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Microsoft Withdraws BlueJ Object Test Bench Patent Claim |
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Written by Content Team
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Jan 30, 2007 at 02:46 AM |
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Microsoft has withdrawn a patent application for "Object Test Bench" in
Visual Studio. The functionality in Visual Studio had been incorporated
into the product
without attribution to BlueJ or its creator. Microsoft had then
submitted a
patent application for the same.
BlueJ is a free integrated Java environment specifically designed for introductory teaching. It was developed for the purpose of teaching object orientation with Java. .Object Test Bench in Visual Studio was similar to the functionality in BlueJ. Michael Kölling, one of the designers of BlueJ, in his blog says
"The patent claims the invention of “ a facility” (the object test bench) that “ receives an instantiated object, displays the instantiated object visually, receives a command from a developer relating to the instantiated object, and provides a result corresponding to the received command. As an example, the facility invokes a method provided by the instantiated object or retrieves a value of a property of the instantiated object.” "Now, you may or may not be familiar with BlueJ. In case you aren’t let me say this: this is an exact description of the core BlueJ functionality (interactive object instantiation and invocation) that we have implemented, distributed, and described in published work since the mid-90s. (In case you are familiar with BlueJ, read on a bit in the patent. The description gets more and more detailed, and the more you read, the more it resembles BlueJ in every small detail. It’s almost creepy.)" He also provides a comparison of the feature in the two tools, to show the similarities. Microsoft has withdrawn the patent application and Visual Studio Express lead product manager Dan Fernandez writes "The patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened. To fix this, Microsoft will be removing the patent application in question. Our sincere apologies to Michael Kölling and the BlueJ community." Michael Kölling has since written "Some helpful and reasonable individuals within Microsoft have set the machinery in motion to put things right, and that’s a good thing. I am very grateful if this gets resolved without involving the lawyers" Related
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Comment by 'Guest' on 2007-01-30 07:20:57
As an apology, Microsoft should donate 100,000 dollars for BlueJ and open source development :) |
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