According to the patent application filed in mid-November by Paul Vick, lead architect for Visual Basic .Net at Microsoft; Amanda Silver, a program manager on the Visual Basic team; and an individual in Bellevue, Wash., named Costica Barsan the IsNot operator is described as a single operator that allows a comparison of two variables to determine if the two point to the same location in memory.
Old news, sure, but I didn’t comment on it being that at the time as I was on a blogging sabbatical. There is only one thing to say about this asinine story: “Where’s my patent cube, bitch!!”. I sure hope that these software engineers at MS are embarrassed by their willingness to listen to the law-monkey who suggested such a ridiculous patent.
For years now I have been ‘on the fence’ with respect to software patents. Now, I am firmly in the no software patents camp primarily because nobody has been able to offer any compelling reason for the existence of such a beast and I have only found fault in the practice.
Aaron Fulkerson 