Slashdot Mirror

Conducting DNS (nameservers and domain hosting)

Traffic Shaping (limiting packet speed and file sizes transferred)

NIS, IMAP, Active Directory

CVS, group collaboration, etc

Conducting DNS (nameservers and domain hosting)

Traffic Shaping (limiting packet speed and file sizes transferred)

NIS, IMAP, Active Directory

CVS, group collaboration, etc

Alright, thier little "virtual property" patent is bullshit.... Here's why....

Accroding to A Geocities History, Geocities was founded back in July of 1995. It was, and still is, essentially a "virtual property" area of the Internet, which I'm assuming is the bases of their claims. Even the Wayback machine has a cronicle of the community through its archives. Just a quick Google search brought this up.

Maybe our dear USPTO should also use Google to search for prior art? It's not quite as limited as their own database and search meathods.

Jesus, have you seen this one. Remember the fact that sendmail would delivermail addressed to user+keyword@foo.com to the address user@foo.com, and then user could filter on keyword? Well Ideaflood have patented that, too.

The patent is primarily for what has been used in CGI redirectors to simulate subdomains (not just user subdomains, but any subdomain). This is fairly common in some virtual servers.

They are not patenting subdomains per se; they are simulating subdomains using domain subdirectories!

Here's how a typical implementation works:

1. Point a default subdomain (*.domain.tld) to a site;
2. Point the site index to a CGI script;
3. When someone requests anydomain.domain.tld the default site is called, and the CGI run;
4. The CGI goes through the database of <subdomain, subdirectory...>, and when it finds a match returns a server redirect to the corresponding domain subdirectory.

It sounds fairly trivial to me, but obviously didn't to the PTO. It seems pretty obvious this is close, if not the same, as what a web server does for supporting virtual domains on a same shared IP. Has anybody any other prior art on redirecting by code a *.domain.tld?

Am I the only person who was on the internet pre-1998? Every day I see a patent relating to things that were plaguing us in 1995, and a company that honestly believes they can claim "2% of... the $9.5bn income this method generates".

In this case, not only does the patent ignore the HTTP 1.1 prior art, which existed as an RFC two years before the patent application, but it makes a bunch of bogus claims about motivation - things like each domain name requiring a separate IP address (wasn't true after HTTP 1.1), domain names being expensive (they weren't then, and they're cheaper now), DNS name propagation time being 1-3 days (I think Verisign was updating 2LDs faster than daily in those days, and update time for subdomains is instantaneous - as fast as you can update your name server), manual entry of names taking a long time and lot of cost (that's what very small shell scripts are for), etc.

Bad, bad, bad.

Actually, examiners work in pretty narrow areas. Check out other patents allowed by the same examiner. They're mostly computer/internet patents.

And it's not a patent on subdomains. Given that rather basic misunderstanding, isn't it possible that the guy who examines patents all day is right, and the slashdot crowd is wrong?

They aren't moronic. They do their job pretty well, within the rules. It's not their fault that slashdotters don't understand the rules and don't bother reading patents before attacking them. The patent appears to be 6,687,746.

It's a hard patent to read, but the key claim is the use of a DNS wildcard entry to handle user's subdomains. The applicants claim that as of August 1999 everyone was entering separate DNS records for each subdomain.

Can you find prior art? A published description of using a single DNS wildcard for user's subdomains prior to 8/99?

If so, great. You can kill this patent. But how should the examiners have been aware of this? Look at the large number of references the examiners plowed through - where do you expect them to draw the line?

Most of the "glaring mistakes" that slashdotters attribute to the PTO are simply myths. Lazy people who couldn't take the time to read a dense, techno-legal document made up alarmist stories based on the patent title or a few words that caught their eye. And you're lapping it up, like a right-winger inhaling his Rush Limbaugh horror stories or a left-winger gobbling up his Al Franken product.

Link to patent here.

20020087429 Method and apparatus for securing delivery of goods [uspto.gov/.....] they might not be geeks, but i would think that ups would be prior art when it comes to "securing delivery of goods," they have only been in business for since 1907.... (just one of the bs patents on the ideafoods site...)

They list only two patents that have actually been granted, "Method,apparatus and system for directing access to content on a computer network" (which seems to cover cross-linking between web sites where there's some sort of traffic-exchange system in place, such as ad banners) and "Method and apparatus for gaming" (guaranteeing a minimum payout for gambling.)

The article doesn't say what patent the letter refers to, if indeed it references an actual patent at all. They have an _application_ for a patent on Method and apparatus for conducting domain name service, whose idea seems to be that ICANN doesn't control subdomains, so you can sell your subdomains yourself as long as you manage it.

That is, if you own foo.com, you can't really sell "bar.foo.com" to somebody else, at least not using the standard domain registries, because they just don't do that. The solution (running your own domain name server and providing a web site to control it, basically acting like your own TLD) is pretty damn obvious, but not a whole lot more obvious than lots of other patents that have been granted.

But the thing is, at least as far as I can tell, they don't have a patent yet. They only have an application. Suing people is WAY jumping the gun. It might even be illegal, but IANAL. That patent is over two and a half years old, so it's about time the thing got approved. Maybe it is approved and the USPTO hasn't updated its web site, and ideaflood is being quick off the mark.

As far as I can tell, the usual advice seems to apply: it's a pointless patent with lots of prior art, so don't cave in and don't send these idiots a penny.

Obviously, the submitter didn't bother any more than any of you to follow through to the source...

The patent is for an automated procedure for licensing sub-domain names via an Internet portal , not on subdomains - the submitter's claim is considerably more absurd than the patent claim, no matter your views on software and business model patents.

Well, for one they are civil service employees who get there job assignments just after getting their frontal lobotomy. Maybe the USPTO is trying so hard to objectively review patent applications that it ends up ignoring common sense. Maybe, as you're alluding to, there may be some qualification issues.

I looked at some job listings at the USPTO office, and it looks okay. I'd prefer a little more professional experience for these guys, especially GS-11s and above, but I guess you don't go from famed celebrity computer engineer to patent examiner. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/ohr/jobs /jobs.htm

In one circumstance, to apply for a job as a patent examiner for biotechnology and organic chemistry, the applicant must have a four-year course of study leading to a Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university. The higher you go in rank (GS-7 and above), the academic requirements increment by one year graduate school experience in same or related field.

Vacancy Announcement for Patent Examiner (Biotechnology and Organic Chemistry)

The requirements are pretty similar with requirements for other jobs. So, based on this, I default back to my earlier statement about the frontal lobotomy.

Well, for one they are civil service employees who get there job assignments just after getting their frontal lobotomy. Maybe the USPTO is trying so hard to objectively review patent applications that it ends up ignoring common sense. Maybe, as you're alluding to, there may be some qualification issues.

I looked at some job listings at the USPTO office, and it looks okay. I'd prefer a little more professional experience for these guys, especially GS-11s and above, but I guess you don't go from famed celebrity computer engineer to patent examiner. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/ohr/jobs /jobs.htm

In one circumstance, to apply for a job as a patent examiner for biotechnology and organic chemistry, the applicant must have a four-year course of study leading to a Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university. The higher you go in rank (GS-7 and above), the academic requirements increment by one year graduate school experience in same or related field.

Vacancy Announcement for Patent Examiner (Biotechnology and Organic Chemistry)

The requirements are pretty similar with requirements for other jobs. So, based on this, I default back to my earlier statement about the frontal lobotomy.

You're right! On a positive note, Many libraries (i.e. NASA) have on-line access to Copyright Journals/books etc. that are routinely accessible remotely via VPN. You can find thousands of classics and other books at
Project Gutenburg. Many Government publications (including Patents) are available on-line. Are we getting close to the day when: "If it's not on-line, it doesn't exist".

The link in the story is straight to the app. Here's another one to save needless scrolling as you read this: 2004/055446A1

United States Patent D478,999
Jobs , et al., August 26, 2003

Staircase

Claims: We claim the ornamental design for a staircase, substantially as shown and describe

Whether you think this should be a patentable idea or not, using accelerometers to scroll a PDA display has been patented. I wonder if Simputer will be getting a "cease and desist" letter in the mail. Of course it's possible that they have already licensed it from the patent holder.

Patent number 6,466,198:
"View navigation and magnification of a hand-held device with a display"

The patent holder is called Innoventions

Actually, I was pointing to the fact that difference in Slashdot trademark ownerships - Andover.Net (OSDN) vs. BlockStackers (CmdrTaco & Co.)

I haven't been on here that long, but that's what it looked like to me.

BTW, use this link instead, then find trademark search yourself.

Also, maybe I'm making assumptions again, but the "Mozilla" entry seems to have branded merchandise trademarked.

I haven't seen it myself. I noticed the dead /. trademark differs from the live /. trademark in terms of "products, on-line tools and services via the internet for a select audience." Perhaps if a Slashdot-entitled outfit were to start selling these things, maybe OSDN wouldn't be able to do anything to them?

I haven't seen it myself. I noticed the dead /. trademark differs from the live /. trademark in terms of "products, on-line tools and services via the internet for a select audience." Perhaps if a Slashdot-entitled outfit were to start selling these things, maybe OSDN wouldn't be able to do anything to them?

Mozilla is still registered to Netscape Corporation (now Time Warner) in the US and EU.

Interesting... I had to see this for myself: Trademark Electronic Search System.

Search Term: mozilla
Field: ALL

searching for "slashdot" also produces an interesting piece of info... but I'm probably either the last to know about this or an idiot for pointing it out
Oh well...

Philosophical programmers are free to argue about what OO means, but the only true requirement is what's expressed in the name: "Object Oriented". Meaning a program is based on objects as the fundamental unit of coding (as compared with the earlier "function oriented" languages).

Any attempt to further constrain the term's meaning is but an expression of opinion. Neither Yourdon or Stroustrup originally invented it; their works only tell what they think it is most useful for OO to mean. (That's the best any mortal can really do)

You can get real OOness in C but it takes some heavy lifting, see gtk for an example.

Implementing OO in C is a patented technique and may not be used the express written consent of Sun Microsystems, Incorporated.

Notice of this "gtk" product has been forwarded to the cognizant lawyers, who will presently establish terms to convey all "gtk" intellectual property rights to Sun Microsystems, Incorporated. The win-win synergy will leverage to new frontiers of UCI innovationness.

Apparently the "Open office" trademark is owned by the "E-mail incorporated corporation of California", and has been classed as 'dead' since 1993.

Interestingly enough, the Openoffice.org trademark is also dead since last year, being considered "Abandoned: Applicant failed to respond to an Office action.".
Sun owns this trademark.. what are they up to?

Samsung's patent

Each stakeholder has patented a method or slight spin on the basic technique, and so certain claims in each patent could possibly be applied to your arithmetic coder if they wanted to go after you.

You may need to wait 5-10 years before bundling an implementation in a package with high-visibility that isn't designed for educational or experimental use.

Looks like the US Air Force's Rome Air Development Center thinks they have a patent on it. Am I the only one who thinks "United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force" should not be a valid patent assignee?

The Connecticut town of Lyme (Old Lyme, and East Lyme as well) is less than ten miles away accross the Long Island Sound from Plum Island (If you were ever in the Navy and pulled out from New London or the Groton Sub Base, then youve been within 150 yardsof the place).

Mycoplasma Fermentans has been detected in patients of Gulf War Syndrome, Lyme Disease, and HIV in almost all cases. It is often also detected in Multiple Sclerosis patients, and the US Army released instructions to the Veterans Administration shortly after the Korean War that all MS cases developing within two years of a serviceman returning from Korea should be considered to be service related.

There is a connection that has been noticed by doctors in that area, as well as by doctors treating patients who have lived in that area in other locations.

There is also at least one patent held by the US Army for this organism.

It's good that there's covertage of some of the mishaps that occur at these facilities, but it seems that a "mishap" might not be enough to account for the problems that have been connected to the communitioes surrounding Plum Island and are spreading through the population. (Yes, Gulf War Syndrome is contagious, and did "originate" in many veterans who never left the states.)

This won't be any problem at all since the Project Gutenberg folks remembered to register their trademark.

Does Starbucks have a license for this groundbreaking innovation from the patent owners at FPDC inc?

"System for reproducing information in material objects at a point of sale location"

And before any europeans in the audience start chuckling, it's patented in Europe too.

It's clear that they are pointing this patent at their airline business ("e.g., a seat-back display for airline") and if you look at one patent they site McCarten its clear that they have been doing this for a long time.

Seems Nintendo has a whole nother world the rest of us never see.

It is possible that he filed a registration patent in Russia. However a registration patent is filed essentially as a copyright would be, when you file what amounts to be an invention disclosure. This simply provide one "proof" that the purported "invention" existes as of the date filed.

If one wishes to "enforce" a registration patent, one must prove in court, during litigation, that the registration should be accorded legal rights.

It's unfortunate that news sources don't take the time to research stuff like this.

The Abstract of the Patent says: A software emulator for emulating a handheld [...] on a low-capability target platform [...]

This seems to exclude current and recent PCs and Consoles... is this also said in the full text (havn't found it, but my head cought fire halfway through...)?

For those who want to actually read the Kodak patents asserted against Sony, they are 5016107; 5164831; 5493335; 6292218; 4642678; 5373322; 5382976; 4660101; 6542192; and 6573927. Go to the PTO and search for each.

35 USC 102(b) establishes a statutory bar to obtaining a patent if the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States.

He's out of luck by more than 10 years. Also, 35 USC 102 (g) [same link as above] establishes that if two people invent the same thing, the later to file must show reasonable diligence from a time just prior to conception by another.

Read the patent, the compression of the digital stream is only a part of the entire device described.

Oh, and: Patent number 5,016,107 "Electronic still camera utilizing image compression and digital storage" May 14, 1991:
Patent 5,016,107

oops

Mod that down (patent is on "felching aid").

The real patent is 6,589,221.

Somebody's probably answered this already, but...

Kodak does have: Patent number 5,412,427 "Electronic camera utilizing image compression feedback for improved color processing" issued May 2, 1995:
Patent 5,412,427

The patent doesn't cover compressing images on a digital camera. It covers one (rather broad, it was filed in 1989) compression algorithm (sounded like JPEG) when used in the entire system.

I can't say definitively, but it sounds as though if the image is compressed before being saved to the media, the patent wouldn't be violated.

Don't read too much into titles of patents. They need to be descriptive, not specific. For instance, patent 6,703,724 (filed in Nov. 2000) is simply titled "Electric Machine". It is an electric machine, but it is a specific one for grinding minerals.

Number 5016107

Improved approaches for users of computing devices to interact with graphical user interfaces are described. According to one aspect, a rotational user action supplied by a user at a user input device is transformed into linear action with respect to a graphical user interface. According to another aspect, a portion of an extended list of items is displayed by a graphical user interface and, through rotational user actions at a user input device, the portion of the list being displayed can be varied with welcomed ease of use. Although the type of computing device can vary, the improved approaches are particularly well-suited for use with a portable media player.

Those of us who place our faith in the Googlebot may be surprised to learn that the big search engines crawl less than 1 percent of the known Web. Beneath the surface layer of company sites, blogs and porn lies another, hidden Web. The "deep Web" is the great lode of databases, flight schedules, library catalogs, classified ads, patent filings, genetic research data and another 90-odd terabytes of data that never find their way onto a typical search results page.

There is a reason for this: a Google search should turn up pointers to the items in the so-called "deep web" (*gag*). To use one of the examples above: if I am looking for information on patents, the search terms I use should point me to the US Patent and Trademark Office. It shouldn't have to point me to all 12 bajillion patent filings.

Besides, what makes anyone think this is going to fly after all the hubbub over "deep-linking"?

Looks like the the AT&T Customer Service Droid strikes again... Along with their patent on spam-filter circumvention it is safe to say AT&T holds the #1 market share in raping the public.

You must not have read it very closely then. Look again, it describes the format of the ASF stream which is used for both transmission and "storing, on a storage device". It's mentioned specifically in the patent.

Also, what besides wishful thinking makes you believe it wasn't an official action by Microsoft? What makes you even think it wasn't a laywer? All the article said was "Today I received a polite phone call from a fellow at Microsoft who works in the Windows Media group." - it made no mention of what capacity the person worked.

However he or she was clearly convincing enough to make Avery Lee remove ASF support. Personally I'd doubt some random programmer would do this on their own - indeed someone not authorized to do so would be risking their job attempting to speak for the company that way. I'm sure it was official.

As for demanding a C&D letter, would you really want to tweak the tail of the tiger if you were in his position?

If you truely do believe in trademark infringement

I do. And patents and copyrights.

this would seem to be a reasonable example of it

Nope. I suspect you have (conciously or not) adsorbed the "intellectual property" theory of patents, trademarks, and copyrights. It's a lousy model and routinely leads to erroneous conclusions, as it does in this case.

Such a radical departure from normal court rulings

Nope. It's exactly in line with the law and "normal court rulings".

The purpose of patents, trademarks, and copyrights, is for the public benefit. The purpose of trademarks is so that the public can know what they are buying and who they are buying it from. It is only a trademark violation if (intentionally or otherwise) you are likely to cause confusion that you are the other commercial entity.

Not only does she have every right to use that trademark to criticize that company, she has every right to open a BUSINESS at that website and under that trademark, so long as she is not likely to cause confusion in the minds of the public that she is that other business. If you check the US Government patent and Trademark website you'll find a dozzen different companies all using the identical (live) trademark "Stax". A freight company, a software company, a magic-marker company, etc etc etc. If you check "Sunrise" and "Acme" there are 122 live listings each (a coincidence that they are both exactly 122).

So she has every right to open a baby-supply store (nursery) and use the exact same trademark "lucasnursery". Or she could open a pizzaria called "lucasnursery". She just can't open a landscaping company and use that mark.

Information is not and cannot be "property". A trademark is nothing but a peice of language. A company is granted certain limited exclusive rights on the use of that trademark in commerce. All language (including trademarks) are "property" of the public. That's easy to prove - all I have to do is point to Kleenex and Aspirin. Those were both trademarks "owned" by their respective companies. The public REVOKED all rights those companies had in those marks simply by ignoring them and using them as generic terms for tissues and acetylsalicylic acid.

Patents and trademarks and copyrights are good and beneficial things, but trying to think of them as "property" inevitably leads to wrong conclusions and efforts to make harmful changes in law.

can you ever be liberal in the right ways? ;)

Well, to avoid a time-wasting argument over current controversial topics, I'd say that allowing blacks to sit at the front of the bus was at one time a "liberal" position. :)

-

Unfortunately, patent reexaminations aren't being accepted for the time being. (See text towards bottom of the linked page)

Oh really? How about something as ancient as the dildo? Prior art dates a LONG way back.

If you want to download the full pages of a patent from the USPTO, "you must install and use a browser plug-in..."