I kid you not . . . the USPTO has issued a patent 8417488 Issued on April 9, 2013. Estimated Expiration Date: April 13, 2032 that describes the method of designing a multi-family building used by nearly every architect since the 1980s when AutoCad was first launched. Has anyone at AutoDesk legal department contacted the patent examiner and challenged the novelty of this patent?! What it "teaches" is ridiculous, everyone who has ever used CAD create a set of stored "units" and assembles them into the building plans -- regardless of 2D or 3D. I'm curious to hear if others have concerns about this frivilous patent.
I dunno If whoever applied for the Patent should be applauded or not.... It's pure genius to patent something nearly everyone in a digital drafting discipline does.
From what I understand it seems to be protecting their design... but the lines "It is understood that many other collection may also be devised that satisfy the requirements of the present invention...blah blah..." under "DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENT... basically it's a catchall for ALL modular design buildings being captured under this patent