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The routine ViewingTransform calculates the viewing-transform homogeneous matrix from the following input:

(1) view-reference-point (VRP): A point in the 3D XYZ modelling space specifying the origin of the left-handed UVW viewing space.

(2) view-plane-normal (VPN): A nonzero vector from the view-reference-point (in XYZ space) specifying the direction of the w axis of the UVW coordinate system.

(3) view-up (VUP): A nonzero vector from the view-reference-point (in XYZ space) which is not collinear with view-plane-normal. The projection of view-up on the UV-plane (i.e. the w=0 plane defines the direction of the v axis.

(4) UV-window: The lower-left and upper-right corners of a rectangular region parallel to the u and v axes and lying in the UV-plane. Neither the width nor the height of the UV-window can be zero.

(5) EyePosition: (Also called the Center-of-Projection) A vector specified in the UVW coordinate system, which gives the position of the "viewing eye" with respect to the center of the UV window. In persective projection, the image is projected onto the UV plane along rays that converge at the EyePosition. In parallel projection, the image is projected onto the UV plane along rays that are parallel to the line from the EyePosition to the center of the UV-window.

(6) ProjectionType:

1. if the viewing-transform homogeneous matrix is to be calculated for a parallel projection.

2. if the viewing-transform homogeneous matrix is to be calculated for a perspective projection. (The formulas for the viewing-transform matrix for these two cases is given in Foley and Van Dam.)

(7) screen-viewport: The lower-left and upper-right corners of a horizontally-aligned rectangular region of the screen of the terminal. That portion of the projected image contained in the UV-window is scaled and positioned so that it fully occupies the screen-viewport. Neither the width nor the height of the screen-viewport may be zero.

(8) front-distance: Any image whose perpendicular distance to the UV-pane is less than front-distance will not be displayed.

(9) back-distance: Any image whose perpendicular distance to the UV-pane is greater than back-distance will not be displayed.

The last input value is NOT used to calculate the viewing-transform matrix:

(10) view-motion-radius: The radius of a sphere, the surface of which defines a convenient 2D coordinate system so that the observer can locally pan about the center of the sphere with two thumbwheels. The center of the sphere is called the View-Motion-Center (VMC).

Maybe you should do a little research.

The patent.

The thing we ought to, as responsible slashdotters, push on the USPTO is not even "prior art" as most of the crowd pushes on, but the "unobvious to one skilled in the art" clause. Anyone who deals with coordinate transforms - in physics, graphics, or whatever, would have come up with the use of matrix manipulations to view graphics information based on viewer position. The other half of this "invention" is manipulating the viewpoints in a manner which emulates reality - basically it's a patent for an interface which is the same as you or I walking around an object to get a different vantage point.

That aside, there is the issue that 3D graphics have been out in the mainstream for over 10 years and nobody brought this patent up. I hope they're going to lose on statute of limitations.

Perhaps we should draft and file a Friend of the Court brief?

This is ridiculous.

I find the fact they're trying to claim the feasibility of patenting a, for computer graphics, very basic concept, nearly as amusing as the fact that they were allowed to patent it in the first place.

Having checked US Patent Database for the description of the said patent, I think I'll go ahead and patent... oh... 'Method of creating secondary colors by combining the three primary colors' ? The matter adressed by this patent is, IMVHO, not unique intelectual property - it describes a potential approach to a certain problem on an abstract plane, without describing practical solutions?

Disclaimer: I lack sufficient knowledge of legalese, so I might have missread and missinterpreted the patent description. However, my modesty prevents me from admitting I might be wrong.

To quote the abstract from the USPTO page: "A graphics display terminal performs a pan operation with respect to a view motion center to effectuate spherical panning, thereby providing perspective and non-perspective views. Three dimensional instructions stored in terminal memory are re-transformed in accordance with a panned direction. Also a zoom feature is provided so that displayed images may be magnified as desired." Which makes it totally clear... NOT!

For those who find it odd that a law firm would own such a patent, they don't. The editors managed to munge this somehow... a quick trip to the patent database here shows that th epatent is currently assigned to Tektronix, which makes a bit more sense. As an old, slowly dying company, Tektronix is doing what many companies do and seeking to "monetize their intellectual property assets", which unfortunately involves suing the living bejezus out of everyone in sight.

the patent in question

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=/netah tml/srchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l= 50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=4734690.WKU.&OS=PN/4734690&RS=PN/ 4734690/

Before everyone starts going full steam.

According to the filing, the patent is "Method and apparatus for spherical panning".

uspto link

You don't need to apply for a full patent. Put in a "pending patent application" which will protect you for a year. It costs about $75 if you are a small independent inventor. Go to the USPTO to get the details; it's not complicated but it is a little tedious. No one really looks at what you submit but it does mean the USPTO has your idea in their hand so you can prove your case in the event someone tries to rip you off.

Having your idea written and notarized won't do you any good.

Could also be infringment on the "Magic Cube" word mark which is live.

The article said the patent expired, but that the investigation was about trademark violation. The two have nothing to do with each other. The article is entirely slanted with its presentation of facts
As others point out, these were customs officials, just because they fall under DHS doesn't mean this is terrorist related accusation, its customs doing their job.
I did not see any conclusions in the story about the validity of the trademark claim. Just that her supplier told her that they weren't infringing (what do you expect them to say?) I just did a quick search and found a live Trademark #76351080 "Magic Cube" word mark that falls under G[oods] & S[ervices]: Manipulative puzzles. It is possible there is a legitimate trademark claim
From the story, the agents didn't shut the store down, they asked to removed the suspected item from the shelves. I don't think that is excessive.
The "goverment is always evil and wrong" attitude is killing the country. Be wary of goverment, but don't spout out wild claims until all the evidence is in.

But, beyond that, nowhere in the article does it say Rubik was the one complaining. People just jumped to that conclusion. There is a live trademark on "Magic Cube" for a "manipulative puzzle" filed in December, 2001 by Atico, International. It would seem reasonable to me that Toysmith's product violates this trademark. There is no information in the AP article to conclude "no trademark was infringed," in fact the reporter seems to have done no research at all but calling DHS and the toy store operator. It's a terribly done article that is mostly about how weird it is that the people who enforce trademarks now work for DHS. But that's hardly new or news.

The trademark "Magic Cube", as it applies to "manipulative puzzles", is owned by Atico International USA Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, FL. You can find out stuff like that here. The manufacturer/importer of the Magic Cube puzzles in the story is the Toysmith Group of Auburn, WA. This could be nothing more than the rightful owner of a trademark pressing its case against a possibly unwitting party who didn't do any trademark research before naming their product. It probably has nothing to do with Erno Rubik, his expired patent, or any copyrights.

> Is that legal?

It's more that they have no case.

First, Nintendo does not even have a trademark on 'zelda', although they do have one on 'metroid'

Metroid trademark
Zelda trademark

However, trademarks are protected as part of the law of unfair competition.

Additionally, the Copyright Act now reaches architectural design, software, the graphic arts, motion pictures, and sound recordings.
Note that list does not contain 'Name'.

Finally, to remove any grey areas, a proper name is given to something so others can reference it. That is exactly how its being used here. It's not even being used to reference some other item that nintendo may not want it to be linked with.

All sources show the email was sent by a bot, simply because it was sent to the name/email address in whois and not the one listed on their website... As a matter of fact, I dont see the spooky@ address listed on their help page at all.

Legally speaking, until they have it sent in writting (which may simply be in progress) they don't have to respond at all.
Technically they don't even have to then, atleast until the snail mail from a court, telling them to be in court, arrives :P But thats not usually a good idea in most cases.

Unfortunatly it's not really illegal to send a letter like this. At least not yet, as there isnt a law suit. Only once there is a lawsuit can one claim its frivilous.

> Is that legal?

It's more that they have no case.

First, Nintendo does not even have a trademark on 'zelda', although they do have one on 'metroid'

Metroid trademark
Zelda trademark

However, trademarks are protected as part of the law of unfair competition.

Additionally, the Copyright Act now reaches architectural design, software, the graphic arts, motion pictures, and sound recordings.
Note that list does not contain 'Name'.

Finally, to remove any grey areas, a proper name is given to something so others can reference it. That is exactly how its being used here. It's not even being used to reference some other item that nintendo may not want it to be linked with.

All sources show the email was sent by a bot, simply because it was sent to the name/email address in whois and not the one listed on their website... As a matter of fact, I dont see the spooky@ address listed on their help page at all.

Legally speaking, until they have it sent in writting (which may simply be in progress) they don't have to respond at all.
Technically they don't even have to then, atleast until the snail mail from a court, telling them to be in court, arrives :P But thats not usually a good idea in most cases.

Unfortunatly it's not really illegal to send a letter like this. At least not yet, as there isnt a law suit. Only once there is a lawsuit can one claim its frivilous.

Another proprietary media format from Sony that will not catch on.

Sony developed Compact Disc, and for 20 years or so it was proprietary. Columbia Tristar and MGM will definitely be in on it; the point is how willing the other five studios will be to license their movies for UMD.

Owner (APPLICANT) NEUROS AUDIO, L.L.C. LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ILLINOIS 2 NORTH RIVERSIDE PLAZA, SUITE 200 CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60606

Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: PLAYERS AND RECORDERS OF DIGITAL AUDIO EMBODIED IN ELECTRONIC FILE FORMAT; RADIOS; AND COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR CREATING, MANAGING, PLAYING, AND RECORDING DIGITAL AUDIO. FIRST USE: 20021115. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20021115

Owner (APPLICANT) NEUROS AUDIO, L.L.C. LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ILLINOIS 2 NORTH RIVERSIDE PLAZA, SUITE 200 CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60606

Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: PLAYERS AND RECORDERS OF DIGITAL AUDIO EMBODIED IN ELECTRONIC FILE FORMAT; RADIOS; AND COMPUTER SOFTWARE FOR CREATING, MANAGING, PLAYING, AND RECORDING DIGITAL AUDIO. FIRST USE: 20021115. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20021115

That's an interesting idea. According to this article, Apple did not invent the iPod scroll wheel though. Apparently it was designed by Synaptics.

Apple does, however, have a patent that covers mice with a rotary dial.

It's not that software patents are, in principle, bad. It's that the idiots in the USPTO are letting trivial ones through the syste. Some software patents are completely legitimate. Take, for example, this patent on the "Marching Cubes" computer graphics algorithm. The paper describing this algorithm made it into SIGGRAPH's Seminal Graphics collection of most important papers in computer graphics. Not all software patents are trivial and obvious.

So how does that differ from the 1-Click patent? There are tons of other "obvious" non-software patents out there.

Software patents are pathetic since they are purposly broadly written so that pretty much anything done with a computer (even if it already exists in the non-software world) will infringe.

First of all, all patents are generally written as broadly as possible. Any good patent lawyer will tell you that. In one patent seminar I was at a few months ago, the main lecture was on the biggest mistakes in patenting and #1 was patent claims that are too narrowly focused. Inventors tend to focus on the functionality of their invention rather than the innovations of all the components. Even a nut and bolt can be patented if it is used in a new way or has a new feature. (I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is what patent lawyers do.) So, your complaint isn't specific about software patents, it's a general problem as well.

Second of all, there are a multitude of genuinely useful and innovative algorithms (implemented in software) that deserve patenting as much as any useful and innovative device. Some examples include algorithms for high-performance mass spectrometry and target recognition.

I think there's been a lot of hype about software patents, but so far the arguments seem to have nothing to do with software specifically, just an outdated patent system and poorly applied rules. A good starting point to fix this was recently presented on Groklaw.

So how does that differ from the 1-Click patent? There are tons of other "obvious" non-software patents out there.

Software patents are pathetic since they are purposly broadly written so that pretty much anything done with a computer (even if it already exists in the non-software world) will infringe.

First of all, all patents are generally written as broadly as possible. Any good patent lawyer will tell you that. In one patent seminar I was at a few months ago, the main lecture was on the biggest mistakes in patenting and #1 was patent claims that are too narrowly focused. Inventors tend to focus on the functionality of their invention rather than the innovations of all the components. Even a nut and bolt can be patented if it is used in a new way or has a new feature. (I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is what patent lawyers do.) So, your complaint isn't specific about software patents, it's a general problem as well.

Second of all, there are a multitude of genuinely useful and innovative algorithms (implemented in software) that deserve patenting as much as any useful and innovative device. Some examples include algorithms for high-performance mass spectrometry and target recognition.

I think there's been a lot of hype about software patents, but so far the arguments seem to have nothing to do with software specifically, just an outdated patent system and poorly applied rules. A good starting point to fix this was recently presented on Groklaw.

Software patents are just pathetic.

That's a gross overgeneralization. Take, for example this patent on the "Marching Cubes" computer graphics algorithm. The paper describing this algorithm made it into SIGGRAPH's Seminal Graphics collection of most important papers in computer graphics. Not all software patents are trivial and obvious.

You objection seems to be that such a system is obvious. I wholeheartedly agree with you there. There are rules against patenting the obvious, and things like this seem to be slipping through. However, then you say:

Software patents are just pathetic.

It's not clear how the former justifies the latter statement. The patent on 1-Click appears to violate the existing rules for patents on obviousness. There are also plenty of non-software patents that violate such rules (playing with a cat using a laser pointer, the combover, etc.). So how does any of this show that software patents in particular are pathetic? Or was it a non-sequitor?

Incorrected. Building designs can be trademarked. I clearly remember seeing a trademark notice at the end of a film I saw recently, probably Spiderman 2, which stated that a certain design was trademarked. See This page from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Please don't assume ignorance on the part of others when you haven't done the research yourself.

I was going to be slanderous with this, but I'll just take the time to say I could have been slanderous, and then decided just to mildly dilute the value of this message with this addendum.

Here is one, but I don't understand it

Y'bastard! That's my idea!

And I've patented it, too...

Closest I can see is this. Seems that it sets some pretty strict specifications for the material to be conductive AND magnetic, and that it has to fit around the smartcard. Maybe there's wiggle room there for a patent lawyer and an RF engineer to make a few bucks?

Dantz owns a patent, 5,150,473 Data storage format for addressable or sequential memory media which essentially covers the use of a on-disk catalog to record what is written to tape for faster retrieval and creating incrementals. This patent can be very cumbersome for companies trying to enter the Mac OS X backup market. With that said, there are quite a few backup solutions available or coming to Mac OS X - BakBone, Avail, SGL, Tolis Group, and more. I know that the Tolis Group doesn't use a catalog the same way and doesn't do point-in-time incremental snapshots like Retrospect does. I don't know if anyone else coming to Mac OS X does. It is rumored that OmniGroup's OmniBackup was killed over this patent issue. Too bad, since that was the only tape backup application for Mac OS X Server at the time.

you mean like the mondo folks? do they have a license on microsoft's patent on the .net api?

Those folks sold to 3M who now own all rights to the Billion Dollar a year Dbef (directional brightness enhancing film) market. Dbefs are films that allow some light that was polarized one way to change polarization, while keeping the other axis unchanged, can nearly double backlight brightness and dramatically improves image quality. The honeywell case really infringes on the OSI/3M patents and I know screwing with 3M is bad bad news. They might not be selling Dbef, but they are trying to get a royalty out of 3M customers for buying 3M products and using them. I might be misstating facts, But I know someone will come and bash me for it.

...it both rewards the inventor and adds knowledge to society.

If patents are to add knowledge to a broader part of the public, I think we need a patent application de-obfuscator. Most patent applications don't resemble normal language at all. Let's take the patent that describes run-length encoding (RLE), for instance. It is amazing how many pages of text is used to describe this so-called 'apparatus' that transforms n consequtive values of x into the two values x and n.

Being the suspicious paranoid that I am, I cannot keep from wondering if this, let's call it creative rewriting (to be nice), is still in use because someone actually finds it useful...

A method and system for redirecting web page requests on a TCP/IP network is described. The method may be performed by a web traffic monitor that intercepts at least a portion of web-based traffic from a client/subscriber on a network.

The USPTO's mission is to promote industrial and technological progress in the United States and strengthen the economy. In my opinion, too many patents halt progress.

Holy crap. Its true!

#6,329,919 : System and method for providing reservations for restroom use

Slightly more complex then one would first think. The system can grant reservations based on some critera, for example (I am not making this up) if the requestee is a first class passanger or not.

Here's the story. The patent is in a "Re-examination." On Sept. 16th the USPTO issued it's first non-final action in relation to this re-exam. While, it looks like the scanned dept of the USPTO messed up and only included the first page of the nineteen total pages so one can't review the sites or if it's a 102 (novel) or a 103 (non-obvious) rejection, I can tell you was a patent attorney that 99% of the time you receive a first action non-final rejection.

It is almost like the examiner feels the need to "paper the file." What will happen next is that M$'s attorneys will respond to the action stating reasons the examiner is off of thier rocker (respectively of course).
The examiner will either cave and allow some or all of the claims, do another search and issue yet another non-final action, or issued a final rejection.

Now, if a final rejection is issued, it's not exactly final. M$'s attorneys will then file amendments after final, have a conference with the examiner and/or file an appeal to the USPTO Patent Board of Appeals. If THEY find for the examiner then M$ could file suit in federal court in D.C. If they find for M$ then the examiner may allow the case or simply do another search and find yet another reason to reject the patent application.

In other words, this is just the start of a very long and boring saga.

How much do you know about how the patent system works? Have you actually participated in any way in an actual patent challenge or lawsuit? I've helped provide prior-art evidence in two cases, and it doesn't matter how trivial or stupid the patent is, it can be a real problem trying to get judges or juries to understand why something should never have been patented in the first place. Sun just lost a patent case, which may cost it a billion dollars, and that patent is also one that shouldn't have been granted, or at least not applied to Java.

One patent, 4,449,182, filed for in 1981, issued in 1984, was used by DEC to lock anyone out of providing compatible peripherals to their systems (since the operating system used the patented "invention" to talk to all peripherals). Although we were able to provide matching prior art from 1979 to the company being sued, which caused DEC to drop the case (thus preserving their "we've never lost a patent case" claim), as far as I know the patent continued in effect until it expired normally. It still cost that company a lot of money, and probably kept other companies out of that market.

The other one was 4,624,462, which involved a bingo game (there are an amazing number of patents on bingo games). Although the original invention on the face of it isn't too bad, this patent was being interpreted as a software patent: the infringing device they were suing over was completely implemented in software, on normal PCs, using normal networked connections. This patent drove a company into bankruptcy, before finally being overturned. Clear prior art was ruled by a judge to not read on the patent because the prior art was implemented on a timesharing system (even though the program was implemented as multiple independent processes running on that timesharing system, communicating among each other using shared memory), and the patent was referring to multiple computers communicating in essentially the exact same way, only over a communications network.

How much do you know about how the patent system works? Have you actually participated in any way in an actual patent challenge or lawsuit? I've helped provide prior-art evidence in two cases, and it doesn't matter how trivial or stupid the patent is, it can be a real problem trying to get judges or juries to understand why something should never have been patented in the first place. Sun just lost a patent case, which may cost it a billion dollars, and that patent is also one that shouldn't have been granted, or at least not applied to Java.

One patent, 4,449,182, filed for in 1981, issued in 1984, was used by DEC to lock anyone out of providing compatible peripherals to their systems (since the operating system used the patented "invention" to talk to all peripherals). Although we were able to provide matching prior art from 1979 to the company being sued, which caused DEC to drop the case (thus preserving their "we've never lost a patent case" claim), as far as I know the patent continued in effect until it expired normally. It still cost that company a lot of money, and probably kept other companies out of that market.

The other one was 4,624,462, which involved a bingo game (there are an amazing number of patents on bingo games). Although the original invention on the face of it isn't too bad, this patent was being interpreted as a software patent: the infringing device they were suing over was completely implemented in software, on normal PCs, using normal networked connections. This patent drove a company into bankruptcy, before finally being overturned. Clear prior art was ruled by a judge to not read on the patent because the prior art was implemented on a timesharing system (even though the program was implemented as multiple independent processes running on that timesharing system, communicating among each other using shared memory), and the patent was referring to multiple computers communicating in essentially the exact same way, only over a communications network.

You can file a "Disclosure Document" for $10. That will last for two years. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/disdo.html

Examples of where "software" patents have been, or can be, harmful is not an argument that they are inherently bad. There are also bad "device" patents even outside software, such as the combover and using a laser pointer to play with a cat. It also doesn't show that all software patents are harmful.

The harm caused by some software patents isn't because algorithms and methods are patentable, it's because simple obvious ones are being approved as valid patents. Think about it. If the algorithm is not trivial or simple, nobody would come up with it by chance anyway and so it isn't stopping them from doing anything. For example, there are a multitude of machine vision algorithms such as facial recognition or object recognition. You can't accidently stumble on the same approach, they are complicated an non-obvious. Patenting these harms nobody. If they weren't patentable, many of these intelligent algorithms would not get published and would be kept secret, so we'd never learn how they worked and couldn't improve from them. Conversely, as in the typical examples given, if someone can inadvertantly implement a patented algorithm, it must be somewhat obvious to people in the industry (and hence shouldn't be patentable).

As far as the "it's just math" argument, I go back again to machine vision. Yes, it can be written as math. But we're not talking about fundamental math derivable from first principles, we're talking about procedures that involve math as a basic building block. This is akin to developing physical devices in which physical laws are the basic building blocks. Often a physical design is optimized by math, the same as an algorithm.

In short, so far the arguments against software patents in general don't hold water. Yes, there absolutely has to be patent reform, but that includes all forms of patents. But that doesn't mean that one has to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are non-harmful algorithms (and I would argue these are the majority of algorithms) and it is in the public's interest to provide some protection to the inventor, otherwise these algorithms will be kept secret.

And filing/defending a patent isn't easy. Filing costs are around $10,000 and you have to register your patent across the world (Europe, USA, Japan) and you must defend the patent the minute it is violated.

One of the problems is that if you stake your claim in knowledge-space and file a patent, a large company can come along and file a hefty number of patents in every possible direction your research could go in. Sure you own the land, but they now own the access.

If they won't even identify their patent numbers then they are obviously full of crap and just trying to hold you up for money. However, you can look up patents yourself online at http://www.uspto.gov and search by things like the name and city/state of the inventor or assignee. You could then see if the company even has any patents, and if they do if there is any merit at all to their claims your software infringes on them. That information should be very useful to your lawyer in advising you on whether you can just blow them off or not.

Ok, so my first thought was like: oh, shit! Shit shit shit sheeeeet! What the fuck? Fuckity fuckity-fucking fuck!

But then I thought: Ok, keep it together, for f..ck sake!

Ok and now I am like again: arrghh FUCK!

I don't know, I just want to see that little piece of shit Kodak in ruins, that's what I want to see.

And it has nothing to do with Sun or Java, it's everything. I am so fucking tired of this fucked up life and little scum sucking shit eating pieces of trash that live on this planet who run 'businesses' like kodak.

Since when is kodak a software company? They are not. They bought this patent from another company.

On the other hand the court that made this decision must consist of the dumbest assholes ever. Ever. Unfucking believable.

---

Ok, now that I vented. Such a rulling was foreseen by many, there is a reason why IBM has something like a million pattents in their war chest, including a patent for using a crapper.

Obviously now companies started using software patents in the worst way possible - attempting to destroy entire industries.

What will Sun do now with Java? I don't know, they must appeal and hopefully take it to the highest court and get this decision overturned and hopefully they will achieve a reform of the software pattenting, as in prove it to be detrimental to the economy in principle and to any company in particular. Obviously a smaller company would just go under, this war has to be fought by gigantic companies like Sun, IBM or even Microsoft. How many patents can Microsoft fight off, especially if the attacker is NOT a software vendor. How do you fight a non software vendor? They don't care about software in principle, I suppose Kodak would WANT all software to be gone. After all, all they need is chemicals to run their shop.

On the other hand I don't see IBM or MS helping Sun in this battle, they are compatitors after all. But Java will suffer enormously and so may .NET, Perl, PHP, Python, VB, and C/C++ debuggers, aren't many of them VMs? Lisp, ML, Scheme, Prolog, and more. So what is going to happen, all VMs will have to pay royalty to Kodak?

This is a serious issue, I think this has to be the most serious issue that hit software industry ever, patents I mean.

Software should not be patentable. Copyrights are fine and dandy but patents are something else all together. Patents of ideas are much worse than copyrights of implementations. Software patents will without any doubt ruin software industry and the economies that allow software patents will pay a heavy price. I think it is time to support EFF more than ever. I think we need to see a wide range of law suits against Kodak one way or another and try and get the court to overthrow software patents.

And I think that Freeing Java is becoming more important than ever for the [Java] platform.

5,206,951
Issued: April 27, 1993
Integration of data between typed objects by mutual, direct invocation between object managers corresponding to object types

5,421,012
Issued: May 30, 1995
Multitasking computer system for integrating the operation of different application programs which manipulate data objects of different types

5,226,161
Issued: July 6, 1993
Integration of data between typed data structures by mutual direct invocation between data managers corresponding to data types.

The abstract is the same for all three:

An object based data processing system including an extensible set of object types and a corresponding set of "object managers" wherein each object manager is a program for operating with the data stored in a corresponding type of object. The object managers in general support at least a standard set of operations. Any program can effect performance of these standard operations on objects of any type by making an "invocation" request. In response to an invocation request, object management services (which are available to all object managers) identifies and invokes an object manager that is suitable for performing the requested operation on the specified type of data. A mechanism is provided for linking data from one object into another object. A object catalog includes both information about objects and about links between objects. Data interchange services are provided for communicating data between objects of different types, using a set of standard data interchange formats. A matchmaker facility permits two processes that are to cooperate in a data interchange operation identify each other and to identify data formats they have in common. A facility is provided for managing shared data "resources". Customized versions of resources can be created and co-exist with standard resources. A resource retrieval function determines whether a customized or a standard resource is to be returned in response to each request for a resource.

5,206,951
Issued: April 27, 1993
Integration of data between typed objects by mutual, direct invocation between object managers corresponding to object types

5,421,012
Issued: May 30, 1995
Multitasking computer system for integrating the operation of different application programs which manipulate data objects of different types

5,226,161
Issued: July 6, 1993
Integration of data between typed data structures by mutual direct invocation between data managers corresponding to data types.

The abstract is the same for all three:

An object based data processing system including an extensible set of object types and a corresponding set of "object managers" wherein each object manager is a program for operating with the data stored in a corresponding type of object. The object managers in general support at least a standard set of operations. Any program can effect performance of these standard operations on objects of any type by making an "invocation" request. In response to an invocation request, object management services (which are available to all object managers) identifies and invokes an object manager that is suitable for performing the requested operation on the specified type of data. A mechanism is provided for linking data from one object into another object. A object catalog includes both information about objects and about links between objects. Data interchange services are provided for communicating data between objects of different types, using a set of standard data interchange formats. A matchmaker facility permits two processes that are to cooperate in a data interchange operation identify each other and to identify data formats they have in common. A facility is provided for managing shared data "resources". Customized versions of resources can be created and co-exist with standard resources. A resource retrieval function determines whether a customized or a standard resource is to be returned in response to each request for a resource.

5,206,951
Issued: April 27, 1993
Integration of data between typed objects by mutual, direct invocation between object managers corresponding to object types

5,421,012
Issued: May 30, 1995
Multitasking computer system for integrating the operation of different application programs which manipulate data objects of different types

5,226,161
Issued: July 6, 1993
Integration of data between typed data structures by mutual direct invocation between data managers corresponding to data types.

The abstract is the same for all three:

An object based data processing system including an extensible set of object types and a corresponding set of "object managers" wherein each object manager is a program for operating with the data stored in a corresponding type of object. The object managers in general support at least a standard set of operations. Any program can effect performance of these standard operations on objects of any type by making an "invocation" request. In response to an invocation request, object management services (which are available to all object managers) identifies and invokes an object manager that is suitable for performing the requested operation on the specified type of data. A mechanism is provided for linking data from one object into another object. A object catalog includes both information about objects and about links between objects. Data interchange services are provided for communicating data between objects of different types, using a set of standard data interchange formats. A matchmaker facility permits two processes that are to cooperate in a data interchange operation identify each other and to identify data formats they have in common. A facility is provided for managing shared data "resources". Customized versions of resources can be created and co-exist with standard resources. A resource retrieval function determines whether a customized or a standard resource is to be returned in response to each request for a resource.

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