Eli Bendersky's website I have just read on /. about Microsoft's claim on a patent for the IsNot operator in VB. IsNot checks if the two objects given to it are not the same object (don't reside in the same memory).
Sometimes you hear stuff you just don't know whether to take seriously. And when you find out it is serious, you're not sure whether to laugh or to cry.
Lisp, one of the oldest languages out there, has the eq operator, that checks if two objects are the same (memory-wise). I hope that someone points it out to the patent reviewers that patenting (not (eq x y)) makes no sense !!!!