MIPS has some *patented* (but not copyrighted) instructions ...

rwessel (robertwessel@yahoo.com) on 6/1/12 wrote:

>Of course the real issue is the PTO’s huge willingness to issue patents that fail
>the "obvious" or "prior art" requirements, particularly in the tech fields (like
>computing) where published sources often lag far behind actual implementations,
>and cursory searches of the literature frequently fail to turn up an exact match
>(which, given the flexibility of software, is too strict a standard anyway).
>
>I think we’d all have much less of an issue with software patents if only truly novel things were getting patented.

The Patent Office never search for Prior Art on the marketplace.
It merely compares the "claims" of the patent application to the claims of any similar patent it has on file.

It is only when a patent is contested before a Court of Law that Prior Art comes in play.

"It was never the object of patent laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of manufactures. Such an indiscriminate creation of exclusive privileges tends rather to obstruct than to stimulate invention."
-- Atlantic Works v. Brady (1882)