ELEMENTARY MY DEAR…
ELEMENTARY MY DEAR…
![Joe Casad, Editor in Chief Joe Casad, Editor in Chief](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/172/welcome/casad_joe_2.png/645694-1-eng-US/Casad_Joe_2.png_medium.png)
Joe Casad, Editor in Chief
How many patents are enough? Or perhaps more importantly, how many patents can be squeezed from one body of knowledge when you're basically doing what everyone else is doing? These questions are fresh in mind as I read the report at eWeek stating that IBM set a new record by receiving 7,534 patents in 2014, the 22nd year in a row that IBM has topped the list for most patents.
Dear Linux Pro Reader,
How many patents are enough? Or perhaps more importantly, how many patents can be squeezed from one body of knowledge when you're basically doing what everyone else is doing? These questions are fresh in mind as I read the report at eWeek stating that IBM set a new record by receiving 7,534 patents in 2014, the 22nd year in a row that IBM has topped the list for most patents.
Needless to say, the company needed many lawyers to secure all those patents, and they will need many, many more if they hope to defend them all. Perhaps more important, think of all the government patent officials who were tied up studying and approving those 7,534 patents, plus all the other IBM patent applications that weren't approved.
Big Blue apparently received around 500 patents for its work relating to the cutting-edge Watson cognitive computing system. Although I'm not a big fan of patents in general, I could certainly guess that the work on Watson would lead to some significant innovations that would, perhaps, meet the government definition for what it takes to be patentable. Surprisingly, though, Watson was not where the attorneys spent most of their time. The biggest share of this record-breaking patent haul went for technologies that the report says "enable key cloud computing, analytics, mobile, social, and security advancements."
Cloud computing, analytics, mobile, social networking, and security have been on everyone's mind this year. Hundreds of high-tech companies (some nearly as giant as IBM) and millions of people have worked in these fields for a generation or more – and some companies have done considerably more work on these topics than IBM. Yet we are encouraged to believe that IBM alone came up with several thousand significant, unique, and unprecedented "inventions" in one year from insights that had previously escaped the notice of HP, Apple, Oracle, Red Hat, Novell, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, Google, Dell, Facebook, and the rest of an industry that sinks billions of dollars every year into research and development?
Aw, come on now … we don't need Watson to tell us what to think about that.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
![Learn More](https://www.linux-magazine.com/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/media/linux-magazine-eng-us/images/misc/learn-more/834592-1-eng-US/Learn-More_medium.png)
News
-
NVIDIA Released Driver for Upcoming NVIDIA 560 GPU for Linux
Not only has NVIDIA released the driver for its upcoming CPU series, it's the first release that defaults to using open-source GPU kernel modules.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 24.07 Released
If you’re into rolling release Linux distributions, OpenMandriva ROME has a new snapshot with a new kernel.
-
Kernel 6.10 Available for General Usage
Linus Torvalds has released the 6.10 kernel and it includes significant performance increases for Intel Core hybrid systems and more.
-
TUXEDO Computers Releases InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen9 Laptop
Sporting either AMD or Intel CPUs, the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 is an extremely compact, lightweight, sturdy powerhouse.
-
Google Extends Support for Linux Kernels Used for Android
Because the LTS Linux kernel releases are so important to Android, Google has decided to extend the support period beyond that offered by the kernel development team.
-
Linux Mint 22 Stable Delayed
If you're anxious about getting your hands on the stable release of Linux Mint 22, it looks as if you're going to have to wait a bit longer.
-
Nitrux 3.5.1 Available for Install
The latest version of the immutable, systemd-free distribution includes an updated kernel and NVIDIA driver.
-
Debian 12.6 Released with Plenty of Bug Fixes and Updates
The sixth update to Debian "Bookworm" is all about security mitigations and making adjustments for some "serious problems."
-
Canonical Offers 12-Year LTS for Open Source Docker Images
Canonical is expanding its LTS offering to reach beyond the DEB packages with a new distro-less Docker image.
-
Plasma Desktop 6.1 Released with Several Enhancements
If you're a fan of Plasma Desktop, you should be excited about this new point release.