G
George Neuner
A really simple way to determine the highest '1' bit in a word is to
keep right-shifting it until it becomes 0. Similarly, a really simple
way to determine the lowest '1' bit is to keep right-shifting the word
until it becomes odd, or 0 (in which case there were no '1' bits).
Are you telling me that if I implemented those algorithms out in actual
code, I would be stealing NEC's intellectual property?
If that's the way NEC did it you absolutely would be violating their
patent. I don't recall exactly what they did now (it has been too
long) but I do remember that it was truly trivial and I was absolutely
stunned that the USPTO would accept it as an "invention".
After reading the patents, I had a number of correnspondences with
members of ACM and IEEE (I belong to both) who were involved in
creating the software prior art database for the PTO. There was a
fair bit of disgust when others found about it.
George
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