I hope this is a joke.
Sigh. Perhaps too subtle a reverse dig at people who think that any company doesn't take ideas from others. It all depends on your point of view.
Apparently it was taken too literally, and the ending paragraphs weren't as obvious a clue as I intended.
My point was, I don't like the claim that everything that looks similar must have involved copying.
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When I started assembler graphics programming on a little 256 byte homebuilt computer in 1978, I had to invent an algorithm to draw a line in very little code. Later, I found out that I had independently come up with Bresenham's Line Algorithm. I suspect a lot of programmers did. This opened my eyes a bit.
As years passed, I found that the old saying "great minds think alike" ... meaning experienced people invent the same solutions... came true quite often.
Basically, at a certain level of knowledge, or especially when faced with a specific need, developers often come up with similar solutions.
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You know what I think would be a good test of software patents? Lock some experienced developers in a room and give them the problem that a patent is supposed to be the solution to. See if they come up with anything similar.
For instance, look at that recent Apple patent for using different numbers of fingers to scroll subareas with. Given the parameters of 1) having a multi-touch surface to work with and 2) needing a way to finger scroll a subarea without using the same gesture as the one for scrolling the whole window, who on earth would not come up with using multiple fingers, as at least one possible solution?
Cheers!