Lest you think this was some triviality that got patented, note that it took 3 of them to invent it. I doubt that any of us could have managed it without the resources of a giant corporation like IBM behind us.
Can you clarify, this is what I read: "A computer implemented method of automatically removing space characters from data being entered into a database system comprising ..."
The patent is for a database column setting which will 'auto-trim' all data. So instead of having to call the trim function every time you insert or update your database this patented setting does it automatically. Hard to believe these things get patents.
To be fair there's been CHAR and VARCHAR for 20 years, but no-one has done what they're proposing. IBM probably make everyone patent everything they do.
The vast majority of patents are just novel applications of existing ideas to a specific ___domain.
Apple didn't patent the LCD screen, or the touch screen, or even multi-touch. They (presumably) did, however, patent a multi-touch lcd screen used for controlling a cell phone. (This may be a bad example since i don't know what they patented, but you get the idea).
Assuming there's no prior art (which is a big assumption), No-one has implemented an auto-trimming database column before, therefore it's a new process.
Personally I think the patent is ridiculous (there are big problems with the definition of 'novel' with respect to software), but there's a specific reasoning that leads to this.
