Slashdot Mirror

dkh2 writes "It's being reported other places as well but, there's a very nice story over at Groklaw about efforts by the Public Patent Foundation (PubPat) to get Microsoft's patent on FAT restricted or revoked. Bearing in mind that Microsoft still has right of appeal, The USPTO has rejected Microsofts FAT patent." Our earlier story reported on efforts to overturn this patent.

ivec writes "Immersion Corporation announced that the jury returned a verdict favorable to Immersion in its patent infringement suit against Sony Computer Entertainment. The jury found that Sony infringed all the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,275,213 and 6,424,333 and that those claims were valid. I was surprised how recent these filings were (2000 and 2001). The patents cover 'vibrating devices' such as joysticks."

ivec writes "Immersion Corporation announced that the jury returned a verdict favorable to Immersion in its patent infringement suit against Sony Computer Entertainment. The jury found that Sony infringed all the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,275,213 and 6,424,333 and that those claims were valid. I was surprised how recent these filings were (2000 and 2001). The patents cover 'vibrating devices' such as joysticks."

dautelle asks: "I had the nasty surprise to receive a letter from a company in New-Zealand asking me to stop using the 'jade' name they have recently trademarked (my open source project has been Java Addition to Default Environment or JADE for short, long before their trademark filing date). I am going to comply, but I wonder if our open-source projects should be trademarked (cost >300$) to prevent such misfortune?"

prostoalex writes "InterWoven patented locating and identifying image content via shapes, texture, color or resemblance to another image. No official word yet on whether the company thinks there are any infringers."

Scooby Snacks writes "It looks like Microsoft and the United States Patent and Trademark Office have done it again. It would appear that Microsoft, in their extensive R&D labs, have developed a way to control a web browser through the use of a keyboard. What's next, a method for displaying a plurality of running programs, each in its own defined rectangular viewing area?"

Scooby Snacks writes "It looks like Microsoft and the United States Patent and Trademark Office have done it again. It would appear that Microsoft, in their extensive R&D labs, have developed a way to control a web browser through the use of a keyboard. What's next, a method for displaying a plurality of running programs, each in its own defined rectangular viewing area?"

Jimmy O Regan writes "Justin Mason (of SpamAssassin fame) has this blog entry: US Patent 6,775,781, filed by Microsoft, is a patent on the concept of 'a process configured to run under an administrative privilege level' which, based on authorization information 'in a data store', may perform actions at administrative privilege on behalf of a 'user process'."

theodp writes "Bill Gates said Thursday that Microsoft expects to file 3,000 patent applications this year, up from a little over 2,000 last year and 1,000 just a few years ago. 'We think--patent for patent--what we are doing is, if anything, more important than what others are doing,' said Gates, perhaps referring to 'Organizing and displaying photographs based on time,' which the USPTO published just hours before Gates spoke."

theodp writes "If the patent system ain't broke, don't fix it: The NY Times/IHT reports that four inventors working for Toyota in Japan have won a patent for a car that they say can help drivers communicate better by glaring angrily at another car cutting through traffic, as well as appear to cry, laugh, wink or just look around." The article goes on to describe "...a car with an antenna that wags, an adjustable body height, headlights that vary in intensity and hood slits and ornamentation designed to look like eyebrows, eyelids and tears."

theodp writes "Through its WebTV unit, Microsoft was awarded a patent Tuesday for a system and method for encouraging viewers to watch television programs, such as offering viewers frequent-flier miles for identifying the name of a sponsor or the color of an announcer's shirt. In other news, Microsoft took a District Court to task for failing to recognize the existence of prior art for the Eolas web plug-in patent, resulting in a $521 million judgment against the software giant."

mark_wilkins writes "Microsoft and Apple have been sued by Teleshuttle Technologies, LLC, alleging that their online software updating technology infringes a patent on providing online updates to software with a menuing system to permit the user to pick the updates. Apparently the work on which the patent is based supposedly goes back to 1990."

Twenty years ago, Terry Welch's improvement on Lempel-Ziv compression appeared in IEEE Computer magazine. The authors of unix 'compress' and the GIF standard incorporated that algorithm without realizing it was patent-pending. When the submarine patent surfaced ten years later, its new owner Unisys intimidated developers and web authors into moving away from GIFs, inspiring the creation of a better standard, though sadly still a less popular one. Today, July 7, 2004, Unisys's last LZW patent (in Canada) expires, leaving GIF once again free... almost. See, there's the small matter of IBM's patent, granted on the same algorithm, which is valid for another two years. That still has a chilling effect on GIF development, though the consensus seems to be that IBM would lose any court action it tried to bring. So how about it, IBM? You've got nothing to lose! Want to make a lot of geeks happy and release that final patent into the public domain?

theodp writes "After two rejections, Amazon was granted a patent Tuesday for the Extraction of bank routing number from information entered by a user, which covers the process of obtaining a routing and checking account number from information entered by a user from the face of a check. The patent application was filed in the week preceding Amazon's Call for Patent Reform."

theodp writes "After two rejections, Amazon was granted a patent Tuesday for the Extraction of bank routing number from information entered by a user, which covers the process of obtaining a routing and checking account number from information entered by a user from the face of a check. The patent application was filed in the week preceding Amazon's Call for Patent Reform."

little1973 writes "Digital Envoy recived patent 6,757,740 for determining, collecting and using geographic locations of Internet users. I didn't know a patent could be obtained for a simple traceroute and some lookups in a DB." The patent talks about a bit more than this (such as assigning confidence levels to bits of the looked-up information), but the long list of referenced previous patents reminds me of the saying "If you copy one person, it's plagiarism; if you copy a dozen, it's research."

I_am_Rambi writes "According to the US Patent office, patent #6,756,999 belongs to Microsoft. The patent this time is grouping taskbar icons processes. This is included in Windows XP, and some prior art in X. Looks like it was accepted two days ago."

Darian writes "Following on the heels of Commodore's introduction of portable digital music players Sony has stepped up to the plate with their first Walkman branded product. Reuters has the story and The Register has a couple more photos. Gizmodo has an anonymous tip from a Sony insider. The NW-HD1 is a 'credit card-sized' 8.9m x 6.2 x 1.4cm unit fitted with a 20GB 1.8in hard drive. There's enough RAM on board to provide 25 minutes of skip-free playback. There's a seven-line LCD for track information and player status data. "We couldn't come up with something using the Walkman brand until it survived the 1 meter (3 ft 3.37 in) drop test," said Robert Ashcroft, senior vice president of Sony network services Europe. So digital music rights had nothing to do with it? Right. The unit is planned to undercut the iPod price point. Apple lawyers do have the upper hand with the scroll wheel." Update: 07/01 21:34 GMT by T : It's also the Walkman's 25th birthday; read on for more.

Player Blog writes "The Sony Walkman, icon of the 80s and direct ancestor of the iPod and its ilk, first hit the streets 25 years ago. I don't know if July 1, 1979 was the actual first day for the Walkman, but Sony is celebrating it today. I had one, I loved it and I thought it was the greatest invention ever. Take a trip down memory lane with the history and photos at the Walkman Museum."

ewhac writes "Okay, so it's not a bank branch per se, but a particular kind of bank branch -- one that has play areas for kids, serves coffee and popcorn, and has kiosks instead of teller windows. Washington Mutual has dubbed this branch design, "Occasio" (a generic Latin word meaning, "favorable opportunity," and which has probably been trademarked). The San Francisco Chronicle reports that it may be the first time the USPTO has awarded a patent for the design of a retail store/presence."

ewhac writes "Okay, so it's not a bank branch per se, but a particular kind of bank branch -- one that has play areas for kids, serves coffee and popcorn, and has kiosks instead of teller windows. Washington Mutual has dubbed this branch design, "Occasio" (a generic Latin word meaning, "favorable opportunity," and which has probably been trademarked). The San Francisco Chronicle reports that it may be the first time the USPTO has awarded a patent for the design of a retail store/presence."

tunabomber writes "IEEE Spectrum has an in-depth article about the rise of Acacia Research Corporation and its plan for enforcing its patent on 'Digital Media Technology' (which seems to lay claim to any technology that transmits audio or video digitally for entertainment purposes). You may recall that there was a story on Slashdot over a year ago about Acacia's threats and subsequent lawsuits against some small adult entertainment companies regarding their violation of the patent. There was also an Ask Slashdot posted a while back by the owner of one of these companies who had received a letter from Acacia Research demanding that they pay licensing fees. Both Slashdot stories asked how long it would be until Acacia went after the big media companies. Well, they finally did last week. It appears that Acacia just had to get enough companies (Disney and Virgin Radio, among others) to pay licensing fees before they could afford a legal adventure against the big guys. DirectTV, Comcast, Echostar, and Charter Communications are some of the defendents. Let the fireworks begin!"

Mz6 writes "Microsoft has been awarded a patent for using human skin as a power conduit and data bus. Patent No. 6,754,472, which was published Tuesday, describes a method for transmitting power and data to devices worn on the body and for communication of data between those devices. In its filing, Microsoft cites the proliferation of wearable electronic devices, such as wristwatches, pagers, PDAs (worn on people's belts) and small displays that can now be mounted on headgear. "As a result of carrying multiple portable electronic devices, there is often a significant amount of redundancy in terms of input/output devices included in the portable devices used by a single person," says the filing. "For example, a watch, pager, PDA and radio may all include a speaker." To reduce the redundancy of input/output devices, Microsoft's patent proposes a personal area network that allows a single data input or output device to be used by multiple portable devices." (What about DoCoMo's research in this area?)

markclong writes "Every year numerous illegitimate patent applications make their way through the United States patent examination process without adequate review. The problem is particularly acute in the software and Internet fields where the history of prior inventions (often called "prior art") is widely distributed and poorly documented. As a result, we have seen patents asserted on such simple technologies as One-click online shopping (U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411.), Online shopping carts (U.S. Patent No. 5,715,314.), The hyperlink (U.S. Patent No. 4,873,662.). The EFF is hosting a patent busting project to fight the most egregious abuses of the patent system."

markclong writes "Every year numerous illegitimate patent applications make their way through the United States patent examination process without adequate review. The problem is particularly acute in the software and Internet fields where the history of prior inventions (often called "prior art") is widely distributed and poorly documented. As a result, we have seen patents asserted on such simple technologies as One-click online shopping (U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411.), Online shopping carts (U.S. Patent No. 5,715,314.), The hyperlink (U.S. Patent No. 4,873,662.). The EFF is hosting a patent busting project to fight the most egregious abuses of the patent system."

markclong writes "Every year numerous illegitimate patent applications make their way through the United States patent examination process without adequate review. The problem is particularly acute in the software and Internet fields where the history of prior inventions (often called "prior art") is widely distributed and poorly documented. As a result, we have seen patents asserted on such simple technologies as One-click online shopping (U.S. Patent No. 5,960,411.), Online shopping carts (U.S. Patent No. 5,715,314.), The hyperlink (U.S. Patent No. 4,873,662.). The EFF is hosting a patent busting project to fight the most egregious abuses of the patent system."

spinozaq writes "It seems that an organization called 'United Video Properties, Inc.' has been granted patent #6,748,596, titled 'Program guide system for recording television programs.' IANAPL, but this document seems to cover too much ground, talking about pay programs and PIN numbers for parental controls. Maybe they'll sue TiVo, oh hurray."

theodp writes "'Better not get too fancy with your grocery list, now that Microsoft has patented a glorified form of the to-do list.' Issued Tuesday, the patent covers the use of a 'task list' generated from 'TODO' comments in source code."

ackthpt writes "CNN is reporting two people, one in Los Angeles and one in Canada, were caught recording The Day After Tomorrow in cinemas, while a third got away. No mention if night-vision goggles, as previously mentioned, were of assistance." Reader azmatsci writes "Tuesday Sony was issued a patent for technology that will attempt to block camcorder recordings in movie theaters. Funny to me because I just came up with the same idea and discovered it while doing a patent search. Only problem with the idea is it will only block camcorders that use CCD recorders, which are sensitive to IR light. Another jamming idea which probably work for all camcorders can be found here."

kaluta writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Microsoft was granted a patent for double-clicking on April 27. The patent in question is 6,727,830 and says, amongst other stuff: 'A default function for an application is launched if the button is pressed for a short, i.e., normal, period of time. An alternative function of the application is launched if the button is pressed for a long, (e.g., at least one second), period of time. Still another function can be launched if the application button is pressed multiple times within a short period of time, e.g., double click'. So this is what we have to look foward to in the E.U. now?"

Thanks to The Magic Box for relaying the unconfirmed rumor that "Capcom is planning to release the popular court simulation game Gyakuten Saiban for Game Boy Advance in US later this year, as they have applied for a [trademark] for the title in US." Searching the USPTO database certainly reveals a U.S.-specific "Trademark 78416207... [filed] May 10th, 2004" by Capcom for the Japanese courtroom adventure title with intriguing handheld gameplay, which is helpfully explained in a recent InsertCredit review: "Listen to witnesses speak; at the right time, use the L button to question them... [which] may reveal holes in their stories... Point to the right pieces of evidence at the right times (hey! you can see the victim's watch in that picture with the bottle of pills!), and look really good to the judge as the witness stutters out a confession." Although the game's release is distinctly unconfirmed, would you buy this title if Capcom opted to translate it?

An anonymous reader writes "According to this Rolling Stone article, and this article at P2P, everyone's favorite monopolist, Clear Channel, is bullying DiscLive and other companies in the available-after-the-concert live CD business by forbidding them from operating in their venues. Looking at the actual Clear Channel patent itself, it's obvious that, unlike what is said by their Instant Live program head Steve Simon, their patent is very specific, and doesn't cover all media types and all onsite production, so isn't CC just standing behind a bogus patent to continue to act like a monopolist? Anyone have prior art to invalidate their patent?"

mfh writes "All Computers Inc. has filed suit against Intel for infringing on US Patent (5,506,981). Apparently Intel utilized patent-conflicting circuitry to determine the frequency of the input signal to the microprocessor, including Pentium processors. All Computers is asking for the tidy sum of $500 million USD."

jpkunst writes "John Kheit at Mac Observer reports on US Patent Application No. 20040090467, published on May 13, 2004, in which Apple filed a patent application for 'Graduated visual and manipulative translucency for windows.'" Begin the hunt for prior art! It's a challenge to find a non-Apple translucent window that isn't just a snippet of desktop wallpaper pasted in the background.

phalse phace writes "There aren't too many details, but C|Net's news.com.com is reporting that Apple was issued a patent for its iTunes software interface on May 4. If you remember, Apple recently applied for a patent for its iPod interface as well."

ScooterB writes "According to TechDirt, Microsoft has patented having the action of a button determined by how long the button was pressed. From the patent listing, it seems to be targeted towards PDA's and other handhelds." Whether patents like this are the chicken or the egg, this relates to an MSNBC article submitted by prostoalex which says "United States Patent and Trademark Office is overwhelmed with incoming requests," and that "Unless the budgeting increases, the review process for a patent could double to 5 years."

Daniel de Kok writes "The NetBSD Foundation is proud to announce that it has registered the ``NetBSD®'' trademark. The foundation would like to thank Jay Michaelson (Wasabi Systems) for filing the application and providing answers to the US Patent Office, and Carl Oppedahl (Oppedahl & Larson) for giving advice and keeping the Foundation informed about the process. An official policy on the use of the NetBSD® trademark is currently being drafted and will be made public soon."

theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO granted Amazon.com a patent for the Use of browser cookies to store structured data, which covers the storing of data structures and non-character data within browser cookies. In a February SEC filing (pdf), Amazon reiterated that they expect that they may license certain patents to third parties in the future."

Darlok writes "Back in October 2002, PanIP sued 50 small businesses, claiming patents over basic E-commerce functions. One of the defendents set up a group defense fund, and in the last week, contributors to that fund have been notified by e-mail and this notice on the fund's homepage that PanIP has agreed to drop its lawsuits without any licenses being issued. The U.S. Patent Office is currently reviewing the patents in question. Hopefully this will set some sort of precedent ..."

Darlok writes "Back in October 2002, PanIP sued 50 small businesses, claiming patents over basic E-commerce functions. One of the defendents set up a group defense fund, and in the last week, contributors to that fund have been notified by e-mail and this notice on the fund's homepage that PanIP has agreed to drop its lawsuits without any licenses being issued. The U.S. Patent Office is currently reviewing the patents in question. Hopefully this will set some sort of precedent ..."

harlows_monkeys writes "Apple's trying to patent several aspects of the iPod user interface. This one is particularly interesting because the claims are written in fairly clear and simple language, easy to understand by anyone. If this one is granted, it won't be because an overworked examineer was confused by deliberate obfuscation by the application (which is what I think happens for a lot of the ridiculous patents). About half the claims are for things that were implemented in prior players (e.g., Archos), and the other half are for things that are in many other common device interfaces (DVD players, PVRs) and the only novelty is that Apple put them on a portable music player."

mclove writes "Looks like Nintendo has recently been granted a patent that gives them new leverage in their fight against emulators: Patent 6,672,963 mainly appears to cover emulators like UltraHLE that are custom-tailored for particular games, but they're already using it to suppress a new Game Boy Advance emulator for the Tapwave Zodiac, Firestorm gbaZ, and there's no reason to think they won't start leveraging it against anyone else trying to emulate their systems." The reprinted lawyer's letter from Nintendo also notes: "Whether you have an authentic game or not, it is illegal to copy a Nintendo game from a cartridge or to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet."

theodp writes "Amazon's 10-K SEC filing discloses that the e-tailer has been sued for infringing on Soverain Software patents for Network Sales Systems (5,715,314 & 5,909,492) and Internet Server Access Control and Monitoring Systems (5,708,780), aka the Open Market patents, aka the Divine cashectomy patents, which Soverain obtained in the wake of Divine's bankruptcy sale."

theodp writes "Amazon's 10-K SEC filing discloses that the e-tailer has been sued for infringing on Soverain Software patents for Network Sales Systems (5,715,314 & 5,909,492) and Internet Server Access Control and Monitoring Systems (5,708,780), aka the Open Market patents, aka the Divine cashectomy patents, which Soverain obtained in the wake of Divine's bankruptcy sale."

theodp writes "Amazon's 10-K SEC filing discloses that the e-tailer has been sued for infringing on Soverain Software patents for Network Sales Systems (5,715,314 & 5,909,492) and Internet Server Access Control and Monitoring Systems (5,708,780), aka the Open Market patents, aka the Divine cashectomy patents, which Soverain obtained in the wake of Divine's bankruptcy sale."

ihabawad writes "Microsoft has a patent on file for this really cool new technology called 'virtual desktops' where you see a 'pager' on the screen. Read all about it by searching under "Published Applications" for patent #20030189597 at the US Patent and Trademark Office. You know, I had a dream that I was using such a thing once; what was it called? -- yes, FvwmPager! Weird, eh?"

gsfprez writes "Well, i'm no patent lawyer, but if I'm reading this right, it seems that the basics of XML are being patented by Microsoft. If not the files themselves - at least what most of us would do with XML files. From the abstract: 'Systems, methods and data structures for encompassing scripts written in one or more scripting languages in a single file.' That smacks of what my config files do on my G5 for my G5, if you read it with a biased eye." We noted this was happening earlier, and now it's finally come to pass. While the patent does sound a bit dubious, a Microsoft spokesman was quick to deny that they'd be so bold as to patent XML itself.

alterego writes "Digital Photography Review is reporting that SimpleTech has announced 2, 4, 5 and 8GB Type II Compact Flash Cards utilizing its patented IC Tower stacking technology. This comes just a month after Hitachi announced its 4GB HD in under an inch, and less than one year after Lexar announced the first 4 GB CF card, marking a huge leap in drive density. And at only $5,999 it is sure "to meet budget and performance requirements.""

SpecialAgentXXX writes "Geek.com reports that as of Dec 30, 2003, CA lawyer Frank Weyer holds patent #6,671,714 which is 'a method for assigning URL's and e-mail addresses to members of a group comprising the steps of: assigning each member of said group a URL of the form name.subdomain.domain and assigning each member of said group an e-mail address of the form name@subdomain.domain.' He's now, in SCO-like fashion, suing Network Solutions and Register.com for infringing on his patent. This is nonsense. My friend who ran for political office in 2000 used this exact naming scheme for his web site. All of us here can see how asinine this is. Will our legal system?"

Frequanaut writes "Oh, the bitter, bitter irony. According to The Inquirer, in a strange move, IBM has patented a method for paying open source volunteers. By the way, if the future of software development is open source, how will anyone get paid when only IBM can do it?" The Inquirer quizzically notes, with regard to this patent: "It may be an ingenious way of paying open source developers and volunteers, Big Blue, but can it really be described as an invention?"

theodp writes "A newly formed company is suing Network Solutions and Register.com for infringing on its e-mail and domain naming patent, which covers assigning each member of a group a URL of the form 'name.subdomain.domain' and an e-mail address of the form 'name@subdomain.domain.'"