"S" mode for file permission?

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 10:29:35AM -0500, Sheemon Lists wrote:
> BTW, the first ever software patent was issued to Dennis Ritchie (Bell
> Labs) for the invention of the suid bit.
> Years later, Micro$oft tried to outdo that by patenting the concept of a
> bit.
> 
> The first trivia item above is true AFAIK.  The second was a rumor I
> believe to be false.  Even M$ cannot be this dumb.

While Ritchie was indeed granted such a patent in 1979, a cursory
Wikipedia check finds at least one earlier example of a software patent
(https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/010129789/publication/GB1039141A?q=pn%3DGB1039141),
granted in 1966 and thus I believe expired in 1986.  Since the abstract
says "The Specification is confined to a description of the programming
method [...] which is applicable to any general-purpose digital
computer", it seems clear that this can only be a software patent and
not a patent on the physical hardware.

-- 
Colin Watson (he/him)                              [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]