JPEG was patented. I can understand why. It was novel, it was not obvious, and it was useful. That trio makes a pretty good case for patentability, ignoring whether algorithms can/should be patented in general.
From what I've read, Judy arrays are novel, not obvious (moreso than JPEG, in my subjective opinion), and useful. So it doesn't seem far fetched to patent Judy arrays, ignoring whether algorithms can/should be patented in general.
Which is why I said "a little less ridiculous". This has nothing to do with complicated math, even though both data structures/algorithms involve complicated math.
You could say the same of the Pythagorean theorem, or FFT. Thankfully in the case of the later, IBM's patent lawyers exhibited sanity.
JPEG and wavelet compression in practice is surprisingly simple math. But the theory that explains why and how it works is far from trivial.
Any equation that you can make will merely describe a Wenkel engine, not be one. Equations for mathematical concepts are those concepts (expressed in a particular format).
