Symantec Awarded Patent For Anti-Virus Scanning Technique

Here is an example of a software patent that should help a smaller company (Symantec) protect itself from a much larger predator (Microsoft):

"Symantec announced Wednesday that after a five-and-a-half-year process, one of its chief researchers had been granted a patent on anti-virus technology that speeds up detection of complex threats.

Carey Nachenberg, the chief architect of Symantec Research Labs, received a patent for what's described as "data driven detection of viruses," a technology that's used throughout the Cupertino, Calif.-based security giant's desktop, server, and gateway anti-virus products.

"Traditional virus scanners work by scanning a few fixed parts of the file for signs of infection," said Nachenberg. That technique relies on the habits of virus and worm writers', who typically insert their code in the same specific spots in an executable file, often at the beginning or the end of the file. "