Register allocation patent

wills@rchland.ibm.com (William Schmidt)
>Incidentally, thanks to Preston Briggs, Rice University owns a dependent
>patent covering Briggs's optimistic coloring heuristics (modifications to the
>Chaitin technique). A company using his extensions needs to have an agreement
>in place with Rice.


Well, thanks rather to some Rice administrators and Rice's lawyers,
Rice owns a dependent patent covering a technique invented by Briggs,
Keith Cooper, Ken Kennedy, and Linda Torczon.


Please understand that I'm not complaining here; merely pointing out
that I worked with others who should not be ignored simply because my
last name begins with "B", and that I didn't push Rice to patent
anything.


We did argue for reasonable licensing terms (don't know what was
eventually decided). Keith suggested something like a nickel a compiler,
versus my rather greedier idea of a penny per compile :-)


>the optimistic coloring work was
>done partially with funding support from IBM.


Indeed. And we are all still grateful for the support and interest.


Preston Briggs
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