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Is the "Yau Method" Actually the "Jameson Method"? (Debate)

Christopher Mowla

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For those who saw my post in the Community Feedback thread a little while back and wondered why I stated that, this is why. FYI for those who didn't do their research!

So is it because Patrick said to pair 4 dedges instead of 3, that merits him 0 credit for what we call the "Yau Method"? Why has no one ever brought this up? Or how about k4 which essentially starts out the exact same way (and predated "Yau" by 3+ years)? (Okay, k4 doesn't start out exactly the same way, but just about. Someone who was lazy to insert a corner in between the first three dedges that are paired would have "magically" come up with Yau.)

P.S.

When @PatrickJameson was active, he and I didn't get along when our paths crossed in the past. (So this post is strictly objective.)
 

Athefre

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I've always thought the same thing. There was Patrick Jameson and blah in the same year with pretty much the same method. There is also the Meyer method which came even before those. And as it usually goes, if "Yau" was presented before Meyer and had the same popularity that it has now, we would be calling Meyer a Roux variant of "Yau". But because it took so long for Meyer to gain any popularity (and it's only used now likely because they are pretty much the same method), we don't call "Yau" a CFOP option for Meyer. Everything is a popularity contest.

But as was said, changing a name is difficult.
 

Athefre

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Many things are often named after those that popularized them, not those who strictly invented or found it. I also feel like this is kind of a pointless debate unless Patrick himself is arguing for the change. I am guessing he doesn't care.
Both Patrick Jameson and blah brought it up in the Yau thread that they had already created their own threads for the idea. So they obviously cared in some way that someone was reinventing the method that they had already created.

It's possible that they don't care now. But who knows. I'm an advocate for the original person to create, promote, and believe in an idea to be the one to receive the credit. Not the one that has some popularity in the community being able to use their popularity to have that thing named after them.
 

Christopher Mowla

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Yeah, I think it's straight up theft of intellectual property. Not cool. (And for those who keep mentioning the word "popularizing", didn't you see my post? I was kind of aware of that! And hearing from one person was plenty enough if I wasn't obvious to me.)

Not sure how this happened, but it's not acceptable in my book. But it's never too late to rename it . . . especially when someone famous becomes infamous when exposed. There is no excuse for why it happened, and there is clear evidence that it is as bad as we're making it out to be.

Maybe they didn't put up a fight because they thought the "method" was so obvious that perhaps someone else discovered it before they did. But if they only would have known how popular it would become and how much recognition Robert Yau has gotten for their invention, they would have put up a fight!

All in all, popularizing it is no excuse for him accepting the credit for it.
 
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Athefre

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Something I want to say is that I have a lot of respect for Robert Yau. We used to hang out in IRC and talk to each other. And something important to note is that Robert did list several names in a post in an attempt to make a name for the method that wasn't just Yau. To incorporate others. But there was a group of us in IRC, including the fastest 4x4 solver at the time. He moved over to using this method so having a group dynamic like that helped push the name "Yau". It felt like no one wanted to pay attention to the fact that the method had already been presented by others.
 

PetraPine

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this reminds me alot of what's happened to @Athefre actually, the ideas created by someone being reused somewhere else and thinking the concept is new, without realization of giving credit being important.
kinda funny that of all people athefre is the one to respond in this thread,
its sad that things like this happen so often in the cubing community )=
 

ender9994

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Yeah, I think it's straight up theft of intellectual property. Not cool. (And for those who keep mentioning the word "popularizing", didn't you see my post? I was kind of aware of that! And hearing from one person was plenty enough if I wasn't obvious to me.)

Not sure how this happened, but it's not acceptable in my book. But it's never too late to rename it . . . especially when someone famous becomes infamous when exposed. There is no excuse for why it happened, and there is clear evidence that it is as bad as we're making it out to be.

Maybe they didn't put up a fight because they thought the "method" was so obvious that perhaps someone else discovered it before they did. But if they only would have known how popular it would become and how much recognition Robert Yau has gotten for their invention, they would have put up a fight!

All in all, popularizing it is no excuse for him accepting the credit for it.

Intellectual property theft is a pretty serious accusation. If you are accusing Robert Yau of this I would suggest you go through the proper legal channels instead of posting about it here.

As for multiple people talking about the popularization argument: You labeled this thread as a debate, multiple people are allowed to all give their own input, even if someone else has already stated the same.

Frankly I could care less about the method name, but I do take issue with your last post. Your tone and wording make this seem less like a debate and more of you being judge, jury, and executioner.
 

Christopher Mowla

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Intellectual property theft is a pretty serious accusation.
Not really (in this context). After all, this is just cubing related issues. It's just about a "toy". So no, I don't think lawyers are going to get involved. My only objective is the hope that the name of the method is changed. That's it. (And a secondary purpose of this thread is to let others know the history behind this, because the method name is misleading.)

If you are accusing Robert Yau of this I would suggest you go through the proper legal channels instead of posting about it here.
No accusing is needed to bring to light what is. It's right there for all to see.

As for multiple people talking about the popularization argument: You labeled this thread as a debate, multiple people are allowed to all give their own input, even if someone else has already stated the same.
Oh, sorry. I thought they were talking to me.

I do take issue with your last post. Your tone and wording make this seem less like a debate and more of you being judge, jury, and executioner.
Yeah, sorry about that. I will try to keep it more objective from now on.

Frankly I could care less about the method name,
Saying you don't care is not an acceptable response for a debate argument.
 
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BenChristman1

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Do I agree that the method probably shouldn’t be named Yau? Yeah. Do I think that it should be changed? Nope. Changing something after it’s been around for a long time (obviously not a long time in this case, but it is a pretty long time relative to how long cubing has been around) is very difficult, because there will still be many people who don’t accept the change.

For example, the NFL team, the Washington Redskins recently made a name change because many people thought that the name was offensive. They are now indefinitely called the Washington Football Team. I do not refer to them as “the Football Team,” because they have been the Redskins for almost a century (since 1932, to be precise), and they haven’t made a permanent decision on what their name will be, so I still refer to them as the Redskins.

Not really (in this context). After all, this is just cubing related issues. It's just about a "toy". So no, I don't think lawyers are going to get involved. My only objective is the hope that the name of the method is changed. That's it. (And a secondary purpose of this thread is to let others know the history behind this, because the method name is misleading.)
So, if you were to start calling the Rubik’s Cube (all cubes that the brand Rubik’s has manufactured from 1974-2021) the “Mowla Cube,” do you think that you are safe from any legal trouble, just because it is “just about a toy?” I don’t mean to be snarky, but I think that everybody would agree that that would be wrong, and that it would be a crime.
 

qwr

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I think Yau should get some kind of credit for popularizing and showing the method is competitive. In math, it sometimes happens that someone discovers something earlier but doesn't realize its potential and just leaves it until another person actually shows its usefulness.
 

PapaSmurf

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Ortega should be called Varasano, ZZ should be called "Heise 2" and Briggs should be called Noah's CP Block method. While we can talk about these "shoulds", it's about the "whats". In the end, naming is arbitrary, but it's much better to know the history of the idea than get caught up in what you think it should be called. For example, L'Hopital's rule should really be called Bernoulli's rule, yet everyone calls it by the former because that's the name of the rule. It is well documented though that Bernoulli came up with it, so that's great.

I had a brief conversation with Rob about his awareness of Meyer at the time of creation, and he said that he didn't know about it. I'm willing to take him on his word, so there has never been any intellectual proprety theft (and there has also been 0 profiting off of the idea).

Basically, the Yau method should be called the Yau method but it was first thought of by Patrick Jameson. Call it the Jameson method if you want to, but you'll have a tought time communicating with those who don't know. You're not really gonna be solving any great injustices by changing it, but just adding a sentence or two to the Wiki would solve any that are out there.
 

OreKehStrah

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I think Yau should get some kind of credit for popularizing and showing the method is competitive. In math, it sometimes happens that someone discovers something earlier but doesn't realize its potential and just leaves it until another person actually shows its usefulness.
I agree.
Also I’m not super informed but did Yau “steal” the method or independently invent it?
If the OG inventors didn’t name it and Yau invented it independently I don’t think it’s an issue for it to be named Yau since the dude used it so well that it was very obviously the superior method.
anyway changing names is hard. If anything the closest you could hope for at this point is probably something like Yau/Jameson kinda like Ortega/Verasano (idk why those have two names but the idea is similar)
 

ender9994

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Not really (in this context). After all, this is just cubing related issues. It's just about a "toy". So no, I don't think lawyers are going to get involved. My only objective is the hope that the name of the method is changed. That's it. (And a secondary purpose of this thread is to let others know the history behind this, because the method name is misleading.)

I suspect that Rubik's, sevenTowns, and v-cubes would have something to say to you about it being just a toy, but I understand your point. Just to be clear, it is your opinion that the Yau method should now be named the Jameson method? Would your opinion of this change if Patrick either said he did not care about the name, or if he even did not want it named after him? Just for my own curiosity, what would you name this method if it was not named after a person, since I am having a tough time thinking of something as short/descriptive as CFOP.

No accusing is needed to bring to light what is. It's right there for all to see.
It certainly seems like Robert Yau is being accused of stealing the name and wrongly accepting credit for it.


Yeah, sorry about that. I will try to keep it more objective from now on.

Saying you don't care is not an acceptable response for a debate argument.


My wording here was terrible and should have been more clear. I am not biased towards any name for this method and will follow whatever the COMMUNITY decides. However, it is my opinion that the name does not need to change and that it is not as big an issue as you are presenting it as.
Is this a debate in your mind? Most of your statements seem to be presented as definitive facts
 

xyzzy

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So, if you were to start calling the Rubik’s Cube (all cubes that the brand Rubik’s has manufactured from 1974-2021) the “Mowla Cube,” do you think that you are safe from any legal trouble, just because it is “just about a toy?” I don’t mean to be snarky, but I think that everybody would agree that that would be wrong, and that it would be a crime.
(not a lawyer; absolutely not your lawyer; not studied on US law; not studied on any country's law; this is entirely a commonsense interpretation of what things should be, and not necessarily how they are in reality)

I don't know whether this runs afoul of some law, but it certainly seems like it shouldn't be violating any of the "big three" of intellectual property laws: copyright, trademarks, patents.

Can a name be copyrighted? Usually, no, especially for names of any reasonable length, because this is double-dipping with trademark protection. Even if the original name somehow does happen to be copyrighted, using a different name means that you're not affected by protection on the name itself.

Besides the name, if the underlying product is copyrighted, there may be distribution restrictions (granted by copyright, that you have to obey) requiring specific names to be used (or not used) with the product. (This is very common with free content licences, e.g. CC BY.) This is not applicable here, either for your example of the Rubik's Cube product or for the Yau/Jameson solving method, as neither of those is copyrightable.

Can a name be trademarked? Yes, this is exactly what trademarks are for. The trademark protection of a name covers usage of that specific name. So if you choose to not use that name, you're safe!

Again, to avoid double-dipping, the underlying product usually cannot be trademarked; you may remember some cases of Rubik's Brand trying to claim a trademark on the concept of a cubic twisty puzzle and suing cube stores over that, and that they ended up not winning their suit against TheCubicle. (To be clear, they didn't lose either; Rubik's and Cubicle settled.)

Can a name be patented? No. Just straight up no.

Can the underlying product be patented? In the case of the Rubik's Cube, yes (and in fact it was patented, and the patent has since expired); in the case of the Yau/Jameson method, it's a huge "it depends", but it would seem like the sort of thing that can be patented (especially in places that recognise patents of algorithms, e.g. the US). But even if the method could be patented, it isn't, so this is irrelevant.
 
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