Google Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview

If the author pops in here, I hope he takes a look at this patent, because it might be prior art: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8512151 I complained about it to the "Stupid Patent of the Month" attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (here: https://www.eff.org/issues/stupid-patent-month) and got a nice response agreeing that it looks obvious.

I think the author is a she.

True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do? That's an honest question. Mangle to use "they"? Use some genderless pronoun that'll piss off x% of readers?

> True, but I didn't see that she identified herself, or her gender, in the article. So what's a commenter to do?

Simple.

1. Assume an ostensibly correct pronoun of your own choice (like you did)

2. If someone corrects you, optionally acknowledge the correction and apologize if applicable, then use the correct pronoun henceforth

3. Ignore the overly gender-obsessed people who tell you that you should have used ugly or cumbersome constructs such as "they" or, even worse, "s/he" and variants thereof.

4. Don't worry too much about it; everybody can make an honest mistake.

It’s ironic to argue that an author’s identity doesn’t really matter, in which an author describes an eregious attempt by a company to steal credit for her work.

I'm sorry, don't see the connection you are trying to make.

In the context of her story, gender is not relevant; she apparently didn't think so either, since the only way I could tell from the article was her hands shown in the last picture.

Her identity is important, and gender is one part of her identity. She didn't state her name either in the article, does that make it OK to refer to her as "Richard Stallman" until she explicitly demands credit?