Recursive data compression patent for sale

[Matt Mahoney]

Really, I am not making this up. US patent 7733249 describes a method of compressing data more than once to improve the compression ratio. According to the patent, the method is to divide a data stream into objects and to "compress" them by treating objects as binary numbers and encode them as arithmetic expressions that have the same value. You can then apply the method recursively to both individual objects and to the stream as a whole.

You can buy the patent now for US $275,000 or wait until the auction on Nov. 11. Working code is not included.
http://icapoceantomo.com/item-for-sa...mpressing-data

Of course this is not the first time the USPTO has allowed patents on random data compression.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/compression...section-8.html (section 9.5).