Google Patent Search and GA's
I just checked out the the Google Patent Search, and searched for Genetic Algorithms. Yep, there are patents out on them (see here in particular, as well as here and here). WTF? I don't claim to understand patents or their implications, but this does not seem cool to me, what else has a patent on it that we use everyday? Illigal blog also has something on a new GA-based patent that has been granted.
jase.
jase.
posted by Jason Brownlee at
1:55 pm
2 Comments:
Had a read of the first patent and it appears as though the patent's title was amended from genetic algorithm to optimization technique. This is more acceptable as far as I am concerned since the patent refers mostly to a particular problem mapping rather than a novel optimisation process (although I can't see why it would need to be patented?). With my also limited knowledge of patent law I think it would be fairly difficult to patent something as general as the canonical GA since it is too broad. Maybe back in 1975 it would have been possible, but 30 years on the cat is well and truly out of the bag.
By
Dan, at 10:30 am
Also, check this patent (System and method for creating and evolving directed graphs) by Karl Sims. Scary.
By
Jason Brownlee, at 9:51 am
Post a Comment
<< Home