[Bioclusters] Re: Sencel and Altivec (fwd)

[Chris Dwan (CCGB)]

Just received the note below from Dr. Pearson.  This puts things in
better perspective for me:

>
> Sencel has applied for a patent for the general method described
> by Rognes and Seeberg (2000) Bioinformatics 16:699.
>
> Unfortunately, we did not know that when we re-implemented their
> algorithm for Altivec. I do not know whether they have received the
> patent, but, since they warned us, if they do get the patent, the
> University might be liable for infringement.
>
> So I no longer distribute the code.  The last version of the Altivec
> distribution was fasta34t22b4.shar.Z.
>
> We are currently working (rather slowly) on an alternate vector
> solution that does not violate their patent.  It's really pretty
> simple, but I don't have a person in my lab right now who speaks
> Altivec and has time to implement the alternative approach.
>

-C