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Patent for a modeling method????

OH BOY, I cannot believe this sort of thing could happen:

According to Cadcamnet.com: "Delphi has filed for 15 U.S. patents on its horizontal modeling methods. If they are granted, only way that U.S. CAD users will be able to employ horizontal-modeling methods is to take training licensed by Delphi."

If you have read anything about Delphi's 'Horizontal Modeling' methods, you know this is really nothing new. It is only a modeling METHOD or BEST PRACTICE GUIDE that can be applied to any history based modeler. Many of us users have already used these same methods on our own. Now, Delphi is just formalizing the concept and claiming it for themselves!!!

Sure, Delphi may be taking some smart modeling methods (which they term 'Horizontal Modeling') and expanding it and formally documenting it, but can they really PATENT this?

Tell you what, I am going to patent the the way I hold a pen. That way, every time someone holds a pen in the same manner, they will have to pay me royalties!

Reply to
Arlin
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Yeah I read that and we had a good laugh over it. And just for the record, this will server as public copyright intent, we're planning to pursue patents on the following modeling methods so don't even think about it:

- Diagonal Modeling (like turning it up to 11)

- Angular Modeling (start out vertical, switch to horiz, then back to vertical)

- Spiral Modeling (similar to angular but the specs change daily and the tree gets bigger and bigger every day)

- Z axis Modeling (the tree comes straight out toward you. you never know where a feature lives cause you can't see it, unless you're a virtual engineer. it's impossible to make a mistake. similar to the old SDRC Master Series tree)

- Eddy :)

Reply to
Eddy Hicks

"Arlin" wrote

They could make just 1 with 15x more claims. They did so to force you (?) to attack the patent in court 15x, which will cost 15x more and take 15x more time. Clever...

Lawyers replaced engineers at USPTO. They charge for filing the patent, not for examining it. Then you solve conflicts in court, with more money to attorneys... I was told that half of the lawyers in the World are US...

If you are rich enough to protect your patent in court, do it! Someone even reached to patent the wheel!

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In Switzerland some time ago we had Albert Einstein himself working at the patent office...

Reply to
Philippe Guglielmetti

Yes, we have so many lawyers here that they will soon be used laboratory experiments. There are some things rats simply will not do.

:) bill

Reply to
bill allemann

Not far from the truth -- but a bit of exaggeration. The fact that a patent exists on a product doesn't always result in a legal judgement in favor of the patent holder. It's a strong argument, but not an absolute one. Never has been. There is only so much that even a fabulously competent engineer/lawyer can do to research patents, even as computerized as the USPTO has become. I've seen some patents that basically boil down to the equivalent of a patent on a sandwich with peanut butter AND jelly used together. Nothing prevents a company from filing frivolous patents, and sometimes those frivolous patents are granted. It's enough to give an individual inventor nightmares.

Anyway, the fact of pre-existing usage of a design or a process in the public domain, whether or not it is patented, is strong legal evidence against the validity of a subsequent patent by a competitor -- even if the patent has been granted. If Delphi is successful gaining the patent it doesn't necessarily mean a lot. They'll have to sue their competitors, and pre-existing usage will probably result in a judgement against them, and will quite possibly even prevent them from being successful with getting a temporary injunction. Largely depends on the judge.

Mark 'Sporky' Staplet> Lawyers replaced engineers at USPTO. They charge for filing the patent, not

Reply to
Sporkman

Unfortunately for Delphi I disclosed this method to SW management in Orlando last winter as a means to speed up the rebuilding of the feature tree.

This is the original disclosure: To speed up rebuilding in SW simply model a few features on a base feature, then roll back to where you started and model more features. Since each set of features has the same parent and no realation to the previous tree it should be possible to use parallel processing methods to speed rebuilding.

With the advent of multi-bodies this method should become even more powerful because multiple disjoint bodies can be built without even the single common parent.

Either of these methods should make troubleshooting and rebuilding quicker by keeping the feature tree simpler.

The other thought that comes to mind is that CATIA explicitly allows this method in its feature tree.

Arl> OH BOY, I cannot believe this sort of thing could happen:

Reply to
kellnerp

You are absolutely right about Catia v4 already doing this, the Catia feature tree is dveloped just like a family tree and whole branches can be disabled in the update process, they have had this since at least 1996

Reply to
Phil Evans

Being able to save while in Rollback mode would be nice. I take it that's part of this 'parallel universe' modeling?

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Reply to
Mike J. Wilson

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