On Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:10:57 -0400, you wrote:

>Let me give one example (out of many) of a particularly bad patent that was issued that affects some embedded systems.  US Patent 6233595 (issued in 2001) Fast multiplication of floating point values and integer powers of two. It covers the very narrow
>case of multiplying a floating point number by an integer which is a power of two. Floating point numbers are defined as ssssssssss * 2 ^eee if you multiply this by 4 for example the result will be ssssssssss * 2 ^(eee+2). The claims (all 16) are based
>around the significant not being altered in the process and only integer math is needed on the exponent. The case of multiplying a float by 4.0 is not claimed although it has the same solution.

Disregarding the prior art what kind of claimed value could be justified
for this invention? 

How many hours (minutes) could someone spend inventing this? 

The claimed value wouldn't cover the cost of filing and even if it was
filed you or anyone else could afford to buy full rights and recover some
money by licensing or selling them again (which would effectively force the
original holder to license or sell restricted rights for much less). 


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