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Didn't Microsoft already patent this? The patent mentions GPS data.

Isn't that supposed to be USPTO?

Wouldn't it be great if they listed them? They only say that it covers patents they may have in their schemas. Determining which patents they're referring to or which patents you're actually licensing from them is left as an exercise to the reader. It could be none, or it could be things like their patent for "Methods and Systems for Generating XML Documents" (USPTO 6675353).

If you want to figure out what patents are used, if any, you ve not only got to go through and read the schemas and search through and read any Microsoft assigned patent that could possibly pertain to XML. Given how broad claims of patents can be are, the patent may not even have the words "XML" in it.

And that's just to write a silly MS Office XML file filter.

It's a much smaller problem then the one that independent developers now face when working on OOo. Sun is the primary contributor to OOo and does volumes more work then the community. They now have patent protection with Microsoft so all of their code can use any MS patents they want, consciously or unconsciously. But the moment I "cvs checkout" that source, I'm open to liability for using Microsoft's patents without a license. Unless Sun divulges if any of their code uses patents (unlike that MS license agreement that doesn't even say what you're licensing), the only way for me to avoid getting sued is to actively read all of Sun's contributed code *and* all of Microsoft's software patents to make sure none of the Sun code infringes on *any* of Microsoft's software patents.

I doubt anyone has the time to do that. OOo is over 8 million lines large and it's nearly impossible to fully comprehend, much less cross-reference with software patents with overly broad claims.

ed

Afaik the clause is put in the contract to avoid this. Sun has to assist MS and thus can't assist the OO.org users. Sun used to own the openoffice.org trademark, but now it's abandoned? So basically, the clause is wrong altogether as it assumes Sun has something to say about oo.org. And judging the domain-registration (openoffice.org is registered by Sun) and the contributing developers in real life it has of course... So basically Sun will be sued for OO.org AND has to help MS:=)

Cell is a scalable processor architecture, and its prefered embodiment called Broadband Engine in this patent by SCE is expected in PS3.

While broadband in Broadband Engine obviously means high-speed interconnection between its APUs and PEs and PUs and eDRAM in the first place, its double meaning propagates through its optical interface. This Broadband-ness will initially start from optical-fiber intranet in home, then Cell spreads to servers, routers in ISP, and so on to form larger network. Rather than sharing power, its main point is sharing the same language/ISA across the network. X86 is not enough apparently, without network-awareness such as GUID and latency calculation of remote object. The patent states "1. A computer network comprising: a plurality of processors connected to said network, each of said processors comprising a plurality of first processing units having the same instruction set architecture and a second processing unit for controlling said first processing units, said first processing units being operable to process software cells transmitted over said network, each of said software cells comprising a program compatible with said instruction set architecture, data associated with said program and an identification number uniquely identifying said software cell among all of said software cells transmitted over said network. "

I don't know what OS will be used to control them, but Linux must be one of candidates in Cell server-side.

Code name, yes. It is not a Microsoft Trademark

Also, It is "Project Janus" at Sun, so it is also not the trademark name.

Anyway, either one could run afoul of another trademark if they actually marketed the end product that way. There is a relevant Registered Trademark I can find is 2750637. Notice IC009, which is generally "scientific stuff" (or see here for the real definitions)

Word Mark JANUS
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Computer software using artificial intelligence for identifying and correcting Year 2000 problems in database files. FIRST USE: 20021028. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20021028
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75493600
Filing Date May 21, 1998
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1B
Published for Opposition April 16, 2002
Registration Number 2750637
Registration Date August 12, 2003
Owner (REGISTRANT) RICOMM Systems, INC. CORPORATION NEW JERSEY 108 E. Centre Boulevard Marlton NEW JERSEY 08053
Attorney of Record Norman E. Lehrer
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

Eh, just to be perfectly clear, I'm talking about published patent applications, not patents. You can search for them here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-adv.htm

If the original movie is no longer under copyright but the derivative still is, could I write my own Star Wars story using Luke, Leia, etc... or would they (the characters) be protected still by the derivative work??

patents, in their most basic and innocent form, are supposed to protect the rights of inventors so they can make a profit on their hard work. nothing wrong there.

what's "bad" is patent ABUSE. like companies that patent things that they'll never use, just in case someone uses it, so they can sue them. Patents should not be made with the intent to sue or collect license fees. Patents should be made so that a decent product can be funded and sold at a practical price

patents, in their most basic and innocent form, are supposed to protect the rights of inventors so they can make a profit on their hard work. nothing wrong there.

what's "bad" is patent ABUSE. like companies that patent things that they'll never use, just in case someone uses it, so they can sue them. Patents should not be made with the intent to sue or collect license fees. Patents should be made so that a decent product can be funded and sold at a practical price

Take a look at the background section of US Patent 6771837 for some actual facts. Here is a non-mathematical excerpt if you find math tiresome:

"Image rescaling or image resizing is a frequently required function in digital image processing systems. This function utilizes digital filtering of input picture elements (pixels) to generate output pixels. Because the eye is sensitive to changes in signal phase, the most commonly used filters in image rescaling are linear phase Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters. The rescaling process is achieved by varying the input signal sampling rate. More specifically, the sampling rate is increased in order to enlarge an image, or decreased in order to shrink an image."

Your apparent certainty is touching, but combining it with correctness would be more impressive.

No. It looks like that may have been patented in 1972. They seem to have patented the using of data hashes to identify data (files) and see if it's the data people are looking for. But I am not a patent attorney, nor do I have time to read the whole patent nor the 30-odd patents it references.

Yes, the patent 5,978,791 has the title "Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers." It was "invented" by some fellow by the name of Ron Lachman who is apparently the Chief Scientist at Atnet.

The basic idea of the patent seems to be to use hashes or some other form of "identifier" which is determined by "only the data in the data item" (and not on stuff external to the data such as a filename, directory, date, etc.) to identify duplicates of data. Smells a bit like a variety of things in the prior art to me...

Here is the first claim of the patent:

1. In a data processing system, an apparatus comprising:

identity means for determining, for any of a plurality of data items present in the system, a substantially unique identifier, the identifier being determined using and depending on all of the data in the data item and only the data in the data item, whereby two identical data items in the system will have the same identifier; and

existence means for determining whether a particular data item is present in the system, by examining the identifiers of the plurality of data items.

There is also historical info on this being licensed to Sharman Networks.

No it is not. At least not in the same terms as physical objects.
Economics applies to anything that is limited but widely wanted. It might not be exactly the same, but like I said, there will be backroom deals, artificial scarcity (ie companies funding only in-house research rather than university research)
So yes, you can get paid to keep your mouth shut, but that is only a delaying tactics, because information can be independently discovered and also deduced from someone's elses actions (product)
One of the things with information is that it is very difficult to come up with the first instance. You can go generations without somebody being able to come up with the same idea. True it's a delaying tactic, but it is very possible it can last for a long time, during which society would have 0 benifit. Meanwhile, if the information is released the public can quickly figure out little ways around the protections.
Untill 1 month later a first reverse-engineered knock-off is out
Ah, but that only applies to things that get out to the public in the final product. Most information is methods "how to make things" you cannot reverse engineer processes. It's easy to reverse engineer a medication, a CPU gate, but you can't reverse engineer the steps to make those things, especially on large scales at an acceptable price
But because final both final products and steps on producing are public, through publications, its alot easier to create knockoffs. You can spend years and millions of dollars trying to synthesize a compound on a large scale.
With the current system we can't use Fluoxetine Hydrochloride (Prozac), but we know how it works, how it's made its easy to come up with an alternative drug Paroxetine Hydrochlorde (Celexa). And we also know how some of the steps in creating the general family of chemicals so the creation process is simplified.
In your way of doing things we would be still paying for IBM ATs $10k a pop since IBM would be the only maker with the "Intellectual Property" for it.
No, it would be in the public by now anyways, that is the importance of limited protections.
but a logical progression of that approach is to treat DNA sequences as "property" and demand royalties on one's offspring
That is not a logical progression. The logical progression is that chemical xyz that works on certain DNA sequence is protected, not that DNA sequence alone. Like I said the modern application of intellectual property is flawed and has changed from the original concepts which were not flawed.

No it is not. At least not in the same terms as physical objects.
Economics applies to anything that is limited but widely wanted. It might not be exactly the same, but like I said, there will be backroom deals, artificial scarcity (ie companies funding only in-house research rather than university research)
So yes, you can get paid to keep your mouth shut, but that is only a delaying tactics, because information can be independently discovered and also deduced from someone's elses actions (product)
One of the things with information is that it is very difficult to come up with the first instance. You can go generations without somebody being able to come up with the same idea. True it's a delaying tactic, but it is very possible it can last for a long time, during which society would have 0 benifit. Meanwhile, if the information is released the public can quickly figure out little ways around the protections.
Untill 1 month later a first reverse-engineered knock-off is out
Ah, but that only applies to things that get out to the public in the final product. Most information is methods "how to make things" you cannot reverse engineer processes. It's easy to reverse engineer a medication, a CPU gate, but you can't reverse engineer the steps to make those things, especially on large scales at an acceptable price
But because final both final products and steps on producing are public, through publications, its alot easier to create knockoffs. You can spend years and millions of dollars trying to synthesize a compound on a large scale.
With the current system we can't use Fluoxetine Hydrochloride (Prozac), but we know how it works, how it's made its easy to come up with an alternative drug Paroxetine Hydrochlorde (Celexa). And we also know how some of the steps in creating the general family of chemicals so the creation process is simplified.
In your way of doing things we would be still paying for IBM ATs $10k a pop since IBM would be the only maker with the "Intellectual Property" for it.
No, it would be in the public by now anyways, that is the importance of limited protections.
but a logical progression of that approach is to treat DNA sequences as "property" and demand royalties on one's offspring
That is not a logical progression. The logical progression is that chemical xyz that works on certain DNA sequence is protected, not that DNA sequence alone. Like I said the modern application of intellectual property is flawed and has changed from the original concepts which were not flawed.

Some of these are pretty amazing... amazingly trivial, amazingly obvious, amazingly already-invented. I was browsing through them just the other day. I swear to God they are trying to patent BitTorrent, but I can't find that one right now.

Um yeah, actually you're wrong. They filed patents for those features but they were never actually granted. Check your facts.

No, you're wrong:

• US Patent 5,774,670 (Cookies)
• US Patent 5,657,390 (SSL)

Um yeah, actually you're wrong. They filed patents for those features but they were never actually granted. Check your facts.

No, you're wrong:

• US Patent 5,774,670 (Cookies)
• US Patent 5,657,390 (SSL)

to fund this, I recommend that patent application fees be raised by some nominal amount.

I agree with your ideas, but the implementation would not work:
1. Moving patent complaints to "settlement sessions" would not remove the need for lawyers. Big companies would send their lawyers, and normal people would have little hope without their own lawyers. Patent applications are so complex that applying for one without an IP lawyer is a waste of money; defending a patent without a lawyer would be worse.

2. Raising the fees would exclude even more "normal people" from applying for patents. They already cost too much: the basic filing fee is $770, and most patents require additional fees. My IP lawyer requires $8000 before starting the process (and you do not want to file without a lawyer.) This means that the McD's worker who invents a better basket for frying fries has no hope of affording a patent.

Better would be to lower the fees, but add penalties based on your income. One percent of your yearly income (average the last 3 years) should work. If the minumum-wage worker files for $100, and could be penalized another $100, he may go for it. If MSFT files for $100, but could be penalized $74,000 (generously using the net income after taxes and all other deductions), they might stop filing these obviously bad patents.

Extra incentive: give a portion (10%?) of the penalty to whoever provides evidence that a patent is bad:
- MSFT proves Joe WageWorker's patent is bad: Joe is penalized $100; MSFT is given $10.
- Joe proves MSFT's patent is bad: MSFT is penalized $74,000; Joe gets $7,400, preferably tax-free for doing the government's work for it.

This could result in patents being filed by the lowest paid person involved in the process (like the janitor.) Any ideas about avoiding that problem?

We need to a have a period of public review before patents are issued.

And, unless I've misread this, approved August 31st 2004.

Which makes one wonder: how on earth can a patent that was filed in 1997 be granted seven years later in 2004 and still be valid? Especially when the basic techonology had been around since at least the early 80's (Text-based menus any one?).

Is it any coincidence that the music snippet patent shows "Lie" as one of its inventors?

Over 1000 more actually...
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch- bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=microsoft&FIELD1=AS&c o1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PG01

How did this blatant, loud, nonsense get modded up? Since this is Slashdot, any rant against the USPTO must be true?

But very few are aware that U.S. Patent Office is violating our constitutional right by promulgating and enforcing a Microsoft-IE-only policy.

I certainly am unaware of that. Which constitutional right? Can you point to me where in the US Constitution it says that you have a right to recive patent documents on-line in whatever format you wish?

[bla, bla, indignation..] The United States Patent Office, without much notice, now requires that, in order to download those references, you must register with the Patent Office, then the Patent Office will install a program ON YOUR MACHINE WHICH MUST BE RUNNING MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER UNDER MICROSOFT WINDOWS to allow you to communicate with the Patent Office before you can download those prior art patents that our government must furnish you as a matter of our constitution right and as part of the filing fees paid to the Patent Office.

This is all bullshit. Please point me to where the USPTO requires you to run IE. And even if IE was required telephone, mail or fax ordering is clearly available.

Thus, basically it has boiled down to this stupid law: if you want to receive a patent, you are now REQUIRED BY LAW to have a machine with Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer in your office.

Pure bullshit. What law? Which US Federal Code? The policy of a government office isn't a law. Not that I can find any such policy either.

In other words, in order to exercise your constitutional rights, you must have a machine that runs Microsoft Windows and you must set Microsoft Internet Explorer as your default browser.

Again no hint as to which constitutional rights you are talking about. Or what policy.

The United States Patent and Trademark can implement and insist such a stupid policy because it doesn't have to compete. But what about those 4000+ patent attorneys? How come all of them are so quiet? Are all of them idiots?

Or, just perhaps, this policy doesn't EXIST?

Who is going to protect us from {fill in the blank} patents.....
Just for giggles I followed the link to the uspo and indeed the patent was filed in '97 but granted this past Tuesday. So then I peeked at the one prior to MS's and it was to IBM (6,785,864) and the one after to Adobe (6,785,866)

It's not just MS - it's all the parties picking up rocks to hurl at each other in case a suit is filed against them. During the cold war it was known as MAD (mutually assured destruction).

Who is going to protect us from {fill in the blank} patents.....
Just for giggles I followed the link to the uspo and indeed the patent was filed in '97 but granted this past Tuesday. So then I peeked at the one prior to MS's and it was to IBM (6,785,864) and the one after to Adobe (6,785,866)

It's not just MS - it's all the parties picking up rocks to hurl at each other in case a suit is filed against them. During the cold war it was known as MAD (mutually assured destruction).

In other news, MS was just granted a patent concerning using TAB to move from Link to Link in a Web Browser: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnu mber=6,785,865

Given the patent fiasco of the internet (just add "e" to anything and receive a free patent), now is the time to create prior art for quantum computing and publish all the ideas for adding "q" to everything. Only by striking first and getting innovation in the public domain can we have true open and unencumbered standards.

There are already lots of patents on quantum computing:
5,530,263
5,768,297
6,128,764
6,218,832
and many, many more.

Given the patent fiasco of the internet (just add "e" to anything and receive a free patent), now is the time to create prior art for quantum computing and publish all the ideas for adding "q" to everything. Only by striking first and getting innovation in the public domain can we have true open and unencumbered standards.

There are already lots of patents on quantum computing:
5,530,263
5,768,297
6,128,764
6,218,832
and many, many more.

Given the patent fiasco of the internet (just add "e" to anything and receive a free patent), now is the time to create prior art for quantum computing and publish all the ideas for adding "q" to everything. Only by striking first and getting innovation in the public domain can we have true open and unencumbered standards.

There are already lots of patents on quantum computing:
5,530,263
5,768,297
6,128,764
6,218,832
and many, many more.

Given the patent fiasco of the internet (just add "e" to anything and receive a free patent), now is the time to create prior art for quantum computing and publish all the ideas for adding "q" to everything. Only by striking first and getting innovation in the public domain can we have true open and unencumbered standards.

There are already lots of patents on quantum computing:
5,530,263
5,768,297
6,128,764
6,218,832
and many, many more.

do these scientists know they are infringing on a patent?

I had the pleasure of working with the team at the University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics developing a similar system ("rack and pinion" motor system vs. linear motor).. that was back in 1998 and 2001.. the first time was for developing a ride height sensor for testing the overall movement of the CG of the vehicle .. and the second time for looking at the marketing for that type of system and a quicklook venture plan for trying to turn it into a business...

market was pretty weak.. system was too expensive .. ambulances, police cars, and luxury vehicles... otherwise it was prohibitively expensive for the average Joe...

the CEM system is and has been patented for a while.. there were a number of other companies worldwide (as there always are) working on similar sytems back then too.. even some semi-active systems (rheological fluid is used which increases viscosity under magnetic field.. basically making a variable damper in the dynamic motion equation)

got to drive a HMMWV (military Hummer) fitted with this active suspension.. stock springs replaced with super soft springs and the damper replaced with 3phase DC brushless motor and rack and pinion systems to move the A-arm assembly... the algorithm ran on an Alpha processor to sample acceleromters in the wheel hubs and the frame mounting points for the A-arms.. the difference in acceleration between the relative points would drive the motor to pull the wheel out of the way (or drive it down) of obstacle driving the large acceleration of he wheel hub vs. the mount point sensors... ... it would drive over those parking blocks (keeps you from driving through parking spots) like they were barely there..

the engineer turned off the the suspension and only used the soft spring.. did tight donuts in an open field.. the HMMWV had major roll... turned it on, and it was only a couple of degrees of roll.. hardly noticeable at all.. he said they had to actually add a small amount of roll otherwise the the driver couldnt tell when they were turning so fast that they would lose lateral traction and begin sliding (the idea being that roll tells you to back off the accelerator).... cool stuff..

the big push right now is to transfer it to a transit bus..

sorry for the OT post, but I've been submitting this to the Science section for a week. Popular Science has an article about a tinkerer named Somender Singh from India who seems to have figured out how to increase the efficiency of the Internal Combustion Engine by 20%. He describes the innovation in US patent number 6237579 and in an article he published in 2002 available at racingarticles.com. There's an earlier blurb about his discovery in the Indian webzine the-week.com. Are you gonna be the first geek to Singh-mod your car on your block?

Along these lines, today MS was granted a patent on SOAP.

Submit art

An interesting aside is that this process is not necessarily against someone getting a patent, but rather strengthens the patent should it be issued. In theory, you're doing the applicant a favor.. in practice, your mileage may vary.

As for what the paperwork is supposed to look like, that's.. uh.. homework. Seriously, I don't know. Since a PGPub will have the examiner's name on it, it might be as simple as sending an envelope to the USPTO c/o the examiner with note stating the relavent application number.

That's trademark, not copyright.

Briskly scanning the patent I begin to read familiar language, aside from the legalese, then I come to a paragraph decribing a Master Control Unit that begins with the following quote.

The MCU incorporates all of the familiar aspects of an expert system.

Emphasis mine. That's all this thing is, an expert system, which he hasn't created yet. Surely prior art exists for such a system, as I've read papers about and seen experiments with such systems for years. What the hell was the USPTO thinking here?

It's obvious that most people didn't RTFA let alone RTFP (Read The Fucking Patent). The link is here.

It used to be that when you patented something, you had to supply enough information for anyone to produce an instance of the patented invention. From the US PTO:

The specification must be in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which the invention pertains to make and use the same.

Why don't they enforce this? I know that many folks, myself included, think most computer patents are utterly bogus. I think a proper enforcement of this rule would go a long way toward fixing the problem. If it doesn't compile, you shouldn't be able to patent it. The text of this patent reads more like a philosophy book than a technical invention.

It used to be that when you patented something, you had to supply enough information for anyone to produce an instance of the patented invention. From the US PTO:

The specification must be in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which the invention pertains to make and use the same.

Why don't they enforce this? I know that many folks, myself included, think most computer patents are utterly bogus. I think a proper enforcement of this rule would go a long way toward fixing the problem. If it doesn't compile, you shouldn't be able to patent it. The text of this patent reads more like a philosophy book than a technical invention.

http://www.uspto.gov/

The methods are:

1) By re-issue

2) Issurance of a certificate of correct which becomes part of the patent.

3) By disclaimer

4) Re-examination

The first three methods are described in the doc linked above. The re-examination is described in Section 2200

None of the options are cheap. Re-examination starts at $2,250. See Section 1.20 of this doc. A re-issue application is the normal filing fee, which is still non-trivial for an individual to undertake for this purpose.

The methods are:

1) By re-issue

2) Issurance of a certificate of correct which becomes part of the patent.

3) By disclaimer

4) Re-examination

The first three methods are described in the doc linked above. The re-examination is described in Section 2200

None of the options are cheap. Re-examination starts at $2,250. See Section 1.20 of this doc. A re-issue application is the normal filing fee, which is still non-trivial for an individual to undertake for this purpose.

The methods are:

1) By re-issue

2) Issurance of a certificate of correct which becomes part of the patent.

3) By disclaimer

4) Re-examination

The first three methods are described in the doc linked above. The re-examination is described in Section 2200

None of the options are cheap. Re-examination starts at $2,250. See Section 1.20 of this doc. A re-issue application is the normal filing fee, which is still non-trivial for an individual to undertake for this purpose.

One can name over a dozen OSes that garnered the famed Class B1 Trusted OSes status that provided this feature set since 1983. Most of them will never see the light of days due to their classified status.

Perhaps, the U.S. Patent Office should consider investigating for possible industrial payola to their underpaid $60,000/yr GS-5 ranking corporate-rejecting $125K real bad diploma-milled reviewers.

Geez, doesn't *anybody* know the history of patents? There are literally *hundreds* of patents for (e.g.) paperclips. Each patent describes a slightly different implementation of a paperclip. One might examine, for example, patent 494,622 or patent 371,390 - both patents issued for paperclips, issued in 2004 and 1996, respectively.

Similarly, Microsoft has a patent on a slightly different implementation of setuid.

Oh, wait... This is Microsoft, and therefore evil.

Geez, doesn't *anybody* know the history of patents? There are literally *hundreds* of patents for (e.g.) paperclips. Each patent describes a slightly different implementation of a paperclip. One might examine, for example, patent 494,622 or patent 371,390 - both patents issued for paperclips, issued in 2004 and 1996, respectively.

Similarly, Microsoft has a patent on a slightly different implementation of setuid.

Oh, wait... This is Microsoft, and therefore evil.