provided by 9P - lets you do cluster
processing techniques like fan-out, fan-in, using very similar
semantics to traditional unix pipes, but with arbitrarily complex
topologies of multiple readers and writers. The Blue Gene team wrote
about multipipes: "The result dramatically simplified the architecture
and improved overall system performance. It became clear that
multipipes were a useful primitive for the construction of
applications and other system services." (Quote from the IBM HARE
Final Research Report RC25241 (W1111-212) November 28 2011 Computer
Science)

I believe the idea of a Multi-pipe is a natural progression of basic
unix pipes, and this amazing Patented Invention of IBM's is something
that I think everyone should know about. In fact, I am so excited by
the Multi-pipe that I have made an effort to allow all Plan 9 users
the ability to get the same benefits as offered by this amazing
Patented Invention that was purely the result of IBM's original
research and innovation.

Because IBM has a patent on this technology, it wasn't safe to just
try to put out my own version and offer it to the world. IBM has a
lot of lawyers - and probably some of those lawyers were trained by my
late father, John A. Kidwell. He taught intellectual property law at
the University of Wisconsin for a long time, and he gave me a lot of
good advice. One piece of his good advice was that you never, ever,
ever should disagree with the IBM lawyers. So, I hope that everything
in this post shows that I am in complete agreement with all of the
opinions of IBM's legal team, whatever they are.

Anyway, I thought the world deserved to have a non-patent encumbered
version of Multi-pipes that could deliver very similar functionality,
but not conflict with IBM's Patented Invention. So, I used
/dev/timemachine to send some software back in time to 2009, before I
could see any trace of IBM Multi-pipes. I sent the Iosrv and Hubfs
software back to the sources server between 7/01/09 and 8/01/09 (you
can check the dump) so in this way I thought I could avoid any
potential issues with IBM's legal team.

I hope that anyone who is interested in US Patent 8380765:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8380765.PN.&OS=PN/8380765&RS=PN/8380765

Might be interested in a free open source alternative which should
be free of any patent licensing issues in relation to this patent.

-Ben Kidwell
"mycroftiv"

PS - I have tremendous personal respect and admiration for the
individuals who worked on the Blue Gene project. As a hobbyist
programmer with a basement of junky old computers, it is exciting to
feel a kind of mental kinship with others who are working at a vastly
larger scale on more significant projects. I hope someday to meet
some of you and we can talk Plan 9 and it will be very friendly. I am
an old hippie who is full of peace and love. I do truly love the
Patented Invention of multi-pipes so my use of a time machine to send
similar software back in time shouldn't be taken as anything other
than attempt to give a good idea to the community in a way which is
free of patent issues.

[erik quanstrom]

congrats to ericvh.

- erik

[Kurt H Maier]

Here's the original iosrv/hub announcement:
http://9fans.net/archive/2009/07/278

So what's the real difference between iosrv/hubfs and MULTI-PIPES? Is
anyone here good enough at translating patentese to code to tell what
the technical differences are? The patent even specifically mentions
9P.

khm

[hiro]

Is this all a threat? 9fans cold war veterans playing out the old game
or something?

[John Floren]

Post by Kurt H Maier
http://9fans.net/archive/2009/07/278
So what's the real difference between iosrv/hubfs and MULTI-PIPES? Is
anyone here good enough at translating patentese to code to tell what
the technical differences are? The patent even specifically mentions
9P.
khm

The primary difference is that the multi-pipes patent is probably
shorter than that announcement.

I probably didn't read the iosrv and hubfs stuff well enough, but
multi-pipes are not like gnu screen--unless hubfs and/or iosrv can do
barriers and reduces and I just missed that part?


john

[Bakul Shah]

Post by m***@sphericalharmony.com
Anyway, I thought the world deserved to have a non-patent encumbered
version of Multi-pipes that could deliver very similar functionality,
but not conflict with IBM's Patented Invention. So, I used
/dev/timemachine to send some software back in time to 2009, before I
could see any trace of IBM Multi-pipes. I sent the Iosrv and Hubfs
software back to the sources server between 7/01/09 and 8/01/09 (you
can check the dump) so in this way I thought I could avoid any
potential issues with IBM's legal team.

Patents are different from copyright. I don't think it matters whether you saw the IBM patent info or not when you developed your code. From what I understand, if you used the same technique you *may be* violating the patent even if you independently came up with the idea. If it is same or close enough, what matters is if your code can be shown as prior art. Whether software patents are evil or not and whether the current patent system is broken are meta issues and don't really influence how specific patent issues are resolved.

Usual caveats apply.

[hiro]

great, from mac os and virtual machines we're back to what really
matters: bureaucracy

[Kurt H Maier]

Post by Bakul Shah
If it is same or close enough, what matters is if your code can be
shown as prior art.

I don't see how. The US is first-to-file land, now.

khm

[Bakul Shah]

Post by Kurt H Maier

Post by Bakul Shah
If it is same or close enough, what matters is if your code can be
shown as prior art.

I don't see how. The US is first-to-file land, now.

I believe prior art does matter. Otherwise I can trawl
through all old tech papers and start filing patents left and
right -- wouldn't be surprised if someone has already tried
that! I am not a lawyer etc.

[erik quanstrom]

Post by Bakul Shah

Post by Kurt H Maier

Post by Bakul Shah
If it is same or close enough, what matters is if your code can be
shown as prior art.

I don't see how. The US is first-to-file land, now.

I believe prior art does matter. Otherwise I can trawl
through all old tech papers and start filing patents left and
right -- wouldn't be surprised if someone has already tried
that! I am not a lawyer etc.

ianal, but i believe no disclosure is allowed before filing.
it's a deal. disclosure for patent. if it's already disclosed
there can't be a deal.

- erik

[Charles Forsyth]

Post by Bakul Shah
I believe prior art does matter.

Even with first-inventor-to-file instead of first-inventor, it does indeed
require invention, hence the frequent interest in the degree and spread of
prior art.
Also, patents are much more precise things, with much more focus, than
people commonly think; they are written
in a formal language (despite appearances).

[Kurt H Maier]

I only thought that was starting in April?

Actually, it starts tomorrow.


http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/aia-effective-dates.pdf

[Matthew Veety]

Post by Kurt H Maier

Post by Bakul Shah
If it is same or close enough, what matters is if your code can be
shown as prior art.

I don't see how. The US is first-to-file land, now.
khm

I only thought that was starting in April?