{"id":575,"date":"2011-04-23T18:22:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-23T18:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/paul\/post\/Patent-surprise.aspx"},"modified":"2011-04-23T18:22:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T18:22:00","slug":"patent-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Patent surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">I was searching around in the US Patent Office database this evening to find my patent for consistency checking of a backup without restoring the backup, for a Twitter conversation I was having, when I discovered that another one I filed before leaving Microsoft was granted in late 2009.<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">The new one was part of the old WinFS system &#8211; it deals with doing consistency checks on partial user-defined complex data structures as they&#39;re being read from a streaming data source so that inconsistencies can be discovered as soon as possible. Unlike the backup one, I actually wrote the code to implement this one (although it never shipped when WinFS was canned).<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">You can read about the patent (if you have insomnia) <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/patft.uspto.gov\/netacgi\/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&amp;Sect2=HITOFF&amp;p=1&amp;u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&amp;r=1&amp;f=G&amp;l=50&amp;co1=AND&amp;d=PTXT&amp;s1=%22Randal,+paul%22.INNM.&amp;OS=IN\/\"><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">here<\/font><\/a><font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">.<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">I always wondered if that patent was dropped on the floor &#8211; now I know I&#39;ve got two software patents :-)<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">Cheers!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was searching around in the US Patent Office database this evening to find my patent for consistency checking of a backup without restoring the backup, for a Twitter conversation I was having, when I discovered that another one I filed before leaving Microsoft was granted in late 2009. The new one was part of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Patent surprise - Paul S. Randal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Patent surprise - Paul S. Randal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was searching around in the US Patent Office database this evening to find my patent for consistency checking of a backup without restoring the backup, for a Twitter conversation I was having, when I discovered that another one I filed before leaving Microsoft was granted in late 2009. The new one was part of [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Paul S. Randal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-23T18:22:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Randal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Randal\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/\",\"name\":\"Patent surprise - Paul S. Randal\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-04-23T18:22:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Patent surprise\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/\",\"name\":\"Paul S. Randal\",\"description\":\"In Recovery...\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce\",\"name\":\"Paul Randal\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Paul Randal\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/3.209.169.194\/blogs\/paul\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/author\/paul\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Patent surprise - Paul S. Randal","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Patent surprise - Paul S. Randal","og_description":"I was searching around in the US Patent Office database this evening to find my patent for consistency checking of a backup without restoring the backup, for a Twitter conversation I was having, when I discovered that another one I filed before leaving Microsoft was granted in late 2009. The new one was part of [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/","og_site_name":"Paul S. Randal","article_published_time":"2011-04-23T18:22:00+00:00","author":"Paul Randal","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Paul Randal","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/","url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/","name":"Patent surprise - Paul S. Randal","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-04-23T18:22:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/patent-surprise\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Patent surprise"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/","name":"Paul S. Randal","description":"In Recovery...","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/ffcec826c18782e1e0adf173826a7fce","name":"Paul Randal","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0b6a266bba2f088f2551ef529293001bd73bf026bc1908b9866728c062beeeb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Paul Randal"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/3.209.169.194\/blogs\/paul"],"url":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/author\/paul\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}