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Oh, for goodness sake, when is timothy going to a) learn to link to the original source and not some third-rate blog and b) learn to distinguish between a patent application and a granted patent?

Link to original source: Apple Working on the Next Wave of Digital Camera Technologies

Link to U.S. Patent Application 20100238344

You can call it incompetence within their field, but don't claim that Patent Examiners are examining applications outside of the field they have training in. That's demonstrably false.

For a time, while software patents were being granted, a computer science degree was not allowed as a prerequisite for becoming either a patent examiner or a patent lawyer. So just who was examining those early software patents?

Computer Engineers and Electrical Engineers. For a time, when software was first being written, it was engineers doing the work, rather than computer science majors.

But it's also finer grained than that - it's not one USPTO art group for "software"... Instead, there's more than a hundred, subdivided into areas of specialty, including AI, cryptography, network acceleration, UI design, etc: http://www.uspto.gov/patents/resources/classification/art/index.jsp.

What's being announced here is a non-final office action in an ex parte reexamination. Basically, the EFF submitted some prior art that presented a 'substantial new question' of patentability and asked the Patent Office to review it. From there, the Patent Office and the patent owner hash things out; the prior art submitter's role is finished. (Prior art submitters can take a more hands-on role via inter partes reexamination, but that's more expensive and time consuming than ex parte reexam).

Reexamination cases are a little tricky to look up because you have to find the control number for the case. The control number in this case is 90/009637, which you can plug into Public PAIR. Here is the non-final office action that is the subject of the post, since you can't link directly to documents in PAIR.

The patent owner will have an opportunity to respond to this non-final office action. If the examiner is satisfied, then that's that. More likely the examiner will not accept the arguments or will have discovered new ones. Typically there are one or two non-final actions and then a final action. After that, the patent owner can still appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. From the time of appeal to a decision is, at median, a couple of years. From there the patent owner could still appeal to the Federal Circuit.

So, while this is a preliminary finding, it is very far from definitive.

She has two patents that appear to show both what is wrong with America's diet mentality and the patent system all at once.

She's basically pimping out arginine as a panacea (from increased sexual performance to weight-loss). Just read about her wondrous achievements on Skinny Science Corporation: A Leading Biomedical Research Company. Never have I seen the word "science" so abused and raped by words around it. And it doesn't stop there. Google her name or "skinny science" and you're left with a plethora of bullshit sites with her vapid stare hawking complete medical farces designed to prey on the obese. Surprise surprise, she wants it to be illegal for you to talk about her and these sites.

Does anybody know how she got the prefix of "Dr."?

She has two patents that appear to show both what is wrong with America's diet mentality and the patent system all at once.

She's basically pimping out arginine as a panacea (from increased sexual performance to weight-loss). Just read about her wondrous achievements on Skinny Science Corporation: A Leading Biomedical Research Company. Never have I seen the word "science" so abused and raped by words around it. And it doesn't stop there. Google her name or "skinny science" and you're left with a plethora of bullshit sites with her vapid stare hawking complete medical farces designed to prey on the obese. Surprise surprise, she wants it to be illegal for you to talk about her and these sites.

Does anybody know how she got the prefix of "Dr."?

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=76116199 ---- Here's a link to her trademark registration, by the way.

> Thomas Edison submits (his) last patent

You know better than to throw gauntlets down around here!

Just a side note, for other armchair historians: Between Edison's first patent (in 1868) and his last (1933), the number of patents handled by the US Patent Office increased by a full order of magnitude (x10). (ref)

Well, somebody has got to check this out and tell me what you think. http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=6&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=millstein.IN.&OS=IN/millstein&RS=IN/millstein About 4 years ago I came up with a site (socialsaga.com) that was a lot like choose your own adventure. So, being young and stupid, when somebody told me I should try and patent the idea, I tried. Bunch of time and some money later I get a final rejection from the USPTO. Then I see this shit and can't believe my eyes. The one thing that I thought was good about Patents (that it gives small guys the chance to hold on to an idea that a huge company can steal easily) is now dead in my eyes. That sounded a little overly dramatic, but man I put a lot of work into trying to get this patented.

I suggest that everyone view this talk regarding patents and open source software. It focuses on how open source developers can maneuver around patents, but also provides a lot of information regarding how patents can be better understood. After viewing this presentation, I've realized how moronic a lot of posts on Slashdot regarding patents truly are.

After watching the video and examining the patent it seems rather trivial to dance around it. It's a completely stupid thing to patent, but it isn't going to impede anyone who develops something similar.

That six year backlog doesn't seem to apply if you have enough money to grease the proper hands so that your patent magically seems to get processed faster.

What an absurd and baseless accusation. The patent process is an open book. You can see virtually every communication between examiners and applicants on Public PAIR. The USPTO is an extremely transparent organization. If there were any evidence for such corruption, there are no end of legal academics who would pounce on the opportunity to expose it through statistical analysis or even anecdotal evidence. As an attorney, patent agent, and academic researcher I have never encountered any evidence of such corruption.

State will then lose money on patents. Now its an increasing chunk of dough to grease the state machinery. Doing it properly, not screwing society over, is not profitable. If the budget changes, so will the state's priorities regarding the patent system have to change..

http://www.uspto.gov/about/stratplan/ar/2006/30605_stmntnetcost.jsp

While there was a case a few years back where someone was dipping into customer deposit accounts, I've never heard any reports of examiners being on-the-take to process an application in a certain way. If you've heard something different, feel free to enlighten us.

There is something called a "petition to make special", which in some cases requires a fee, but this is specifically authorized by regulations.

In fact, there are various mechanisms (performance metrics and docketing, both for examiners and their supervisors) which discourage or prevent working on applications out of turn. Examiners do have some flexibility for managing their dockets, but the general push is to work on the earliest-filed applications first.

Except your wrong.
They are needed and have a use. Yes the courts have gone too far from time to time, but overall the are necessary.

You don't think there is IP issues in fashion? You're really clueless.

There are patent on making weave, making colors, copy right on names and brands, trademarks.

yeah, the end physical dress doesn't have Copyright or IP, be everything to get that dress made is.

If you bother to look it up, some cloths do get patent, like utility patents. You do know there is more then one kind of patent? and that different thing may apply differently? If not, STFU.

here si a link to get you started. They use small words so you should only have to look up a few of them:
http://inventors.about.com/b/2009/09/30/can-an-article-of-clothing-be-patented.htm

After that, you can go to http://www.uspto.gov/ to confirm the article I linked to. I know, not immediate and 100% trusting something you read is a new concept for you, but it's important you try to learn.

I did a search for "Ping" on the USPTO.gov site (linked from http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/index.jsp) and got 353 hits, so there's plenty more than golf equipment. Apple's lawyers almost certainly did the same search, though, and they're not worried. Trademarks are generally limited to a particular type of good, and golf equipment and music software are not the same market.

I actually blame the company. Packaging should have an expiry date built-in at a minimum. It's not like this is difficult to do: there are expiry dates on all dairy foods, and for good reason.

Expiry dates on food are there for a reason; it goes off, and when it goes off it's bad to eat.

This is not true of ethernet crimpers, the first thing that came to hand with a patent number on it. They'll still be good in twenty years time.

Also, expiry dates are not molded on, for reasons that even you can probably work out. Hence the comparison is totally invalid.

Companies still using an old mold which doesn't have an expiry date is just greedy.

Nope, it's just common sense: if it ain't broke, why replace it? That's just wasteful.

They should have put the date in when they went to the trouble of putting the patent number in

What if there wasn't room? What if the validity period changes in the meantime? What if it wasn't foreseen that the product would be in production for so long? What if this dumb law was passed after the tooling up had been done?

they should bear the cost of a new mold if they're still selling new products from it.

You seem to like telling other people how to spend their money. What are you, some kind of communist?

It's a trick question. There is no patent number 2662623443

• It's title is "Operating system shut down"
• The first sentence in the patent's abstract states: "A user interface and scheme is provided for facilitating shutting down an operating system."

What the hell else should I think they are trying to patent ?

Here's the USPTO link. The abstract:

A user interface and scheme is provided for facilitating shutting down an operating system. Aspects include the operating system receiving a command to initiate shut down, and automatically terminating graphical user interface (GUI) applications that delay shut down which do not have top level windows. Also, aspects provide a user, through a graphical user interface, the ability to automatically terminate all running applications in response to determining that a running GUI application has a top level window.

I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.

Read for yourself:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152

This is awesome!

I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.

Read for yourself:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152

I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.

Read for yourself:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152

I love it!

I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.

Read for yourself:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152

I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.

Read for yourself:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152

I love it!

I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.

Read for yourself:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152

You claim you've "patented" this, but it clearly is merely the publication of a patent application, and in fact, has not been granted. Accordingly, by claiming you have "patented" it, you are in violation of 35 USC 292 which makes "false marking" illegal, and levies a charge of up to $500 for every such offense.

I leave a settlement offer to you. A donation to Slashdot would certainly be appropriate. Cheers.

Disclaimer: I am a patent agent. I am not your patent agent. Nothing in this post should be considered legal advice, nor should be relied on. This is merely for the purposes of [my] amusement.

I have patented suing for patent damages. And I won't license it to him.

Read for yourself:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220080270152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20080270152&RS=DN/20080270152

Given that teachbook is a social networking site but for a specialized niche, I think it's fair to say that they are doing that.

If you go to http://www.uspto.gov/ and search for "book" you get over 9.000 results, including hankybook, partybook, planbook mobook. I'm pretty sure this is FB's record. Their description of services pretty much covers the earth, moon and stars online. It seems overly broad, even including peer-to-browser photo sharing services namely, providing a website featuring technology enabling users to upload, view and download digital photos. I'm not sure how it got through without being narrowed.

Normally there's a reference that says it's not an attempt to trademark a generic word (like "book") but I don't see that in FB's app. Probably because their mark is FACEBOOK and not FACE BOOK. I'm not entirely sure, I've only been through the process a couple times.

Seems like a stretch to me. If their name was "teacherfacebook", then I'd side with FB. But trying to trademark "book" in the context of any online collection of individuals seems way out of line. Since one could argue that online repositories are merely a modern evolution of books, then you're basically letting FB trademark the world.

Given that teachbook is a social networking site but for a specialized niche, I think it's fair to say that they are doing that.

If you go to http://www.uspto.gov/ and search for "book" you get over 9.000 results, including hankybook, partybook, planbook mobook. I'm pretty sure this is FB's record. Their description of services pretty much covers the earth, moon and stars online. It seems overly broad, even including peer-to-browser photo sharing services namely, providing a website featuring technology enabling users to upload, view and download digital photos. I'm not sure how it got through without being narrowed.

Normally there's a reference that says it's not an attempt to trademark a generic word (like "book") but I don't see that in FB's app. Probably because their mark is FACEBOOK and not FACE BOOK. I'm not entirely sure, I've only been through the process a couple times.

Seems like a stretch to me. If their name was "teacherfacebook", then I'd side with FB. But trying to trademark "book" in the context of any online collection of individuals seems way out of line. Since one could argue that online repositories are merely a modern evolution of books, then you're basically letting FB trademark the world.

Specifically the patent infringement claim references 7 patents including US Patent No. 5966702 "Method And Apparatus For Preprocessing And Packaging Class Files", and US Patent No. 6910205 "Interpreting Functions Utilizing A Hybrid Of Virtual And Native Machine Instructions".[15] It also references US Patent No. RE38104 "Method And Apparatus For Resolving Data References In Generated Code" authored by James Gosling [...]

As I understand it (disclaimer: I'm a philosopher in Belgium), not using Java on Android would not solve the problem, since Oracle is attacking the Dalvik VM. So, even if it were running JavaScript, Python, Go or C#, Dalvik would according to Oracle violate the Java VM Patents.

Solutions would thus be:
- Prove those patents are not applicable to Dalvik
- Find prior art to invalidate the patents (any lawyer-hacker who is familiar with, say, the inner workings of UCSD Pascal?)
- Reform the US patent system, the most drastic reform would be the abolishment of all "intellectual property"
- Move out of the US
- Pay Oracle or make another deal with them like swapping some patents and/or technologies

Specifically the patent infringement claim references 7 patents including US Patent No. 5966702 "Method And Apparatus For Preprocessing And Packaging Class Files", and US Patent No. 6910205 "Interpreting Functions Utilizing A Hybrid Of Virtual And Native Machine Instructions".[15] It also references US Patent No. RE38104 "Method And Apparatus For Resolving Data References In Generated Code" authored by James Gosling [...]

As I understand it (disclaimer: I'm a philosopher in Belgium), not using Java on Android would not solve the problem, since Oracle is attacking the Dalvik VM. So, even if it were running JavaScript, Python, Go or C#, Dalvik would according to Oracle violate the Java VM Patents.

Solutions would thus be:
- Prove those patents are not applicable to Dalvik
- Find prior art to invalidate the patents (any lawyer-hacker who is familiar with, say, the inner workings of UCSD Pascal?)
- Reform the US patent system, the most drastic reform would be the abolishment of all "intellectual property"
- Move out of the US
- Pay Oracle or make another deal with them like swapping some patents and/or technologies

Specifically the patent infringement claim references 7 patents including US Patent No. 5966702 "Method And Apparatus For Preprocessing And Packaging Class Files", and US Patent No. 6910205 "Interpreting Functions Utilizing A Hybrid Of Virtual And Native Machine Instructions".[15] It also references US Patent No. RE38104 "Method And Apparatus For Resolving Data References In Generated Code" authored by James Gosling [...]

As I understand it (disclaimer: I'm a philosopher in Belgium), not using Java on Android would not solve the problem, since Oracle is attacking the Dalvik VM. So, even if it were running JavaScript, Python, Go or C#, Dalvik would according to Oracle violate the Java VM Patents.

Solutions would thus be:
- Prove those patents are not applicable to Dalvik
- Find prior art to invalidate the patents (any lawyer-hacker who is familiar with, say, the inner workings of UCSD Pascal?)
- Reform the US patent system, the most drastic reform would be the abolishment of all "intellectual property"
- Move out of the US
- Pay Oracle or make another deal with them like swapping some patents and/or technologies

The increased issuance rate is probably the result of PTO's money crunch. Unlike most agencies, which supplement funds appropriate by Congress with collected fees, PTO is expected to be entirely self-supporting. Application fees. Continuation fees. Maintenance fees. Service fees. Everything that PTO does has a dollar sign attached to it (here's the fee schedule). Sometimes they don't even get to keep is all. Congress raided PTO's surplus several times during the boom to prop up the General Treasury. When rainy days came, companies started filing for fewer patents and some - gasp - even let patents lapse rather than paying their maintenance fees. As a result, PTO was forced to cut benefits dramatically. For awhile, overtime was off the table. The agency stopped paying tuition for examiners attending night law programs. Retention bonuses went away. Bad time to be an examiner.

The issuance boost means more continuations, re-applications, etc. along the way to approval = more revenue immediately. More importantly, PTO's got to issue nearly five patents to receive as much by way of maintenance fees in 3-4 years as they WOULD have received from an 11 year old patent that's been allowed to lapse.

Issuance rate won't (and from PTO's perspective, can't) go down unless or until Congress changes PTO's funding model or the economy turns around. Even if the economy gets better, it's going to take a few years for revenues to start increasing as the patents from the current glut start bringing in large maintenance fees and the issuance rate can go down without forcing staff cuts.

To be defend-able, doesn't a patent need to be somehow novel and its invention non obvious?
Just because a patent is filed doesn’t mean it is defendable in a court of law. Looking in the details of some of these patents listed in the article, they don't strike me as particularly novel nor non-obvious:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=6,910,205.PN.&OS=PN/6,910,205&RS=PN/6,910,205
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=RE38,104.PN.&OS=PN/RE38,104&RS=PN/RE38,104
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7,426,720.PN.&OS=PN/7,426,720&RS=PN/7,426,720
etc...
That reminds me:
"IBM sued [us] over a RISC patent that asserted that 'if you make something simpler, it'll go faster.'...and we lost." -James Gosling

To be defend-able, doesn't a patent need to be somehow novel and its invention non obvious?
Just because a patent is filed doesn’t mean it is defendable in a court of law. Looking in the details of some of these patents listed in the article, they don't strike me as particularly novel nor non-obvious:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=6,910,205.PN.&OS=PN/6,910,205&RS=PN/6,910,205
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=RE38,104.PN.&OS=PN/RE38,104&RS=PN/RE38,104
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7,426,720.PN.&OS=PN/7,426,720&RS=PN/7,426,720
etc...
That reminds me:
"IBM sued [us] over a RISC patent that asserted that 'if you make something simpler, it'll go faster.'...and we lost." -James Gosling

To be defend-able, doesn't a patent need to be somehow novel and its invention non obvious?
Just because a patent is filed doesn’t mean it is defendable in a court of law. Looking in the details of some of these patents listed in the article, they don't strike me as particularly novel nor non-obvious:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=6,910,205.PN.&OS=PN/6,910,205&RS=PN/6,910,205
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=RE38,104.PN.&OS=PN/RE38,104&RS=PN/RE38,104
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7,426,720.PN.&OS=PN/7,426,720&RS=PN/7,426,720
etc...
That reminds me:
"IBM sued [us] over a RISC patent that asserted that 'if you make something simpler, it'll go faster.'...and we lost." -James Gosling

Scary, man. Imagine they would be able to launch the mind reader and the BSOD screen would ask you to reboot the subject.

//whhhhhooossssshhhhhhh//

I believe the prior art he was blatantly infringing upon can be found here:

http://patimg2.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00096681&idkey=NONE ...and that, kind sir, was the whole buggery point.

While we can't change patent laws, we can at least avoid having them. We're not forced to patent our ideas just to protect them, because nobody can make sure the very same patents won't be used for suing other developers.

...and then someone will reverse-engineer your work, patent it, and sue you over it.

All inventors must sign an oath stating that they have disclosed all information known to them to be material to patentability. If you think your patent is invalid from the start, you are under an obligation to disclose whatever prior art you think is relevant. Am I the only one who finds it a little disturbing that luminaries are now admitting to fraud on the patent office?

USPTO has a search engine, which if you know enough about how they categorize everything, you can find a lot of stuff in there. They even do neat things like categorize the shapes of logos (eg 26.19.01 - Spheres (geometric)).

Mostly, though, the engine is a flaming pile of shit, driven largely by sessions that make it next to impossible to figure out how to link to results. Even if you find your specific trademark, the search results page link to the trademark document uses your session ID. In fact, you can't even link to the search page itself (anyone following it gets an invalid session error), you'll have to go through the index page so it can create a session for you.

http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/index.jsp

Here is something for the US, yes, it's Bilski.

It is rare these days to see companies devote 10% of their budget to R&D. Most tend to just not bother with R&D because it doesn't give ROI this quarter, and when they do, they gain the technology by buying a startup, or just copying someone else's work and improving on it.

Isn't that an argument for patents, though? I mean, you're saying that R&D isn't profitable in the eyes of most companies and why is that? I mean, we complain about patents but then if you look at the amount of innovation going on in countries where intellectual property is not enforced it seems to be fractions of what goes on in countries that enforce IP law. I'm not arguing for this but your complaint that not enough companies dump 10% into R&D seems, in my mind, to be heavily linked to the lack of reward. I thought patents and licensing those patents were supposed to be that reward or recoup mechanism.

60 year old glass? Most enterprises can't even think past the next couple quarters or to the next FY, much less this far. Almost any other company would have long since chucked the manufacturing process for it because it wasn't immediately profitable.

Well, from the article, it sounds as though they had pretty much shelved it and "In 2006, when demand surfaced for a cell phone cover glass, Corning dug out Chemcor from its database, tweaked it for manufacturing in LCD tanks, and renamed it Gorilla." Again, if you think about it, a patent is good for only ~20 years? So maybe when they 'tweaked' it they did that so they also could repatent it? They have a lot of patents related to glass composition.

Can their competitors just fire up a plant right now and start making Chemcor? You bet. Gorilla is probably repatented though to protect them from that and that illustrates why you don't see a whole lot of companies taking the Corning path.

Yeah, Namco liked that idea too. Patented it in '95.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5718632.PN.&OS=PN/5718632&RS=PN/5718632

People have done this and got bored with it 2 years ago or more.

If you had RTFP, you'd know that Google's patent application was initially filed in Dec., 2004. That's a little over 2 years ago in case you couldn't figure it out.

Wow. I should have caught this post sooner. Major slashdot emergency.

Here is Japan Airlines:
http://www.jal.co.jp/

So here is American Airlines:
http://www.aa.com/

Jp Gov site:
http://www.stat.go.jp/

US Gov site:
http://www.uspto.gov/

Ugly Jp Consulting site:
http://www.e-netten.ne.jp/

Horrible US Consulting site:
http://www.bryantwebconsulting.com/

Now for some better pages:
http://www.au.kddi.com/
http://www.sony.co.jp/
http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/
http://bape.com/ (you cannot see the JP site from the US)
http://www.capcom.co.jp/sf4/

This got world attention:
http://www.uniqlo.com/calendar/

And a typical web site gallery site will quickly help you find more:
http://www.webdesignclip.com/

So all of you who just argued for what Japanese is and what American is, you might want to give this blogger a tweet and call him out for making you think hard about the offensive stereotypes you just helped uphold.

Seriously people, if these sites look complex, its because you can't read Kanji.

Robert Uomini of Kensington CA already won a $22 million dollar lottery in 1995. And yes, it's the same person, because the patent application's name and city matches and this article says he's a mathematician and his linkedin says he has a Ph.D in Mathematics. Here's his real software website, notice anything familiar? Yep, the design is exactly the same, no doubt about it this is our guy.

Here's his facebook if you want to leave him a message

Most of us don't have four figures USD to file a challenge. That's why we sketch out the challenge on Slashdot so that someone who actually makes and sells these things can file the challenge for us.

I suppose "$" plus "180" counts as four figures, technically, but it's not what people would ordinarily think of as expensive. I bet you could even get a dollar from a hundred and eighty Slashdot posters.

In particular 5,436,960, and I note that something like half of the paragraphs in it, though numbered differently, all say:

the identification number is added to the originated information by matching an identification of the at least one of the plurality of destination processors with a stored identification of the at least one of the plurality of destination processors and adding an identification number stored with the matched identification of the at least one of the plurality of destination processors to the originated information as the identification number.

Which sounds like a particulary contorted way to describe a router taking the data out of a packet routed to it, and routing it to another system based on the destination address.

Then, in the Description he lies:

Electronic mail services are basically a wire line-to-wire line, point-to-point type of communications. Electronic mail, similar to facsimile transmissions, provides a one-way message. A recipient typically does not have to interact with the message. Electronic mail, unlike facsimile, is a non-real-time message transmission architecture.

Email has always had a send-to-multiple recipients functionality, and has always used store-and-forward servers over packet networks and/or instances dial-up lines. It is not "point-to-point" except rarely when sending to the same host where the mail originates.

Basically, when you realize that an Ethernet is an RF frequency network, this patent describes email being forwarded by an outgoing mail server and being routed to one or more destinations. Pretty much what SMTP over TCP/IP had been doing for over 20 years at the time this lame-o patent was filed. I can't wait to see what the other ones look like (shudder).

The validity of the patent can of course be challenged, though my understanding is that "using WAFL with NAS" isn't what's being claimed as patented; some thing that WAFL does is being claimed as patented, and NetApp further claims that ZFS does those same things.

Also, you seem to think it's legal to sell a product that includes an infringing component; I'm confused why you would think this. Here's an excerpt from 35 USC 271, which defines patent infringement:

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States, or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent

(emphasis added)

3rd parties can absolutley get swept in, which is one of the reasons the penalties are less if the infringement isn't deemed "willful".

The NSA is not the only group. Defense agencies and contractors use it all the time. Here's the relevant section in the patent rules.

Also, the classified patent will not be revealed, if "somebody happens to also come about with the same thing"--their application will become classified under the same secrecy order. I wonder how they let that somebody know, besides just a rejection letter.

The NSA is not the only group. Defense agencies and contractors use it all the time. Here's the relevant section in the patent rules.

Also, the classified patent will not be revealed, if "somebody happens to also come about with the same thing"--their application will become classified under the same secrecy order. I wonder how they let that somebody know, besides just a rejection letter.

There is one for a cookie pie: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0166435.html

You can submit a patent application for anything you want, that doesn't mean it will be granted. I can submit a patent application that's simply "What is claimed is: 1. A method for creating the first post in a Slashdot thread.", and the patent office has to accept my application. Of course, the examiner will laugh at me, and they might even take the time to write up a page or two telling me off.

I checked the status of that cookie pie patent (go to this USPTO page and enter application number 11/333238), and it was abandoned after the initial rejection. The examiner rejected the application on the basis of prior art.

It's the idea behind the fact that you can patent what amounts to a recipe, along with every variation of said recipe.

Machines are just a bunch of atoms, and you can't patent atoms. The reduction argument doesn't work.

In fact, the whole purpose of patents it to teach an individual of ordinary skill in the appropriate art how to produce the invention.

So:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=5&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22landmark+digital%22&OS=%22landmark+digital%22&RS=%22landmark+digital%22

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%22landmark+digital%22&OS=%22landmark+digital%22&RS=%22landmark+digital%22

Go read how they made what they made.

As an aside, I wonder if an argument could be made to invalidate their patents on the grounds that their fear of useful teaching of their own invention being made public is an indication that they themselves do not believe that the patents represent sufficient information to teach one of ordinary skill in the art.