> "In 2017 Eric Lengyel published an algorithm, called Slug, that stopped dodging. It renders glyphs directly from their outlines in the fragment shader, with no texture atlas and no per-frame tessellation. Lengyel patented it in 2019, and on March 17, 2026 he dedicated that patent to the public domain."
It's nice that he gave the patent to public domain, but this is not how patents are supposed to work. You can't patent something two years after it was already published.
I'm guessing he actually filed for a patent before publishing, and the article should read: "Lengyel was granted a patent for it in 2019"
It's an AI-written article, so maybe it's not reasonable to expect it to be consistent on this level...
He filed in 2018-02-01, after publishing in 2017. What do you think breaks in the patent system with such an approach? <a href="https://terathon.com/blog/decade-slug.html" rel="nofollow">https://terathon.com/blog/decade-slug.html
You need to file before publishing to establish the priority date.
A sibling comment notes that he indeed filed a provisional patent in 2017 before going public. That’s the part that the article muddled. 2019 was when the patent was granted, not filed.
pavlov · · focus · HN ↗
It's nice that he gave the patent to public domain, but this is not how patents are supposed to work. You can't patent something two years after it was already published.
I'm guessing he actually filed for a patent before publishing, and the article should read: "Lengyel was granted a patent for it in 2019"
It's an AI-written article, so maybe it's not reasonable to expect it to be consistent on this level...
eviks · · focus · HN ↗
pavlov · · focus · HN ↗
A sibling comment notes that he indeed filed a provisional patent in 2017 before going public. That’s the part that the article muddled. 2019 was when the patent was granted, not filed.
eviks · · focus · HN ↗
> provisional application can be filed up to 12 months following an inventor's public disclosure of the invention.
<a href="https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/apply/provisional-application" rel="nofollow">https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/apply/provisional-appli...