Slashdot Mirror

theodp writes "The USPTO has reversed its earlier rejection and notified Amazon that the patent application for CEO Jeff Bezos' invention, Coordinating Delivery of a Gift, has been examined and is allowed for issuance as a patent. BTW, Amazon was represented before the USPTO by Perkins Coie, who also supplied Bezos with legal muscle in his personal fight against zoning laws that threatened to curb the size of his Medina mansion (reg.) before the City of Medina eventually gave up on regulating the size of homes (reg.)."

theodp writes "The USPTO has reversed its earlier rejection and notified Amazon that the patent application for CEO Jeff Bezos' invention, Coordinating Delivery of a Gift, has been examined and is allowed for issuance as a patent. BTW, Amazon was represented before the USPTO by Perkins Coie, who also supplied Bezos with legal muscle in his personal fight against zoning laws that threatened to curb the size of his Medina mansion (reg.) before the City of Medina eventually gave up on regulating the size of homes (reg.)."

Chris Cleveland writes "Yet another astounding patent from the USPTO. I was browsing the patent database, and discovered that Amazon received a patent today on using customer viewing histories to generate recommendations. If a customer views product A, and then later views product B, and you use that to infer a relationship between A and B, then you've infringed on this patent. This patent is a continuation of an earlier patent (#6,317,722) on using shopping carts to generate recommendations. When will this stupidity end?"

theodp writes "Remember that dicey 1996 SBC Structured Document Browser patent that Slashdot readers immediately called BS on back in 2003? Two-and-a-half years later, a USPTO Director-ordered reexam reached the same conclusion, and a final rejection was quietly issued last month."

An anonymous reader writes "It apppears that Contois Music Technology is suing Apple Computer over the UI to its iTunes music software. The suit claims patent infringement over a patent owned by Contois."

theodp writes "In seeking yet another patent related to 'single-action ordering of items,' Amazon asked the USPTO to consider a number of documents, including Doonesbury cartoons, which Amazon earlier claimed vindicated its 1-Click patent. Ironically, much of this material was collected and edited by BountyQuest, which reportedly received $1+ million from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in the name of patent reform. A USPTO examiner dutifully considered the material, and on Tuesday U.S. Patent No. 6,907,315 was issued to Amazon."

loekf writes "After the story about NTP suing Research In Motion over alleged patent infringement (do your homework, U.S. Patent Office!), there's another story on The Inquirer about a U.S. firm, Antor Media, suing a lot of companies over a 'Method and apparatus for transmitting information recorded on information storage means from a central server to subscribers via a high data rate digital telecommunications network,' see: U.S. Patent 5,734,961. When does the hurting stop!?"

MarcOiL writes "Gamasutra is running an article titled It's Just a Game, Right? Top Mythconceptions on Patent Protection of Video Games where two IP lawyers try to convince the videogame industry of patenting everything in sight: ideas, technical contributions, etc. They show as an example a Microsoft patent on Scoring based upon goals achieved and subjective elements. They also have created a weblog, The Patent Arcade, to promote their business. Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?"

Mike writes "US Patent & Trademark Office recently issued a patent to Iomega Corp. for its work with nano-technology and optical data storage. New technology, called Articulated Optical - DVD will allow 40-100 times more data (upto 850 Gb) to be stored on a DVD with data transfer rates 5-30 times faster than today's DVDs, and at similarly low costs. AO - DVD is a novel technique of encoding data on the surface of a DVD by using reflective nano-structures to encode data in a highly multi-level format."

Anonymous Howard writes "After an xapparent setback in litigation, Hormel Foods is again pursuing actions against entities and organizations over the 'spam' trademark. According to the web site of DSPAM, an open-source statistical anti-spam filter, "Anti-spam software manufacturers may be in for a rude awakening. Hormel Foods Corporation and Hormel Foods LLC have recently filed for extensions to oppose or to cancel many new and existing spam-related trademarks and are even filing a few technology trademarks of their own. The DSPAM project, a popular open source and freely available spam filtering application, has already received two such notices of opposition from the trademark trial and appeal board. The complete history can be viewed here. This came about a year after the software's user community scrounged up the fee to file for a trademark...""

theodp writes "On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted U.S. patent no. 6,895,426 for treating electronic mail addresses as objects, which Microsoft notes allows email addresses to be easily added to a contact list, copied to the computer's clipboard, or double-clicked to open the related contact information for that email address sender. After the reaction to news of his first patent, betcha inventor Dan Crevier isn't too eager to let folks know about this one."

dingram17 writes "ABC News is reporting that six U.S. computer companies (Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Microsoft and Netgear) are taking legal action to try to break a U.S. patent that the CSIRO holds on wireless networking. The CSIRO has patents on OFDM technology, as used in 802.11a and 802.11g. It has been alleged that the CSIRO demands $4 per chipset for the use of this technology. It appears that the patent in question is U.S. Patent 5,487,069 'Wireless LAN.' From a quick look, this appears to be a wide ranging patent."

schmecky05 writes "From Macrovision, the folks whom recently mandated "Thou shalt delete content promptly from thy Tivo" come the following 2 USPTO patent applications for Peer to Peer interdiction methods: "Interdiction of unauthorized copying in a decentralized network" and "System and methods for communicating over the internet with geographically distributed devices of a decentralized network using transparent asymetric return paths." These patent applications describe (in pain staking detail) how Macrovision interdicts on Peer to Peer networks to prevent illegal copyrighted file sharing from many locations across the globe and avoid ban lists as well."

schmecky05 writes "From Macrovision, the folks whom recently mandated "Thou shalt delete content promptly from thy Tivo" come the following 2 USPTO patent applications for Peer to Peer interdiction methods: "Interdiction of unauthorized copying in a decentralized network" and "System and methods for communicating over the internet with geographically distributed devices of a decentralized network using transparent asymetric return paths." These patent applications describe (in pain staking detail) how Macrovision interdicts on Peer to Peer networks to prevent illegal copyrighted file sharing from many locations across the globe and avoid ban lists as well."

theodp writes "Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was handed a patent Tuesday for Information exchange between users of different web pages. Tough to tell what exactly it might cover ('various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention'), although RSS Newsreaders, TrackBacks, and Google News come to mind. Elements of Bezos' invention may evoke a sense of deja vu in those who used Third Voice or the Annotation Engine."

theodp writes "Defending his controversial Intellectual Ventures in a less-than-hard-hitting CNET interview, ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold finds it peculiar that some people get really wound up over patents. 'People generally don't have any problem with the patent system,' quipped Myhrvold, the inventor of Microsoft's patented Television scheduling system for displaying a grid representing scheduled layout and selecting a programming parameter for display or recording, which allows you to more efficiently select shows like Elimidate for viewing."

Philipp Lenssen writes "Google registered a trademark for the word "TrustRank", as Search Engine Watch reveals. Is this a sign we can expect a follow-up to Google's PageRank? An earlier, possibly related paper on TrustRank is available; it proposes techniques to semi-automatically separate good pages from spam by the use of a small selection of reputable seed pages."

theodp writes "Charles Cella, CEO of the widely-hyped Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly funded patent reform vehicle BountyQuest, has filed for a number of patents since BountyQuest's demise, including one that covers illuminating water in a toilet bowl (see FIG. 7). Cella's co-inventors include principals of Color Kinetics, which has come under fire for strong-arm patent tactics and whose Board colorfully likens its IP to nuclear weapons."

goombah99 writes "CNET reports that the long running Forgent JPEG patent claim story has a new turn. Forgent Networks has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging the software giant infringed on its digital-image compression patent that serves as the technology behind JPEG. The suit comes in response to a suit Microsoft filed last week, asking the courts to find Forgent's patent unenforceable. '... despite Microsoft's recent inquiries about licensing the patent, they chose to file a lawsuit, leaving us no alternative but to assert infringement claims against it,' stated Richard Snyder, chief executive of Forgent. U.S. patent No. 4,698,672, relates to video image compression and transmission specifically and compression in general. The underlying technology is an amalgam of Cosine Transforms, Huffman coding, and odd details. Major corporations are respecting Forgent's claims: to date Forgent has collected about 100 million dollars in payments from computer and camera companies for this patent settling on suits with 31 companies. Past slashdot stories here, here and here. How might this impact Longhorn? Forgent has shown interest in selling it (to Compaq) so it's not unthinkable Microsoft could just buy it and own it."

howman writes "Reuters is reporting that Sony has been granted 2 patents, both describing 'Method and system for generating sensory data onto the human neural cortex'. These are patents 6,729,337 and 6,536,440. The patents go on to 'describe a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce sensory experiences such as smells, sounds and images'. The story was first broken by New Scientist magazine." Commentary also available via Ars Technica.

howman writes "Reuters is reporting that Sony has been granted 2 patents, both describing 'Method and system for generating sensory data onto the human neural cortex'. These are patents 6,729,337 and 6,536,440. The patents go on to 'describe a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce sensory experiences such as smells, sounds and images'. The story was first broken by New Scientist magazine." Commentary also available via Ars Technica.

Castar writes "Recently Advanced Video Graphics (AVG) sued several game publishers for infringing on their patent on "Method and Apparatus for Spherical Panning". Since this affects almost every 3D video game, the International Game Developers Association sent out a call for prior art in their monthly newsletter. An industry lawyer has also done an overview of the issue here. I would think lots of CAD software produced before 1983 would invalidate the patent."

theodp writes "Amazon had a dream. To bring the world a modern-day Library of Alexandria. Apparently they had a second dream. To own the patents on it. Interestingly, fears of lost cookbook and reference text sales voiced by the Author's Guild are echoed in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's patent application for the Suppression of features in digital images of content and a9.com CEO Udi Manber's follow up Access to electronic images of text based on user ownership of corresponding physical text, which discuss how one might block content from viewers who have no proof-of-purchase for a book on file with booksellers."

theodp writes "Amazon had a dream. To bring the world a modern-day Library of Alexandria. Apparently they had a second dream. To own the patents on it. Interestingly, fears of lost cookbook and reference text sales voiced by the Author's Guild are echoed in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's patent application for the Suppression of features in digital images of content and a9.com CEO Udi Manber's follow up Access to electronic images of text based on user ownership of corresponding physical text, which discuss how one might block content from viewers who have no proof-of-purchase for a book on file with booksellers."

theodp writes "When it unveiled a beta of Plogs (personalized blogs), a nonpublication request Amazon had in effect prevented the USPTO from disclosing that Plogs were patent-pending. But now you can check out Amazon's patent application for the Personalized selection and display of user-supplied content to enhance browsing of electronic catalogs, which describes how 'blurbs' can be made available in a blog format for viewing by others."

DigitumDei writes "Symantec announced on Wednesday that it has aquired a new patent (United States Patent - 6,851,057) titled "Data driven detection of viruses". Symantec has declined to comment on whether it will pursue litigation. Symantec's director of intellectual property Michael Schallop stated : 'We don't generally discuss how we will leverage this patent against competitors or others,'." From the article: "[The patent] could refer to any technology that allows antivirus researchers or antivirus products to use scripting to determine, dynamically, where in a file to scan and detect threats. It could also include the use of Javascript or other common scripting languages to direct antivirus scanning..."

An anonymous reader submits "Zophar's Domain is reporting that the CEO of commerical multi-arcade kit seller UltraCade has applied to trademark the name and logo of the ubiquitous open-source multi-arcade emulator MAME and is planning to sue MAME's authors." Update: 02/21 13:26 GMT by T : UltraCade Technologies CEO David R. Foley contacted Slashdot with an emailed explanation of the filing, reproduced below at his request. Update: 02/21 18:16 GMT by T : Please note that Foley's email specifically states that "There have been no lawsuits filed against any of the M.A.M.E. authors, and there have been no claims towards the open source engine, nor will there be."

"Subject: I would hope that you post this to correct your misstated comments on slash dot
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 01:27:43 -0800

Like most things that are spread by rumor, the facts about me, UltraCade Technologies, and the M.A.M.E. emulation system are quite distorted. I will try and educate anyone who cares to listen about the reality of our marketplace and what we are doing and what we are not. Simply put, we are making an effort to stamp out the commercial sales of M.A.M.E. based systems that advertise the ability to play thousands of games while relying on the customer to obtain the ROMs which can not legally be obtained. What we are not doing is trying to claim ownership of the M.A.M.E. open source emulator or sue its authors. We are concerned about the commercial marketplace, and not the readers of the many M.A.M.E. user groups and forums.

I have been working on emulation technology since the mid 80's when I did work on an emulation project in college. In 1994, while working on games for companies like Sega and Williams, we developed an emulation of the arcade games Joust, Defender and Robotron that ran on a Sega Genesis. In 1996, we started the Lucky 8 project which turned into the UltraCade project. In 1998 we were one of the first companies to acquire the rights to classic arcade games from various publishers. We have licensed games from several manufacturers including Capcom, Jaleco, Taito, Stern, Incredible Technologies, Midway, Atari and more. We have started several projects and built prototypes for companies like Sega, based on technology that was licensed from authors from the emulation community. We have licensed technology from many of the communities programmers, paying them to use their code in our products and demonstrations. We have been the leader of the retro arcade movement, and have invested millions of dollars creating a market for retro games. UltraCade was the first successful multi-game arcade machine combining many of the old classics. We further enhanced the market by creating Arcade Legends, our consumer version of the UltraCade product. We have also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees to have the right to sell our games.

In the past couple of years, there has been a huge wave of resellers competing with our UltraCade and Arcade Legends products. They build a similar style cabinet, install a PC in the machine, load M.A.M.E., and sell it for a very low price. Lower than we could ever offer our machines for sale. How? Quite Simple. They profit by stealing others work. If you look at the web sites, and read the eBay ads they offer machines that "Play over 4,000 Classic Arcade Games" They then try and skirt the law by pretending that they are not promoting piracy of these same 4,000 games with statements like "we don't load the ROMs" but of course, almost all of them do. The others that don't, they provide you with an instruction sheet with a link to several web sites where you can illegally download the ROMs, or provide you with the contact information for a CD/DVD duplication house that will sell you a set of ROMs for all 4,000 games for less than $200. Would anyone really buy this arcade machine if they knew that there was no legal way for them to run over 99% of the games that they were promised, I don't think so, and if you really look at this without emotion, I'm sure you would agree. These companies are simply selling the promise of thousands of games on a machine that can not possibly run them legally. I sometimes hear the argument, "well, I could go on eBay and buy up all of these games and then run it", and while plausible, it certainly would not be anywhere near cost effective, and again, if the customer knew that to legally operate these games, they have to spend thousands of dollars buying legal ROMs I seriously doubt that they would consider purchasing a M.A.M.E. machine. Anyone reading this email thread is an intelligent person, and if they put emotions aside, they will realize that what we are saying about selling M.A.M.E. machines and the promise of getting 4,000 games for the average consumer can't possibly happen. Unlike most of you reading this, the average consumer looking to buy a machine for their game room has no idea how emulation works, or what is legal and illegal to do. To them, they read an advertisement on a website or on eBay and compare our product with 50 games or an ad for a machine that promises thousands of games, with the promise of instructions about how to obtain those games. Of course, in this skewed environment the average consumer would gravitate towards the thousands of games machine, not realizing that the software and the games are unlicensed and illegal to play. Most consumers who are pointed at a web site selling a 7 DVD set of ROMs have no idea that this is an act of piracy, they were simply instructed to do this by the person selling them their arcade cabinet, and told this is how you get the games.

Now that we have attempted to take legal recourse to prevent illegal competition, the same people, who steal the work of the M.A.M.E. authors, and then profit by selling machines that have no value without the pirated games being made available, turn around and cry foul when we call them on their ways. They run to the M.A.M.E. discussion forums and spread rumors about UltraCade suing the authors of M.A.M.E. or stealing the M.A.M.E. engine. I'm amazed at the response of the community, a community that is being whipped into action by the same people who are stealing and profiting from them and they're efforts. Many people have reacted with hate mail without even considering to look at the facts of the situation, or to realize who is spreading the rumors. They are being spread by those who wish to profit by selling unlicensed games.

The simple fact is that we are attempting to stop the tide of illegal arcade machines, and the promotion of unlicensed games. The M.A.M.E. platform, while a technical marvel, consists of many violations of copyrights and trademarks. The authors have always stated in the documentation that it was not put into the public domain to steal from the game authors or publishers, and they have always been hands off about how to obtain the ROMs. They have also clearly stated that it is not to be used for commercial gains. A majority of the publishers who own the copyrighted material have not paid much attention to this marketplace, as until recently it has not had a huge commercial impact. But now, there are websites and eBay sellers selling machines that directly compete with legitimate publishers like us who publish games from Capcom, Taito, Midway, Atari and others, or publishers like Namco that publish Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga or the Donkey Kong/Mario Bros. machines.

Of the many thousands of games that M.A.M.E. supports, only a minute fraction of them can legally be played on a M.A.M.E. equipped machine, and many can not. There are many fallacies about the legality of owning ROMs and how you can play the game. Many people claim that they have a board set and therefore they can download as many ROMs as they like. The law is very strict. You can transfer the image from the actual original ROM chips, which you legally own, to another piece of hardware, provided that you actually transfer the code from the chips. Just having a board sitting around, and saying I have the right to play it is not the case. Many people point to StarROMs and say that they can then sell the games with the ROMs installed. This is not the case either. StarROMs license prohibits the resale of the game licenses, and only the end user can purchase these ROM images, resellers can not. Our market is further plagued by the rash of 4 in 1, 9 in 1, 24 in 1 39 in 1 and the new 300 in 1 "multicade" boards. These boards come from Taiwan and Hong Kong and contain illegal copies of the ROMs of several games.

This is a complex case amongst companies that are trying to make it about UltraCade stealing something from the M.A.M.E. team. That is not what this is about. This is simply UltraCade Technologies and other publishers doing whatever it takes to protect our commercial interests and prevent other companies from stealing our market by capitalizing on unlicensed games and selling products that only have value when coupled with illegally obtained games. Our application towards a trademark is to simply prevent anyone from commercially marketing an illegal product, nothing more. There have been no lawsuits filed against any of the M.A.M.E. authors, and there have been no claims towards the open source engine, nor will there be We are simply protecting our commercial market, and nothing more. We have no interest in the hobby community. We have no interest in the open source project. Our goal is to simply stop the rampant piracy in our marketplace, and we will use every means at our disposal to do so.

I welcome open discussions about this situation, and will respond to legitimate communications or questions.

-David R. Foley

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------

David R. Foley
UltraCade Technologies"

theodp writes "While Google pooh-poohed any comparison of its controversial AutoLink feature to Microsoft's SmartTag technology, Google's generation of dynamic links to maps and use of ISBN numbers to trigger links to booksellers cover the same territory as Microsoft's 2000 patent application for Providing electronic commerce actions based on semantically labeled strings, whose sole inventor - Jeff Reynar - was the lead SmartTag Program Manager while at MS and is reportedly now a Google Product Manager who's being credited as AutoLink's creator. Reynar's patent applications that have been assigned to Microsoft, including one for Smart Links and Tags, describe a world of 'recognizer' plug-ins that automatically look at every document a user creates, receives or views, transmitting messages to 'action' plug-ins - and even to the plug-ins' authors - that can be used to decide what info you'll be presented with, what options you'll be given, what price you'll pay for goods, and even who you'll be permitted to buy from."

theodp writes "While Google pooh-poohed any comparison of its controversial AutoLink feature to Microsoft's SmartTag technology, Google's generation of dynamic links to maps and use of ISBN numbers to trigger links to booksellers cover the same territory as Microsoft's 2000 patent application for Providing electronic commerce actions based on semantically labeled strings, whose sole inventor - Jeff Reynar - was the lead SmartTag Program Manager while at MS and is reportedly now a Google Product Manager who's being credited as AutoLink's creator. Reynar's patent applications that have been assigned to Microsoft, including one for Smart Links and Tags, describe a world of 'recognizer' plug-ins that automatically look at every document a user creates, receives or views, transmitting messages to 'action' plug-ins - and even to the plug-ins' authors - that can be used to decide what info you'll be presented with, what options you'll be given, what price you'll pay for goods, and even who you'll be permitted to buy from."

theodp writes "While Google pooh-poohed any comparison of its controversial AutoLink feature to Microsoft's SmartTag technology, Google's generation of dynamic links to maps and use of ISBN numbers to trigger links to booksellers cover the same territory as Microsoft's 2000 patent application for Providing electronic commerce actions based on semantically labeled strings, whose sole inventor - Jeff Reynar - was the lead SmartTag Program Manager while at MS and is reportedly now a Google Product Manager who's being credited as AutoLink's creator. Reynar's patent applications that have been assigned to Microsoft, including one for Smart Links and Tags, describe a world of 'recognizer' plug-ins that automatically look at every document a user creates, receives or views, transmitting messages to 'action' plug-ins - and even to the plug-ins' authors - that can be used to decide what info you'll be presented with, what options you'll be given, what price you'll pay for goods, and even who you'll be permitted to buy from."

theodp writes "The USPTO has published Amazon.com's patent application for Persistently storing and serving event data, which describes a9.com's personal search history feature and lists a9.com CEO Udi Manber as an inventor. Interestingly, claim 48 describes a user interface that responds to a user's request to "delete" his search history by rendering it "undisplayable" to him, but still leaving it accessible for other uses. When filed back in 2003, Amazon asked the USPTO not to publish the application, but rescinded that request last May, presumably in anticipation of its filing for an international patent."

wikinerd writes "According to The Register, Microsoft seeks to hire new patent experts. In their words, patent experience itself "is helpful but not mandatory" and advance knowledge of patent law is not required. The applicants need only be Computer Science or Electrical Engineering PhD holders, without any qualification in law. They will be involved in prior art search, patentability research and technical analysis. The article outlines some of the most controversial MS patents, such as online bill payment."

CheesyPeteza writes "GameSpot is reporting that the popular game messenger client Xfire is being sued by Yahoo for patent infringement. The patent was originally granted to two Yahoo employees who developed GameProwler for Yahoo Messenger. It describes a system which "allows users to use a game server in connection with a messenger server to permit 'buddies' to know when other 'buddies' are playing games online, and easily join such games." One of these employees then left Yahoo to work for Xfire. Xfire denies infringing on Yahoo's patent, but with the costs estimated at $2 million to defend this cas, will the startup company Xfire be able to stand up to the Yahoo giant?"

theodp writes "Q. What does Microsoft feel is unpatentable? A. Apparently nothing! On Thursday, the USPTO published Microsoft's patent application for the Compact text encoding of latitude/longitude coordinates, in which the software giant explains how a floating-point number can also be represented as a less-precise integer that's displayed in base-30 notation!" If ever I have seen a silly patent, this is it.

BadUspto writes "BetaNews reports that 'The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted software maker McAfee a patent for tracking network events on a computer using a firewall. The patent filing involves tracing the location of an incoming connection and displaying a map showing where the remote system geographically resides.' Doomsday for VisualRoute and others?"

ball-lightning writes "This article attempts to decipher the patent filed by the STI group (IBM, Sony, and Toshiba) on their upcoming Cell technology (most notably going to be used in the PS3). If it's as good as this article claims, the Cell chip could eventually take over the PC market."

devil_doll writes "I saw over on p2pnet that Altnet is trying to 'mug' a number of P2P companies with seemingly bogus patents. One of them is titled 'Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers,' and appears to be nothing more than a simple hash table."

theodp writes "Courtesy of a Microsoft patent reassignment, MS spin-off Expedia was awarded its first patent Tuesday for Matching an offer with a quote, which essentially consists of pairing a customer with the supplier quoting the lowest rate. Prior to this invention, Microsoft explained, 'An effective electronic exchange system for satisfying an offer by a purchaser with a quote from a supplier has eluded those skilled in the art.'"

theodp writes "Courtesy of a Microsoft patent reassignment, MS spin-off Expedia was awarded its first patent Tuesday for Matching an offer with a quote, which essentially consists of pairing a customer with the supplier quoting the lowest rate. Prior to this invention, Microsoft explained, 'An effective electronic exchange system for satisfying an offer by a purchaser with a quote from a supplier has eluded those skilled in the art.'"

theodp writes "The USPTO disclosed Thursday that Microsoft is seeking an early childhood education-related patent for Providing instructional feedback to a user, which the software giant says covers the use of computers to teach little tykes to form the letter 'b', make a 'ch' sound, and divide 321 by 17. Let's hope LeapPad-toting preschoolers are indemnified against Microsoft lawsuits." "Unstructured" is the key word in this patent, which (like most) is written in language that does more to obscure than illuminate. Just how structured was Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing? How about GCompris?

Milhouse102 writes "I was just reading an article on The Register about Microsoft's offshore patent war following Ballmer's recent outburst in Asia. I came across this little nugget, it seems MS has patented BASIC's IsNot operator."

CyNRG writes "The little guy. The one-person software company. Can it still exist today? That's me. I'm once again, after many years, writing my own commercial software to sell. A few things have changed: the patent feeding frenzy. This is my main concern. My perception is that one must verify that you don't infringe on any patents when developing new cool software, and that the explosion of patents granted by the USPTO has reached epic proportions. If this perception is true, then that makes it almost impossible for the Lone Coder to create something new that doesn't infringe on other patents. The amount of money required to perform the due diligence research seems like it would be greater than the amount of money needed to develop the software, or even the total revenues that the software could ever generate. Please someone tell me I'm wrong!" Is he?

theodp writes "Microsoft alum Nathan Myhrvold so strongly believes intellectual property is the next software that he's studying for the patent bar exam. His company, Intellectual Ventures, doesn't actually make anything - only patent attorneys roam the hallways. Myhrvold isn't the only true believer. Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, and eBay have contributed to a $350M bankroll which the firm is using to buy up existing patents that can be rented to companies who want to produce real products."

theodp writes "Microsoft was granted a patent Tuesday for Displaying data containing outlying data items, covering the familiar concept of broken y-axis bar charts. Oddly, Microsoft's 2002 'invention' is described in detail in a 1999 listserv post and found its way into scientific journals and other sources before the patent's claims were disclosed. BTW, the patent's term was extended by 269 days, apparently the USPTO's way of apologizing for initially rejecting the patent."

LostInTranslation asks: "If I were an MBA looking to make a fantastic new dotcom company, I would look around places like /. to try and net some technical wizards to do my bidding. Sites like this collect that kind of tech genius. But the problem is that I already am a technical wizard, and what I need is someone who is driven to sell wizardry. Where does one find that kind of person? Is there some kind of newsgroup they frequent? I've done a few searches, but nothing of value came up. How does a geek find a suit that wants to be exploited?" "I should clarify: I've run at least two quasi-successful companies in the past ten years, bootstrapping and innovating along. I don't want to run my own business anymore. It's tiring, it takes me away from the front lines, and I don't have the right personality for it. I am looking for a business partner who can turn my good ideas into success stories. I've got angel investors waiting for something to spend on, I've got a massive number of satellite resources to make any idea shine, but I'm missing someone with that je ne sais quoi ... that chutzpah, that integrity in the face of adversity. And I'm not gambling anyone's money on my ideas when I'm fully aware I don't want to run the show.

Someone out there in Slash-land must know where these people collect. They all seem too buzzword-aware to not be on the web somewhere. So give it up: where are they hiding?"

Fouquet writes "Apparently the Department of Homeland Security does not have enough to do in keeping the US safe, and now is enforcing copyright law as well. The AP reports that a toy store owner in Oregon was requested by Homeland Security officials to remove a potentially copyright-infringing Rubik's cube-like toy from her shelves. The patent for Rubik's cube was issued in 1980, and so it is expired."

theodp writes "Do you use drop-down menus, alphanumerical input boxes, check boxes, radio buttons or sliders to allow client side-processing of data? Utilize SQL, HTML, ActiveX, Java, Perl, JavaScript or JScript to do so? Employ arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, or decision trees to organize things? Well Bunky, you might be infringing on Microsoft's new patent for Dynamically adjusting data values and enforcing valid combinations of the data in response to remote user input, which the USPTO granted Tuesday after 6+ years and two rejections."

pcp_ip writes "Honeywell filed suit Wednesday against 34 companies (including, Apple, Dell, Sony, Kodak, Fuji et al.) for infringment of patent 5,280,371. The patent for "a directional diffuser for a liquid crystal display" was filed on January 1994 and enables "a display to produce a brighter image without requiring additional power." Honeywell is looking for an injunction to prevent the defendants from continuing to infringe its patent, and for "damages adequate to compensate them for Defendants infringement." So much for LCD prices coming down! Where's OLED when you need it?"

Glenn Fleishman writes "Acacia Technologies is turning its sights from collecting streaming media patent fees to Wi-Fi hotspot gateway redirection, we report at Wi-Fi Networking News. The company acquired a patent that they say covers the use of technology that redirects a login attempt by an unauthenticated user to a login gateway page. They want a minimum of $1,000 per quarter in royalties. Nomadix already claims a patent on this, while we quote an early Wayport executive who says that Wayport has prior art on it. Will community hotspots using NoCatAuth fall under this patent-enforcement attempt? Too early to tell."

ancice writes "The 2004 Ig Nobel prizes are out. Article by New Scientist. An 'invisible gorilla has scooped the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize for Psychology'. And 'dropped food is safe to eat if it has spent no more than five seconds on the floor' - Public Health. Finally, there's proof for the 5 second rule! And for Engineering, 'Patenting of the combover'. Official page with ceremony and lectures."