🚀 go-pugleaf

I went down to the library to take a look at all this.  I didn't go and 
get the patent itself, but found a copy of the abstract.
One of the things which I haven't noticed being emphasized
is that the "backing store patent" is part of a patent relating to the BLIT,
a remote graphics windowing TERMINAL.  

Although window systems have been around for quite some time
(even by the standards of 1982), it seems to me that it was a fairly
novel idea to have a windowing terminal, which served ONLY to provide
control over the windows, (similar to the X server).  The backing store
idea no doubt relates to  the idea of using this to promote rapid redisplay
of overlapping windows when the connecting machines have a relatively
low speed link.

Personally, I think the BLIT was a very clever idea, on the whole.  It 
put together a windowing system which provided most of the functionality
which I actually USE of the X terminal on my desk in a system which cost
only a few thousand dollars using technology of ten years ago.

Looking at the complexity of today's X windows applications, I can't help
but think that  AT&T perhaps did do something which deserved a patent.  
Perhaps not one that relates to X window servers running on the host
machine, but definitely one which covers X-terminals.

Of course this is based on the assumption that patents are a reasonable
element of our legal system.  I personally think that they are
important, although not necessarily in their current form. Somehow,
it seems that the lifetime of the patent should be related to how long it
would take to for a company to usefully exploit a patent as a tradeoff with
encouraging innovation.

	-castor fu
	castor@embezzle.stanford.edu