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back to article Winklevoss Twins' Bitcoin index provokes angry wails from rival

A Blighty-based Bitcoin bod has claimed the Winklevoss twins' cryptocurrency stock ticker has "taken influence" from his own open source service. The Zucker-baiters launched a website called Winkdex last week, which uses a patent-pending mathematical to formula to track the price of Bitcoin on several different exchanges. …

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  1. Alien Doctor 1.1
    Joke

    There's one hope I have...

    that the Wanklevosses sink in everything they do.

    7 0
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There's one hope I have...

      +1

      CockFlossers

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does El Reg have any Editors left?

    Grammar needs to be cleaned up.

    "...which uses a patent-pending mathematical to formula to track ..."

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Since when

    has computing an average been a patentable concept?

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Since when

      Seeing as mathematics is not patentable then they are trying to get a computed formula to be patentable even though software isn't patentable.

      However, the USA has enough patent lawyers to dig around this and the USPTO is to understaffed/unknowledgeable/apathetic to stop it.

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      1. tom dial Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Since when

        And there are, of course, powerful incentives within the USPTO to approve patents applications rather than deny them.

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      2. frank ly
        Reply Icon

        Re: Since when

        The MP3 compression algorithm is just a mathematical formula but is patented and a licence is needed to encode audio to MP3. The argument is that a lot of work went into inital studies and testing to find a suitable set of weighting factors to give a balance between compression ratio, ease of operation and fidelity. The MP3 encoding technique (and just about all codecs) is based on decades old mathematical research that is free for everyone to use (the formulae), but you'd better not copy the mix of methods and the internal weighting factors of a well known one, or you will be sued.

        It sounds like the Twinkle Twins have copied the basic technique (time varying, multi dimensional weighted averages, whatever...) and I'm sure they did a lot of original work and much testing before they hit upon their own unique weighting parameters.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its fracebook all over again, im sure at some point they were planning in claiming he stole the idea from them.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tip for the UK media, try covering UK companies and services for a change?

    Maybe then we'd have some success instead of the US dominated online world.

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  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    It was only a matter of time before the Winklevoss twins stuck their oars in.

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  7. asdf

    The Twinkie Twins

    When even Larry Summers calls you and your twin spawn assholes you are really have taken douchebaggery to whole new level.

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  8. Tom 13

    "...uses a patent-pending mathematical to formula..." ? ? ? !

    Has someone alerted the Bar that they have someone who needs to be immediately removed from their ranks?

    Even the highly, highly disfunctional US Patent Office clearly states on their website:

    ...abstract ideas (such as mathematical algorithms), natural phenomena, and laws of nature are not eligible for patent protection.

    http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2106.html

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