Microsoft Patents 'IsNot'

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Neal D. Becker wrote:
> Doesn't Python (along with probably every other language ever invented)
> display prior art here?

Wrt. claim 1, yes. Actually, C is prior art here: you have two
expressions representing pointers, and you have a system where
you can determine that the pointers refer to different memory
locations.

Wrt. claim 2, nothing is prior art.

Wrt. claim 3, Python is *not* prior art, because Python's operator
is the two keywords "is not", not the single keyword "IsNot". Paragraph
[0050] elaborates that the claim extends beyond the literal spelling
they give (e.g. to "is_not", "isnot" etc.), but apparently not to
having the operator written with *two* keywords. C is also not prior
art, because the operator (==) is not written in letters.

Wrt. claim 4, both C and Python are prior art (although it is debatable
whether Python features an "executable-generator").

Wrt. claim 6, I don't know. In Python, does the parser "determine if the
operator is preceded by and followed by an operand"? Grammar/Grammar
reads

comparison: expr (comp_op expr)*

Assuming that, in Python, expr denotes operands, one may claim prior
art. OTOH, apparantly, VB is not written with a formal grammar, so
the parser seems to determine that by imperative logic (which the Python
parser does not).

and so on.

Regards,
Martin