I found a design documentation of PGRaster from the wiki of PostGIS, which have a similar idea about PGRaster as a UDT. <br><br><a href="http://postgis.com/support/wiki/index.php?PgRasterSqlInterface">http://postgis.com/support/wiki/index.php?PgRasterSqlInterface
</a><br><br>Seem that somebody has already thought about it and might quite this UDT for the same problem of Patent.<br><br>Xing<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/13/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Tim Keitt</b> <
<a href="mailto:tkeitt@gmail.com">tkeitt@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">On 7/13/07, Tom Lane <
<a href="mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us">tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us</a>> wrote:<br>> "Tim Keitt" <<a href="mailto:tkeitt@gmail.com">tkeitt@gmail.com</a>> writes:<br>> > On 7/12/07, Xing Lin <<a href="mailto:solo.lin@gmail.com">
solo.lin@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> >> Could we just take a modified version from Oracle GeoRaster or we can't take<br>> >> anything even the idea of georaster model. But it is very common in<br>> >> GeoScience and how could we avoid using it?
<br>><br>> > My understanding is that the patent covers the method of<br>> > implementation, not the idea. You can use the same idea, but the<br>> > implementation cannot be the same as described in the patent.
<br>><br>> No, it's much grimmer than that :-(. Patent law is exactly about<br>> patenting *ideas* --- you may have confused it with copyright law,<br>> which is about restricting specific expressions of an idea.
<br><br>Idea is too vague here -- I was referring to the concept that you<br>cannot patent for example a mathematical equation, but you can patent<br>a business process that employs the equation in the development of a<br>
product. If I'm not mistaken, one can work around patents by finding<br>an independent method to achieve the same result (not by simply<br>substituting different names for the same functions as I might have<br>seemed to imply).
<br><br>><br>> To be sure you've steered clear of a patent, you have to be sure<br>> you have not used any ideas described in the "claims" of the patent.<br><br>But the "ideas" refer to processes or methods (at least in principle).
<br>You can't patent the idea of a mouse trap, only a method of trapping<br>mice. Someone who builds a better mouse trap can patent their method.<br><br>><br>> Now this game is rigged against you, because the normal structure of
<br>> patent claims is about like this:<br>> 1. I claim the universe.<br>> 2. I claim the Milky Way galaxy.<br>> 3. I claim the moon, the sun and the stars.<br>> 4. OK, I just claim the moon.
<br>> 5. I claim Tycho Crater.<br>> and if the thing ever gets dragged to court, the judge will throw out<br>> the first several claims and only allow the most specific ones that<br>> clearly don't match any prior art. But if you aren't versed in
<br>> patent law and art, it's hard to tell just where the threshold of<br>> silliness lies. And in any case it'll cost a lot to vindicate<br>> your opinion in court.<br>><br>> (Shouldn't the USPTO have rejected the overly-broad claims, you
<br>> ask? Well, if they weren't utterly dysfunctional they would have.)<br><br>Yup.<br><br>><br>> > I still agree though that the patent is probably overly broad and<br>> > covers things that have been done many times in academia and
<br>> > elsewhere. The problem is that even if it is invalid owing to prior<br>> > art, the cost of defending against a claim is prohibitive.<br>><br>> Right, the real problem is in whether you are willing to bet $lots
<br>> that you can prevail against a patent troll.<br><br>That's the rub.<br><br>THK<br><br>><br>> regards, tom lane<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> postgis-devel mailing list
<br>> <a href="mailto:postgis-devel@postgis.refractions.net">postgis-devel@postgis.refractions.net</a><br>> <a href="http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-devel">http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-devel
</a><br>><br><br><br>--<br>Timothy H. Keitt, University of Texas at Austin<br>Contact info and schedule at <a href="http://www.keittlab.org/tkeitt/">http://www.keittlab.org/tkeitt/</a><br>Reprints at <a href="http://www.keittlab.org/tkeitt/papers/">
http://www.keittlab.org/tkeitt/papers/</a><br>ODF attachment? See <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">http://www.openoffice.org/</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>-----------------------------------------------------------
<br>Xing Lin<br>Geoinformatics<br>KTH - Royal Institute of Technology [Kungliga Tekniska högskolan]<br>SE-100 44 Stockholm<br>Sweden<br>-----------------------------------------------------------