The Occasional Observer www.uspto.gov, A New Source for What Is Happening in Operations Research Practice

Abstract

Through a series of decisions over the past two de cades by the US Patent Office and federal courts, people and companies are now able to patent algo rithms, software, and business methods. Many in the computer-science-and-applied-mathematics commu nity were against this development because they thought this would impede the free exchange of ideas. I do not know if this has happened. Nevertheless, one consequence that the government desired is that mod els and algorithms are now valuable intellectual prop erty. We can see what inventions people value by look ing in the United States Patent Office database. It is now available online, and using its search engine, I looked up some of the keywords in the OR/MS index to see what patents have some OR content. Since a pro fessionally done patent can cost between $10,000 and $20,000, the database contains models and algorithms that someone thinks have value in the marketplace. I have one caveat: individuals can patent their ideas without using patent attorneys at the cost of the ap plication fees and their time. Some might do this be cause they overvalue their work or just want to say they have a patent.