Re: Perhaps this isn't so complicated
AC, this is a rather depressing list. I don't think I can bring myself to dig through it all, but let's look at... oh, application US 13/756,921. Ignomirello is trying to patent tokenized compression. You know, that underlying concept below LZ-variants and most other lossless compression.
I mean look at that first claim:
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1. A method for storing data on a recording medium comprising:
i. receiving a plurality of digital binary signals, wherein the digital binary signals are organized in a plurality of chunklets, wherein each chunklet is N bits long, wherein N is an integer number greater than 1 and wherein the chunklets have an order;
ii. dividing each chunklet into subunits of a uniform size and assigning a marker to each subunit from a set of X markers to form a set of a plurality of markers, wherein X equals the number of different combinations of bits within a subunit, identical subunits are assigned the same marker and at least one marker is smaller than the size of a subunit; and
iii. storing the set of the plurality of markers on a non-transitory recording medium in an order that corresponds to the order of the chunklets.
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So, breaking it down:
1) Take some data, and break it up into fixed-sized blocks,
2a) Break up those blocks until smaller sub-blocks, [an unnecessary step, but whatever]
2b) Assign a token to each unique sub-block. where at least one token is smaller than the fixed sub-block size, [mathematically, of course, this means in random data some will be larger],
3) Store the tokens.
That's basically the description of a dictionary coder, leaving out all the actual hard parts. There's no technology development here. Thankfully, the people at the USPTO are very good at stacking you up with prior art in responses, so if this gets granted that independent claim will get saddled with a whole bunch of dependent clauses like "when a self-destructing GPS card is present," or "when the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars".
But, if you hop over to PAIR (http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair) you'll see that this application received a Final Rejection Notice two weeks ago, on 3/3/2017.