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To Quote 4,689,478...
said sensor and transmitting areas being light-operated;

My Palm Pilot doesn't have any "light-operated" I/O. Modern unit do -- hell, they (can) have CDPD for that matter.

Ok, so when were the first HP calculators (with IR ports) available?

The patents are actually pretty specific about what they cover, and they cover Palm and Handspring devices pretty well.

Read them here and here.

--

The patents are actually pretty specific about what they cover, and they cover Palm and Handspring devices pretty well.

Read them here and here.

--

The Claims of a patent legally define the invention. While 4,689,478 has claim elements that may cover other devices, only a device incorporating every element in the claim infringes that claim.

For example, a device incorporating elements A and B does not infringe a claim reciting elements A, B, and C.

• 4,634,845 Portable personal terminal for use in a system for handling transactions
• 4,689,478 System for handling transactions including a portable personal terminal

• 4,634,845 Portable personal terminal for use in a system for handling transactions
• 4,689,478 System for handling transactions including a portable personal terminal

What needs to be guarded against are patents that stifle innovation by being so broad as to block all comers. Just as an example, take GemStar as an example. They patented the displaying of TV listings onscreen. Now it is effectively impossible to come up with a similar system that does not infringe on their patent.

Dancin Santa

1) Revelation Chapter 13 - which details the Antichrist's plan to force all mankind to receive a mark in their right hand or forehead in order to buy or sell goods.

2) The Islamic Hadith's Final Signs of Qiyaamah - which predicts the arrival of a monstrous 'beast from the earth' which will mark the foreheads of believers.

3) Patent 5,878,155 - defined as "Method for verifying human identity during electronic sale transactions...A bar code or a design is tattooed on an individual. Before the sales transaction can be consummated, the tattoo is scanned with a scanner. Characteristics about the scanned tattoo are compared to characteristics about other tattoos stored on a computer database in order to verify the identity of the buyer. Once verified, the seller may be authorized to debit the buyer's electronic bank account in order to consummate the transaction. The seller's electronic bank account may be similarly updated."

While I don't think either of them were really overtly trying to mentor me, I owe a lot of credit for what I know and what I can do to a couple of brilliant programmers that I've had the privilege to work with. Both of these fellows are very kind, pleasant people and went out of their way to help me. They also both go out of their way to write correct code, as opposed to, say, just screwing around with it until it sort of works.

I met Haim Zamir at Live Picture (now MGI Software) in 1997 where I really began my C++ effort in a serious way (I tried it in 1990 to write test tools at Apple but didn't really enjoy the experience). Have a look at Haim's Resume, particularly under "Skills" where he lists:

Well grounded in disciplines of software engineering for correctness, robustness, performance, and longevity

Another brilliant programmer is my friend Andrew Green. Andy spares no amount of effort to get his code just right - he devoted nine years to developing the ZooLib cross-platform application framework before releasing under the MIT License. (Not five years as I say on the page.)

If you think being correct, as opposed to merely working ok isn't important, imagine trying to get platform-independent reference counted smart pointers to work in a multithreaded application framework. Andy did.

For an archive of anecdotes of interesting, funny and sometimes tragic technology quality problems, please read:

• The Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems, with such anecdotes as:
  • The Sinking of the USS Gitarro (because of either poor training, poor UI, or both)
  • The scary MSWord residue feature - exchange Word documents during legal negotiations?
  • Also see the book Computer Related Risks by Risks moderator Peter Neumann

If you write software, another good investment (more important than your hardware investment), is buying and reading good books. As a software consultant I keep the canceled checks and receipts for my technical book purchases; in 1999 I deducted about $750 worth of technical books from my taxes and about $250 in 1998.

But there are a lot of bad software books out there; much as there was a gold rush due to the Internet, there was a smaller-scale gold rush for technical book authors over the last couple years. A really good source of straight-talking book reviews by people who have good reason to know what they're talking about is maintainted by the Association of C and C++ Users at:

• The ACCU Book Reviews Section

(Note to CowboyNeal - writing C-sharp with the pound sign set off the lameness filter, driving me damn near out of my skull. How about adding something to the preview to let us know which characters are lame, exactly?).

And good news for those of you across the pond (but bad news for me), it's a British organization and holds regular technical conferences. I believe they also send observers to the ISO standards bodies.

If you program in C++ you should read these two books by Scott Meyers and put them to practice in your code. Read each item one at a time and then go through your code from beginning to end to see how you can apply it:

• Effective C++ - ACCU Review - be sure to get the 2nd Edition
• More Effective C++ - ACCU Review

-Weffc++ (C++ only)

Warn about violations of various style guidelines from Scott Meyers' Effective C++ books. If you use this option, you should be aware that the standard library headers do not obey all of these guidelines; you can use `grep -v' to filter out those warnings.

C++ is not the problem language it's often said to be if you follow Meyers' advice, but if you prefer C you certainly can have problems there too - and note that the preferred language for Gnome is C (while KDE is an extended C++), for C programmers you should read:

• C Traps and Pitfalls - ACCU Review

• The Elements of Programming Style

Back to the topic of compiler warnings, remember reading about lint in Kernighan and Ritchey's The C Programming Language? When I started out in my first real programming job, doing Sun system administration and writing image processing software back in the late '80's, I learned to write "lint" targets in my Makefiles, and I'd type "make lint" after editing but before compiling to actual machine code. This made my code much easier to debug and quicker to develop.

Much of lint's function is now available in the warnings of GCC (but I don't think all of it), but there are some proprietary products that will do extremely rigorous statis analysis of your source code. I haven't yet used either (although I plan to) but the two I know about are:

• PC-Lint and FlexeLint
• CodeWizard - Linux Journal Review

• Insure

You can search by patent number here.

And speaking of web programming, many Slashdot readers write web applications (Linux being a "server OS" as they say). How many of you validate the HTML that's generated by the web applications you write?

Your HTML should work well in any browser and it should be well designed for easy usability. I don't mean attractive graphics. I mean it shouldn't suck. Two links on design:

• Useit
• Ask Tog

• By uploading static files from your browser - most convenient during hand composition
• By entering its URL in a form - best for dynamic pages and final tuning of static pages

Mike

While I don't think either of them were really overtly trying to mentor me, I owe a lot of credit for what I know and what I can do to a couple of brilliant programmers that I've had the privilege to work with. Both of these fellows are very kind, pleasant people and went out of their way to help me. They also both go out of their way to write correct code, as opposed to, say, just screwing around with it until it sort of works.

I met Haim Zamir at Live Picture (now MGI Software) in 1997 where I really began my C++ effort in a serious way (I tried it in 1990 to write test tools at Apple but didn't really enjoy the experience). Have a look at Haim's Resume, particularly under "Skills" where he lists:

Well grounded in disciplines of software engineering for correctness, robustness, performance, and longevity

Another brilliant programmer is my friend Andrew Green. Andy spares no amount of effort to get his code just right - he devoted nine years to developing the ZooLib cross-platform application framework before releasing under the MIT License. (Not five years as I say on the page.)

If you think being correct, as opposed to merely working ok isn't important, imagine trying to get platform-independent reference counted smart pointers to work in a multithreaded application framework. Andy did.

For an archive of anecdotes of interesting, funny and sometimes tragic technology quality problems, please read:

• The Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems, with such anecdotes as:
  • The Sinking of the USS Gitarro (because of either poor training, poor UI, or both)
  • The scary MSWord residue feature - exchange Word documents during legal negotiations?
  • Also see the book Computer Related Risks by Risks moderator Peter Neumann

If you write software, another good investment (more important than your hardware investment), is buying and reading good books. As a software consultant I keep the canceled checks and receipts for my technical book purchases; in 1999 I deducted about $750 worth of technical books from my taxes and about $250 in 1998.

But there are a lot of bad software books out there; much as there was a gold rush due to the Internet, there was a smaller-scale gold rush for technical book authors over the last couple years. A really good source of straight-talking book reviews by people who have good reason to know what they're talking about is maintainted by the Association of C and C++ Users at:

• The ACCU Book Reviews Section

(Note to CowboyNeal - writing C-sharp with the pound sign set off the lameness filter, driving me damn near out of my skull. How about adding something to the preview to let us know which characters are lame, exactly?).

And good news for those of you across the pond (but bad news for me), it's a British organization and holds regular technical conferences. I believe they also send observers to the ISO standards bodies.

If you program in C++ you should read these two books by Scott Meyers and put them to practice in your code. Read each item one at a time and then go through your code from beginning to end to see how you can apply it:

• Effective C++ - ACCU Review - be sure to get the 2nd Edition
• More Effective C++ - ACCU Review

-Weffc++ (C++ only)

Warn about violations of various style guidelines from Scott Meyers' Effective C++ books. If you use this option, you should be aware that the standard library headers do not obey all of these guidelines; you can use `grep -v' to filter out those warnings.

C++ is not the problem language it's often said to be if you follow Meyers' advice, but if you prefer C you certainly can have problems there too - and note that the preferred language for Gnome is C (while KDE is an extended C++), for C programmers you should read:

• C Traps and Pitfalls - ACCU Review

• The Elements of Programming Style

Back to the topic of compiler warnings, remember reading about lint in Kernighan and Ritchey's The C Programming Language? When I started out in my first real programming job, doing Sun system administration and writing image processing software back in the late '80's, I learned to write "lint" targets in my Makefiles, and I'd type "make lint" after editing but before compiling to actual machine code. This made my code much easier to debug and quicker to develop.

Much of lint's function is now available in the warnings of GCC (but I don't think all of it), but there are some proprietary products that will do extremely rigorous statis analysis of your source code. I haven't yet used either (although I plan to) but the two I know about are:

• PC-Lint and FlexeLint
• CodeWizard - Linux Journal Review

• Insure

You can search by patent number here.

And speaking of web programming, many Slashdot readers write web applications (Linux being a "server OS" as they say). How many of you validate the HTML that's generated by the web applications you write?

Your HTML should work well in any browser and it should be well designed for easy usability. I don't mean attractive graphics. I mean it shouldn't suck. Two links on design:

• Useit
• Ask Tog

• By uploading static files from your browser - most convenient during hand composition
• By entering its URL in a form - best for dynamic pages and final tuning of static pages

Mike

While I don't think either of them were really overtly trying to mentor me, I owe a lot of credit for what I know and what I can do to a couple of brilliant programmers that I've had the privilege to work with. Both of these fellows are very kind, pleasant people and went out of their way to help me. They also both go out of their way to write correct code, as opposed to, say, just screwing around with it until it sort of works.

I met Haim Zamir at Live Picture (now MGI Software) in 1997 where I really began my C++ effort in a serious way (I tried it in 1990 to write test tools at Apple but didn't really enjoy the experience). Have a look at Haim's Resume, particularly under "Skills" where he lists:

Well grounded in disciplines of software engineering for correctness, robustness, performance, and longevity

Another brilliant programmer is my friend Andrew Green. Andy spares no amount of effort to get his code just right - he devoted nine years to developing the ZooLib cross-platform application framework before releasing under the MIT License. (Not five years as I say on the page.)

If you think being correct, as opposed to merely working ok isn't important, imagine trying to get platform-independent reference counted smart pointers to work in a multithreaded application framework. Andy did.

For an archive of anecdotes of interesting, funny and sometimes tragic technology quality problems, please read:

• The Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems, with such anecdotes as:
  • The Sinking of the USS Gitarro (because of either poor training, poor UI, or both)
  • The scary MSWord residue feature - exchange Word documents during legal negotiations?
  • Also see the book Computer Related Risks by Risks moderator Peter Neumann

If you write software, another good investment (more important than your hardware investment), is buying and reading good books. As a software consultant I keep the canceled checks and receipts for my technical book purchases; in 1999 I deducted about $750 worth of technical books from my taxes and about $250 in 1998.

But there are a lot of bad software books out there; much as there was a gold rush due to the Internet, there was a smaller-scale gold rush for technical book authors over the last couple years. A really good source of straight-talking book reviews by people who have good reason to know what they're talking about is maintainted by the Association of C and C++ Users at:

• The ACCU Book Reviews Section

(Note to CowboyNeal - writing C-sharp with the pound sign set off the lameness filter, driving me damn near out of my skull. How about adding something to the preview to let us know which characters are lame, exactly?).

And good news for those of you across the pond (but bad news for me), it's a British organization and holds regular technical conferences. I believe they also send observers to the ISO standards bodies.

If you program in C++ you should read these two books by Scott Meyers and put them to practice in your code. Read each item one at a time and then go through your code from beginning to end to see how you can apply it:

• Effective C++ - ACCU Review - be sure to get the 2nd Edition
• More Effective C++ - ACCU Review

-Weffc++ (C++ only)

Warn about violations of various style guidelines from Scott Meyers' Effective C++ books. If you use this option, you should be aware that the standard library headers do not obey all of these guidelines; you can use `grep -v' to filter out those warnings.

C++ is not the problem language it's often said to be if you follow Meyers' advice, but if you prefer C you certainly can have problems there too - and note that the preferred language for Gnome is C (while KDE is an extended C++), for C programmers you should read:

• C Traps and Pitfalls - ACCU Review

• The Elements of Programming Style

Back to the topic of compiler warnings, remember reading about lint in Kernighan and Ritchey's The C Programming Language? When I started out in my first real programming job, doing Sun system administration and writing image processing software back in the late '80's, I learned to write "lint" targets in my Makefiles, and I'd type "make lint" after editing but before compiling to actual machine code. This made my code much easier to debug and quicker to develop.

Much of lint's function is now available in the warnings of GCC (but I don't think all of it), but there are some proprietary products that will do extremely rigorous statis analysis of your source code. I haven't yet used either (although I plan to) but the two I know about are:

• PC-Lint and FlexeLint
• CodeWizard - Linux Journal Review

• Insure

You can search by patent number here.

And speaking of web programming, many Slashdot readers write web applications (Linux being a "server OS" as they say). How many of you validate the HTML that's generated by the web applications you write?

Your HTML should work well in any browser and it should be well designed for easy usability. I don't mean attractive graphics. I mean it shouldn't suck. Two links on design:

• Useit
• Ask Tog

• By uploading static files from your browser - most convenient during hand composition
• By entering its URL in a form - best for dynamic pages and final tuning of static pages

Mike

"Sunonwealth has made huge investments in developing..." blah blah blah.

I'm don't really understand what their patent covers, but my best guess is the idea of making notches on a circuit board with which to align and mount a small fan and associated sensor (and I'm not sure what the sensor does, except that it can turn the fan on). It would be interesting to have a company representative translate their patent claims into language a layperson could understand.

5,967,763 Positioning devices for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat including a number of annularly spaced poles each having a radially extending stem and a circumferential arcuate section. Each stem has a winding wound therearound, and each arcuate section has a first end edge and a second end edge. A circuit board is securely connected to the coil seat and includes a sensor element mounted thereon. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from one of the first end edge and the second end edge of one of the poles.

6,109,892 Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating a rotor. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from an end edge of the lower polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.

6,114,785 Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating rotor. The sensor element is located on a line extending from an end edge of the upper polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.

"Sunonwealth has made huge investments in developing..." blah blah blah.

I'm don't really understand what their patent covers, but my best guess is the idea of making notches on a circuit board with which to align and mount a small fan and associated sensor (and I'm not sure what the sensor does, except that it can turn the fan on). It would be interesting to have a company representative translate their patent claims into language a layperson could understand.

5,967,763 Positioning devices for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat including a number of annularly spaced poles each having a radially extending stem and a circumferential arcuate section. Each stem has a winding wound therearound, and each arcuate section has a first end edge and a second end edge. A circuit board is securely connected to the coil seat and includes a sensor element mounted thereon. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from one of the first end edge and the second end edge of one of the poles.

6,109,892 Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating a rotor. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from an end edge of the lower polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.

6,114,785 Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating rotor. The sensor element is located on a line extending from an end edge of the upper polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.

"Sunonwealth has made huge investments in developing..." blah blah blah.

I'm don't really understand what their patent covers, but my best guess is the idea of making notches on a circuit board with which to align and mount a small fan and associated sensor (and I'm not sure what the sensor does, except that it can turn the fan on). It would be interesting to have a company representative translate their patent claims into language a layperson could understand.

5,967,763 Positioning devices for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat including a number of annularly spaced poles each having a radially extending stem and a circumferential arcuate section. Each stem has a winding wound therearound, and each arcuate section has a first end edge and a second end edge. A circuit board is securely connected to the coil seat and includes a sensor element mounted thereon. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from one of the first end edge and the second end edge of one of the poles.

6,109,892 Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating a rotor. The sensor element is located on a vertical line extending from an end edge of the lower polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.

6,114,785 Positioning device for a sensor element of a miniature fan

A positioning device for a miniature fan includes a coil seat having an axle tube, an upper polar plate assembly, a lower polar plate assembly, and a winding mounted between the upper polar plate assembly and the lower polar plate assembly. A circuit board is mounted to the axle tube and includes a sensor element for activating rotor. The sensor element is located on a line extending from an end edge of the upper polar plate assembly along a direction parallel to a longitudinal axis of the axle tube.

For what it's worth, I believe Adobe has this patented already, though I can't seem to find the entry at the USP&TO just now, but you can see the application through their 'droplets' technology in Photoshop and other major apps.

This droplets scheme is a way to harness various functionality externally to the app, though the patent sure leaves it open enough in that it didn't specify app or OS at any point, and the language speaks of modules, processes and 'acting on external data sources'. It sounds like piping the modules together to me.

It's a good thing this is originating in Academia, through Unix, or there'd surely be trouble.

Read all about it. Lucky for them, most folks don't think.

CMGI's Nov. 13, 2000 press release mentions that Altavista was awarded "four new patents for search technology" which cover:

"proprietary search technology in the areas of identifying and eliminating duplicate pages in an index, ranking results by degrees of relevancy, data structures for searching and indexing, and 'spidering' techniques that crawl the World Wide Web and play a key role in building an index."

I used the U.S. PTO's patent database, searched for the string "altavista" under the "assignee" field and came up with these two gems:

6,138,113: "Method for identifying near duplicate pages in a hyperlinked database"

and

6,112,203: "Method for ranking documents in a hyperlinked environment using connectivity and selective content analysis"

Has anyone found the other Altavista search engine patents in question? They might have been awarded to a different firm, then licensed to Altavista.

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

CMGI's Nov. 13, 2000 press release mentions that Altavista was awarded "four new patents for search technology" which cover:

"proprietary search technology in the areas of identifying and eliminating duplicate pages in an index, ranking results by degrees of relevancy, data structures for searching and indexing, and 'spidering' techniques that crawl the World Wide Web and play a key role in building an index."

I used the U.S. PTO's patent database, searched for the string "altavista" under the "assignee" field and came up with these two gems:

6,138,113: "Method for identifying near duplicate pages in a hyperlinked database"

and

6,112,203: "Method for ranking documents in a hyperlinked environment using connectivity and selective content analysis"

Has anyone found the other Altavista search engine patents in question? They might have been awarded to a different firm, then licensed to Altavista.

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

Being one of the Inventors of this (Beer Inspired) technique I have have a a lot of intrest in it.

Also, There will be a new website comming up in the near future http://www.lavarand.org (no link since it is not on the air yet) with new an improved access to a lavarand system.

Note the the intrested, the patent only covers using the data to seed a pseudo-random number generator ...

From the US Patent and Trademark Office web patent database, there are only two patents listed where the AltaVista Company is the assignee.

However, there are a large number in which Digital Equipment is the assignee and that refer to "search engine". If I'm not mistaken, DEC developed AltaVista, Compaq bought DEC and then sold off AltaVista. I suppose the original assignee may have re-assigned the rights as part of a sale, so who knows how many of these are owned by CMGI.

From the US Patent and Trademark Office web patent database, there are only two patents listed where the AltaVista Company is the assignee.

However, there are a large number in which Digital Equipment is the assignee and that refer to "search engine". If I'm not mistaken, DEC developed AltaVista, Compaq bought DEC and then sold off AltaVista. I suppose the original assignee may have re-assigned the rights as part of a sale, so who knows how many of these are owned by CMGI.

Method for ranking documents in a hyperlinked environment using connectivity and selective content analysis

Abstract

In a computerized method, a set of documents is ranked according to their content and their connectivity by using topic distillation. The documents include links that connect the documents to each other, either directly, or indirectly. A graph is constructed in a memory of a computer system. In the graph, nodes represent the documents, and directed edges represent the links. Based on the number of links connecting the various nodes, a subset of documents is selected to form a topic. A second subset of the documents is chosen based on the number of directed edges connecting the nodes. Nodes in the second subset are compared with the topic to determine similarity to the topic, and a relevance weight is correspondingly assigned to each node. Nodes in the second subset having a relevance weight less than a predetermined threshold are pruned from the graph. The documents represented by the remaining nodes in the graph are ranked by connectivity based ranking scheme.

I suppose a bit of incredulity and cynicism is to be expected of virtually anything posted to this forum, but nevertheless my looking into this shows that this invention may very well be, if not revolutionary, then a profound change in how we get ourselves around.

Kamen has busied himself with personal transportation devices, and has two patents (5971091 & 5975225) with regard to such devices that balance themselves on 2-4 wheels and move a load (with or without people) over irregular terrain. Now this in and of itself would be just an interesting invention, but reference to the Sept. 2000 Wired article cited here previously would show that Kamen's also worked on the Sterling engine. Here I posit that the name he gives his invention, Ginger, is actually a part of an anagram, shown here:

A STERLING ENGINE = GINGER ISNT A LIE

IF Mr. Kamen has perfected the Sterling engine to a maximum of efficiency and minimum of pollution and incorporated it into his patented personal transportation devices he will have created an easy way for anyone to locomote themselves around their neighborhoods, work site, or campus. It would be a fun, interesting way to travel. In short, this conclusion meets all of the suggestions provided for in the articles on the book deal, coordinates with one of Kamen's main areas of study and invention, and has some speculative evidence to prove itself. I haven't seen a better explanation yet.

I suppose a bit of incredulity and cynicism is to be expected of virtually anything posted to this forum, but nevertheless my looking into this shows that this invention may very well be, if not revolutionary, then a profound change in how we get ourselves around.

Kamen has busied himself with personal transportation devices, and has two patents (5971091 & 5975225) with regard to such devices that balance themselves on 2-4 wheels and move a load (with or without people) over irregular terrain. Now this in and of itself would be just an interesting invention, but reference to the Sept. 2000 Wired article cited here previously would show that Kamen's also worked on the Sterling engine. Here I posit that the name he gives his invention, Ginger, is actually a part of an anagram, shown here:

A STERLING ENGINE = GINGER ISNT A LIE

IF Mr. Kamen has perfected the Sterling engine to a maximum of efficiency and minimum of pollution and incorporated it into his patented personal transportation devices he will have created an easy way for anyone to locomote themselves around their neighborhoods, work site, or campus. It would be a fun, interesting way to travel. In short, this conclusion meets all of the suggestions provided for in the articles on the book deal, coordinates with one of Kamen's main areas of study and invention, and has some speculative evidence to prove itself. I haven't seen a better explanation yet.

• not a medical invention
• possible quick assembly from constituent modules, using only scredriver and hex wrench
• disassembled, fits in a large duffel-bag
• fun element - something which looks so absurdly unstable would make me laugh, especially when I realised it worked. I laughed when I first saw the iBot standing up, too.
• Less than $2,000 - should be relatively cheap to mass-produce.
• Two models - makes sense. You even get different models of those damn push-scooters now...
• "a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it". Who hasn't wanted a skateboard/scooter/rollerblades that could climb stairs? Or not tip you over when you hit a crack in the pavement? Or safely navigate cobbles? I know I have, a thousand times.
• "The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?". Having people zipping around on pedestrian walkways on motorised scooters will give safety groups the jitters. OTOH, it looks too small and flimsy to compete with cars on the road.
• "If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen". It's a city-planner's dream - electrically-powered, no pollution, quiet, clean, fast, safe (if you're going to crash, just jump off), you name it. It dumps all over cycle-paths. Perhaps "Ginger-paths" next?
• "will sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking". Hyperbole, sure, but it could replace bikes/skateboards/rollerblades entirely, and have a good crack at cars for short in-town journeys.
• "The core technology and its implementations will... have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies". Yah, like petrol companies, car companies, oil companies. Cheap, efficient electrically-powered, safe mass-transit devices? The petrol/car co's must be having a coronary at the mere thought.
• "will profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide". See points about cheap, clean transport, earlier.
• "It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities". IE, cars, bikes, the tube, buses, trains.
• "IT will be a mass-market consumer product". At under $2,000, I'd want one.
• "likely to run afoul of existing regulations and or inspire new ones... will also likely require meeting with city planners, regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted for Ginger". See point earlier about how it couldn't safely mix with pedestrians or cars, but would probably need a cycle-path-type idea.

The following results were produced using http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/search-bool.html. Us ing Kamen as the Inventor Name:
PAT. NO. Title
6,168,609 Catamenial collector and methods of use
6,155,824 Apparatus and method for cleaning teeth
6,151,029 Texture mapping with improved technique for selecting an appropriate level in filtered representations of the texture
6,136,382 Method and compositions for decorating vitreous articles with radiation curable inks having improved adhesion and durability
6,110,143 Inflation/deflation medical device
6,093,455 Method and compositions for decorating glass
6,092,249 Constant pressure seating system
6,086,008 Apparatus and method for permitting introduction and withdrawal of a catheter
6,077,246 Medical irrigation pump and system
6,070,761 Vial loading method and apparatus for intelligent admixture and delivery of intravenous drugs
6,062,600 Anti-tipping mechanism
6,062,023 Cantilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
6,021,735 Book mark for dual column page
5,991,393 Method for telephony call blending
5,989,423 Disposable cassette, delivery set and system for peritoneal dialysis
5,988,167 Foam cuff for laryngeal mask airway
5,985,376 Apparatus and method for screen printing radiation curable compositions
5,983,136 System for delivery of drugs by transport
5,975,225 Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement using CG modification
5,971,091 Transportation vehicles and methods
5,935,105 Intravenous-line air-elimination system
5,905,500 Method and apparatus for adaptive nonlinear projective rendering
5,877,779 Method and apparatus for efficient rendering of three-dimensional scenes
5,845,350 Cradle mattress
5,812,141 Method and apparatus for an adaptive texture mapping controller
5,803,012 Book mark
5,794,730 Indication system for vehicle
5,791,425 Control loop for transportation vehicles
5,772,637 Intravenous-line flow-control system
5,738,067 Cosmetics container
5,713,865 Intravenous-line air-elimination system
5,708,047 Decorating method and products
5,701,965 Human transporter
5,682,901 Method and apparatus for measuring autonomic activity of a patient
5,667,878 Surface treated applicators and related methods
5,667,856 Radiation curable pigmented compositions and decorated substrates
5,656,336 Glass decorating method using bis-phenol-a epoxy resins and related compositions and articles
5,641,892 Intravenous-line air-detection system
5,634,896 Liquid pumping mechanisms for peritoneal dialysis systems employing fluid pressure
5,628,908 Peritoneal dialysis systems and methods employing a liquid distribution and pump cassette with self-contained air isolation and removal
5,585,153 Hot stamping glass
5,578,012 Medical fluid pump
5,575,310 Flow control system with volume-measuring system using a resonatable mass
5,571,359 Radiation curable pigmented compositions
5,570,716 Inflation control system
5,562,951 Method for printing articles with multiple radiation curable compositions
5,550,960 Method and apparatus for performing dynamic texture mapping for complex surfaces
5,533,389 Method and system for measuring volume and controlling flow
5,529,781 Cosmetic color display apparatus and methods
5,526,844 Flow conrol system
5,526,546 Surface treated applicators having bristles coated with an etched layer ions produced by an ion-producing gas plasma
5,522,568 Position stick with automatic trim control
5,520,973 Decorating method and products
5,487,927 Decorating method and products

I'm quite convinced is the "Apparatus and method for cleaning teeth, 6,155,824". Wouldn't that be revolutionary ;)

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

• 6,092,249 - Constant pressure seating system
• 6,062,600 - Anti-tipping mechanism
• 6,062,023 - Cnatilevered crankshaft stirling cycle machine
• 5,975,225 - Transportation vehicles with stability enhancement ising CG modification
• 5,971,091 - Transportation vehicles and methods
• 5,794,730 - Indication system for vehicles
• 5,791,425 - Control loop for transportation vehicles
• 5,701,965 - Human transporter
• 5,522,568 - Position stick with automatic trim control

A quick search at the USPTO for DEKA and Kamen yields some 39 patents. Broadly, the categories are:

• medical equipment related to fluid transport... eeeeeeew!
• human transportation over rough terrain/stairs

If this is any indication of what IT is, my bet is on the transport (see patents 5,701,965 5,971,091 and 5,975,225). I can't see selling that many Catamenial collectors (patent 6,168,609).

In fact I'm having trouble finding any patent that specifically patents genes themselves. About the closest is 5,986,080 - Cloned nucleotide pyrophosphohydrolase and uses thereof, which describes itself thus:

The present invention relates generally to the manipulation of genetic materials and particularly to the manufacture and use of specific DNA sequences useful in recombinant procedures to secure the production of peptides having one or more properties of nucleotide pyrophosphohydrolase.

In fact I'm having trouble finding any patent that specifically patents genes themselves. About the closest is 5,986,080 - Cloned nucleotide pyrophosphohydrolase and uses thereof, which describes itself thus:

The present invention relates generally to the manipulation of genetic materials and particularly to the manufacture and use of specific DNA sequences useful in recombinant procedures to secure the production of peptides having one or more properties of nucleotide pyrophosphohydrolase.

In fact I'm having trouble finding any patent that specifically patents genes themselves. About the closest is 5,986,080 - Cloned nucleotide pyrophosphohydrolase and uses thereof, which describes itself thus:

The present invention relates generally to the manipulation of genetic materials and particularly to the manufacture and use of specific DNA sequences useful in recombinant procedures to secure the production of peptides having one or more properties of nucleotide pyrophosphohydrolase.

If you read the abstract and the rest of the patent, it's clear there is no claim on the gene itself. All that is stated is

A method of detecting cone-photoreceptor-based vision disorders is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises the steps of examining the amino acid sequences of a patient's L or M photopigments and correlating the amino acid combinations associated with vision disorder.

That's all the abstract says, absolutely nothing like patenting human genes. That simply is a poorly written press release by the company. The only thing that is disturbing is that nobody must have questioned that statement and double checked its legitimacy.

One more thing, what can actually be patented. From the FAQ of the patent office, there are several key statements made

Interpretations of the statute by the courts have defined the limits of the field of subject matter which can be patented, thus it has been held that the laws of nature, physical phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable subject matter.
Any person whoinvents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent

This makes clear several things- firstly The Onion article about the patenting of one's and zero's by Microsoft cannot come true, that gravity and genes can't be patented as well, and finally processes such as the infamous one-click shopping system are legitimate (which is of course why some of those got past in the first place). The question lies in whether or not it's a new and original idea.

If you read the abstract and the rest of the patent, it's clear there is no claim on the gene itself. All that is stated is

A method of detecting cone-photoreceptor-based vision disorders is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises the steps of examining the amino acid sequences of a patient's L or M photopigments and correlating the amino acid combinations associated with vision disorder.

That's all the abstract says, absolutely nothing like patenting human genes. That simply is a poorly written press release by the company. The only thing that is disturbing is that nobody must have questioned that statement and double checked its legitimacy.

One more thing, what can actually be patented. From the FAQ of the patent office, there are several key statements made

Interpretations of the statute by the courts have defined the limits of the field of subject matter which can be patented, thus it has been held that the laws of nature, physical phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable subject matter.
Any person whoinvents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent

This makes clear several things- firstly The Onion article about the patenting of one's and zero's by Microsoft cannot come true, that gravity and genes can't be patented as well, and finally processes such as the infamous one-click shopping system are legitimate (which is of course why some of those got past in the first place). The question lies in whether or not it's a new and original idea.

Isn't it odd that no reference to the patent was actually given in the story.

Stop griping and get a grip! This is a legitimate medical testing patent.

At some point patents went from being valid for 17 years from when they were issued to 20 years from when they were filed. I think this falls under the 17 year case, and it was issued November 11, 1986. That means it will expire November 11, 2003.

That is great news for free software, because it means that you can do boolean calculations of graphical shapes (important to efficient screen updating) go vastly faster than, say, maintaining a list of rectangles.

It would, in general, be real useful for someone to keep an eye on the patent that are currently expiring and to make suggestions on which ones would be good candidates for free software. This is harder than you might think, not just because of the legalese but because patents usually don't say they are for software but are couched in terms of mechanical or electronic devices, so it's not even clear when a software patent exists.

Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc

The only independent claim states:
1. A method performed by a marketplace computer for facilitating electronic commerce over a network between a plurality of seller and buyer computers, the method comprising the steps of:
presenting a registration web page to a remote first seller computer over the network;
receiving a first registration for a first product from the first seller computer over the network, the first registration including a first product description and a first Universal Resource Locator (URL) indicating a first location of a first image of the first product, the first location referencing the first seller computer or a third computer on the network, and the first image being in one of a plurality of predetermined source image formats;
presenting a registration web page to a remote second seller computer over the network;
receiving a second registration for a second product from the second seller computer over the network the second registration including a second product description and a second URL indicating a second location of a second image of the second product, the second location referencing the second seller computer or a fourth computer on the network, and the second image being in one of a plurality of predetermined source image formats;
retrieving the first image based on the received first URL;
manipulating the first image to produce a first thumbnail image of a first predetermined size and format;
retrieving the second image based on the received second URL;
manipulating the second image to produce a second thumbnail image of a second predetermined size and format;
creating a customized web page including the first and second thumbnail images; and
presenting the customized web page to a buyer computer.

Nowthen, in order to infringe this patent (i.e. potentially be sued by EBay) there has to be at least 2 seller computers and a buyer computer involved, in an ecommerce situation. The images must be referenced from a third location.

This claim (although not particularly deep) certainly overcomes most of the "prior art" that has been tossed around. For example, all individual photo galleries, like the one shown here reference larger images on the same site. Furthermore, they are not in the context of ecommerce. Most sites generally have thumbnails of other images on the same site. This is not the case that is protected by EBay.

Seriously, read the claim FIRST, then bitch about the scope of the patent.

Thalia

Even more Ebay patents...

1 6,167,386 Method for conducting an on-line bidding session with bid pooling
2 6,073,117 Mutual credit server apparatus and a distributed mutual credit system
3 6,058,417 Information presentation and management in an online trading environment
4 6,058,379 Real-time network exchange with seller specified exchange parameters and interactive seller participation
5 6,044,363 Automatic auction method
6 6,012,045 Computer-based electronic bid, auction and sale system, and a system to teach new/non-registered customers how bidding, auction purchasing works

You can find them here.

Got this from the United States Patent and Trademark Office

cheers
mike

In case anyone wants to actually read the patent before commenting about it, you can view the text at NetZero patent.

What is claimed is: 1. A digital information storage, retrieval and display system comprising: a central computer means in which plural blocks of information are stored at respectively corresponding locations, each of which locations is designated by a predetermined address therein by means of which a block can be selected, each of said blocks comprising a first portion containing information for display and a second portion containing information not for display but including the complete address for each of plural other blocks of information;

IANAL, but someone previously stated that a patent only covers that which it exactly describes.

• This would not include hypertext in most situations as the "information not for display" is stored without "including the complete address for each of plural other blocks of information".
• Also this would only apply to a storage system where the displayable info is first and the non displayed info is second. This does not correspond to the A tag in html in which the address is stored before the information for display. The BT people are pretty obviously extending the exact meaning of the patent to cover something which is not covered by it.

Again, I am not a lawyer, and this is just my interpretation of the patent. Please correct me if I am wrong.

First, the patent claims call out a central computer (server), and a plurality of remote terminal means (clients), and modems. This means that the owners of the server can at best be sued for contributory infringement which means that they, along with the users, together infringe. This is a much harder case.

Second, most computers currently used are not terminals, they are independent PCs. Therefore, BT must use the doctrine of equivalents to show infringement. This is not easy.

Third, the claims are in the "means for" format. This means that only the appartus that is actually described in the specification can infringe the patent. Now the specification (which is the body of the patent) describes a system that uses analog modems to connect to a central computer via telephone lines (no network here).

This patent really appears to be about using an index of abbreviations (like titles) which are individually unique, to request data. The unique titles refer to unique addresses, at which the data is located. This certainly is not hyperlinks, except by the most strained of interpretations.

Don't expect this case to change the world of patents. Maybe, expect this case to be settled, if BT is asking for less than a lawyer would charge (if the licensing fee is under $100,000, it's just simpler to pay up... a standard patent lawsuit costs $1.5M or more.) Or, expect this patent go away when at the Markman hearing it is interpretted to not cover hyperlinks.

Thalia

This is not legal advice, so don't even think it.

If a patent claim covers some proper subset of hyperlinking techniques, then a hypertext system (which, as you state, necessarily also contains a description of some hyperlinking technique or techniques) is prior art with respect to the patent if and only if the set of patented hyperlinking techniques has some members in common with the set of hyperlinking techniques used in the prior example.

1974... Which patent are you referring to? I'm talking about the one referred to in the New Scientist article, the one that the suit is apparently over (U.S. Patent 4,873,662).

I don't get it. I read the patent and to me it sounds like it could be misinterpreted to cover anything from dial-up BBSs to OS/400 (all you RPG/II programmers out there, you understand), but I don't see anywhere where it could be said to cover hyperlnks.
This patent seems to be for some kind of markup language, in the primitive 'big iron' jargon of the mid- to late- '70s. So, why not try to say it's a patent for SGML? Or that SGML was infringing on prior art?
They 'discover[ed] in a routine check that [they] owned the patent for the hyperlink.' They should keep a little closer eye on their IP, I think. The 'hyperlink' has only been in use for...at least a decade...give or take.
So, in short, if you develop a method for distributing data that could become an inherent part of a revolution in the way data is perceived and used, you might wanna keep track of who's using it and how. It might be worth something someday. But, if you have a worthless patent that's good for another five or six years, don't waste your time trying to prove that it's something that it isn't.