andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-860 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: Christian Robert points to this absurd patent of the Monte Carlo method (which, as Christian notes, was actually invented by Stanislaw Ulam and others in the 1940s). The whole thing is pretty unreadable. I wonder if they first wrote it as a journal article and then it got rejected everywhere, so they decided to submit it as a patent instead. What’s even worse is this bit: This invention was made with government support under Grant Numbers 0612170 and 0347408 awarded by the National Science Foundation. So our tax dollars are being given to IBM so they can try to bring statistics to a halt by patenting one of our most basic tools? I’d say this is just a waste of money, but given that our country is run by lawyers, there must be some outside chance that this patent could actually succeed? Perhaps there’s room for an improvement in the patent that involves albedo in some way?
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1 Christian Robert points to this absurd patent of the Monte Carlo method (which, as Christian notes, was actually invented by Stanislaw Ulam and others in the 1940s). [sent-1, score-1.109]
2 I wonder if they first wrote it as a journal article and then it got rejected everywhere, so they decided to submit it as a patent instead. [sent-3, score-1.108]
3 What’s even worse is this bit: This invention was made with government support under Grant Numbers 0612170 and 0347408 awarded by the National Science Foundation. [sent-4, score-0.407]
4 So our tax dollars are being given to IBM so they can try to bring statistics to a halt by patenting one of our most basic tools? [sent-5, score-0.701]
5 I’d say this is just a waste of money, but given that our country is run by lawyers, there must be some outside chance that this patent could actually succeed? [sent-6, score-1.264]
6 Perhaps there’s room for an improvement in the patent that involves albedo in some way? [sent-7, score-1.05]
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same-blog 1 1.0 860 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-18-Trolls!
Introduction: Christian Robert points to this absurd patent of the Monte Carlo method (which, as Christian notes, was actually invented by Stanislaw Ulam and others in the 1940s). The whole thing is pretty unreadable. I wonder if they first wrote it as a journal article and then it got rejected everywhere, so they decided to submit it as a patent instead. What’s even worse is this bit: This invention was made with government support under Grant Numbers 0612170 and 0347408 awarded by the National Science Foundation. So our tax dollars are being given to IBM so they can try to bring statistics to a halt by patenting one of our most basic tools? I’d say this is just a waste of money, but given that our country is run by lawyers, there must be some outside chance that this patent could actually succeed? Perhaps there’s room for an improvement in the patent that involves albedo in some way?
2 0.38763481 1398 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-28-Every time you take a sample, you’ll have to pay this guy a quarter
Introduction: Roy Mendelssohn pointed me to this heartwarming story of Jay Vadiveloo, an actuary who got a patent for the idea of statistical sampling. Vadiveloo writes, “the results were astounding: statistical sampling worked.” You may laugh, but wait till Albedo Man buys the patent and makes everybody do his bidding. They’re gonna dig up Laplace and make him pay retroactive royalties. And somehow Clippy will get involved in all this. P.S. Mendelssohn writes: “Yes, I felt it was a heartwarming story also. Perhaps we can get a patent for regression.” I say, forget a patent for regression. I want a patent for the sample mean. That’s where the real money is. You can’t charge a lot for each use, but consider the volume!
3 0.34486431 625 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-23-My last post on albedo, I promise
Introduction: After seeing my recent blogs on Nathan Myhrvold, a friend told me that, in the tech world, the albedo-obsessed genius is known as a patent troll. Really? Yup. My friend writes: It’s perhaps indicative that Myhrvold comes up in the top-ten hits on Google for [patent troll]. These blog posts lay it out pretty clearly: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/12/giant_patent_troll_awakens_as.php http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/intellectual-ventures-goes-to-court Just about anyone’s that’s been in the tech game thinks patents are ridiculous. The lab where I used to work wanted us to create an “intellectual mine field” in our field so the companycould block anyone from entering the space. Yes, we made stuff, but the patents were for totally obvious ideas that anyone would have. Even Google’s PageRank was just a simple application of standard social network analysis models of authorities in netw
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Introduction: Edward Wyatt reports : Now the Obama administration is cracking down on what many call patent trolls , shell companies that exist merely for the purpose of asserting that they should be paid . . . “The United States patent system is vital for our economic growth, job creation, and technological advance,” [Senator] Leahy said in a statement. “Unfortunately, misuse of low-quality patents through patent trolling has tarnished the system’s image.” There is some opposition: But some big software companies, including Microsoft, expressed dismay at some of the proposals, saying they could themselves stifle innovation. Microsoft . . . patent trolls . . . hmmm, where have we heard this connection before ? There is also some support for the bill: “These guys are terrorists,” said John Boswell, chief legal officer for SAS, a business software and services company, said at a panel discussion on Tuesday. SAS was cited in the White House report as an example of a company that has
5 0.25810364 1761 andrew gelman stats-2013-03-13-Lame Statistics Patents
Introduction: Manoel Galdino wrote in a comment off-topic on another post (which I erased): I know you commented before about patents on statistical methods. Did you know this patent ( http://www.archpatent.com/patents/8032473 )? Do you have any comment on patents that don’t describe mathematically how it works and how and if they’re any different from previous methods? And what about the lack of scientific validation of the claims in such a method? The patent in question, “US 8032473: “Generalized reduced error logistic regression method,” begins with the following “claim”: A system for machine learning comprising: a computer including a computer-readable medium having software stored thereon that, when executed by said computer, performs a method comprising the steps of being trained to learn a logistic regression match to a target class variable so to exhibit classification learning by which: an estimated error in each variable’s moment in the logistic regression be modeled and reduce
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Introduction: Christian Robert points to this absurd patent of the Monte Carlo method (which, as Christian notes, was actually invented by Stanislaw Ulam and others in the 1940s). The whole thing is pretty unreadable. I wonder if they first wrote it as a journal article and then it got rejected everywhere, so they decided to submit it as a patent instead. What’s even worse is this bit: This invention was made with government support under Grant Numbers 0612170 and 0347408 awarded by the National Science Foundation. So our tax dollars are being given to IBM so they can try to bring statistics to a halt by patenting one of our most basic tools? I’d say this is just a waste of money, but given that our country is run by lawyers, there must be some outside chance that this patent could actually succeed? Perhaps there’s room for an improvement in the patent that involves albedo in some way?
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Introduction: Edward Wyatt reports : Now the Obama administration is cracking down on what many call patent trolls , shell companies that exist merely for the purpose of asserting that they should be paid . . . “The United States patent system is vital for our economic growth, job creation, and technological advance,” [Senator] Leahy said in a statement. “Unfortunately, misuse of low-quality patents through patent trolling has tarnished the system’s image.” There is some opposition: But some big software companies, including Microsoft, expressed dismay at some of the proposals, saying they could themselves stifle innovation. Microsoft . . . patent trolls . . . hmmm, where have we heard this connection before ? There is also some support for the bill: “These guys are terrorists,” said John Boswell, chief legal officer for SAS, a business software and services company, said at a panel discussion on Tuesday. SAS was cited in the White House report as an example of a company that has
3 0.77159649 625 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-23-My last post on albedo, I promise
Introduction: After seeing my recent blogs on Nathan Myhrvold, a friend told me that, in the tech world, the albedo-obsessed genius is known as a patent troll. Really? Yup. My friend writes: It’s perhaps indicative that Myhrvold comes up in the top-ten hits on Google for [patent troll]. These blog posts lay it out pretty clearly: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/12/giant_patent_troll_awakens_as.php http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/intellectual-ventures-goes-to-court Just about anyone’s that’s been in the tech game thinks patents are ridiculous. The lab where I used to work wanted us to create an “intellectual mine field” in our field so the companycould block anyone from entering the space. Yes, we made stuff, but the patents were for totally obvious ideas that anyone would have. Even Google’s PageRank was just a simple application of standard social network analysis models of authorities in netw
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Introduction: Roy Mendelssohn pointed me to this heartwarming story of Jay Vadiveloo, an actuary who got a patent for the idea of statistical sampling. Vadiveloo writes, “the results were astounding: statistical sampling worked.” You may laugh, but wait till Albedo Man buys the patent and makes everybody do his bidding. They’re gonna dig up Laplace and make him pay retroactive royalties. And somehow Clippy will get involved in all this. P.S. Mendelssohn writes: “Yes, I felt it was a heartwarming story also. Perhaps we can get a patent for regression.” I say, forget a patent for regression. I want a patent for the sample mean. That’s where the real money is. You can’t charge a lot for each use, but consider the volume!
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