Samsung gets patent for humanoid gait generator

[limor]

Samsung files patent for humanoid gait generator based on sampled data from real human.

I don't think they were granted the patent but it shows up as patent application. They wouldn't be able to get it so quickly without infringement claim which I doubt exists.

A walking robot and a control method thereof. The control method includes storing angle change data according to time corresponding to at least one joint unit of the robot using human walking data, extracting reference knot points from the angle change data according to time, and generating a reference walking trajectory using the extracted reference knot points, calculating a walking change factor to perform change between walking patterns of the robot, generating a target walking trajectory through an arithmetic operation between the reference walking trajectory and the calculated walking change factor, calculating a control torque to track the generated target walking trajectory, and transmitting the calculated control torque to the at least one joint unit so as to control walking of the robot, thereby achieving various walking patterns through a comparatively simple arithmetic operation process.

[PaulL]

This is the kind of thing I find absolutely enraging about the patent system. Some big company hires some lawyers, they draft up things that either infringe on other works, are obvious (a stipulation that SHOULD invalidate a patent in the U.S., but that doesn't quite seem to be the case), or are even copies of other works worded slightly differently. Then, such patens are used to brutalize competition - exclusivity by lawsuit. Big companies have "portfolios", collections of patents that they license to each other. Small companies are taken to court and blown out of the water with litigation costs as soon as they become a threat.

The worst ones are software patents - I can't tell you how many times I've encountered a patent relating to software that never should have been issued. One company (no names) even tried to patent the concept of global variables. This kind of thing is nonsense - global variables have existed in some form or another since computing began. This is what irks me most. Software is an abstract world, meaning concrete concepts can often be contorted into a "new idea" just by changing some wording. Software is too new for ANYONE to claim 20 years of exclusivity over an idea likely already thought of by dozens of others.

I get that ideas need to be protected, but too many companies patent things that they have no true right to patent - and patent systems let it slide. I tend to support copyright more than patents for software, but that's me.

[limor]

Tech patents these days are a form of asset and investment protection. It rarely has to do with actual inventions. Google and Microsoft many times don't buy companies, they buy the IP which may even be held in a separate company. Then there's Intellectual Ventures which simply buys thousands of patents and with an army of lawyers they force manufacturers to become their partners (they also have a cool lab that employs some wonderful people where they do prototypes). If you have a patent portfolio usually your victim will settle and not dare go to court. The patent system works for what it was intended originally: mechanical devices and methods involving physical things.

[PaulL]

Agreed.