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I'm pretty sure this has already been done.... About 10yrs ago I was looking at the 'stun guns' and other "non-lethal" stuff in a catalog that had a leather stun jacket, it had copper wire embedded into the surface of the leather and a switch that came out the sleeve into the hand... if anyone touches you (on the coat)... you turn on the switch and ZAP. Also they had a leather glove built the same way... switch and battery on belt opposite to the glove hand. This was geared towards bodyguards and bouncers. I searched the Pat office briefly tonight, but couldn't find the jacket, although I did find a 'Electric Glove" that might have been the prototype for the one I saw.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,370,696.WKU.&OS=PN/4,370,696&RS =PN/4,370,696

I did find a cool 'Counter-measure' jacket/garment.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,272,781.WKU.&OS=PN/6,272,781&RS =PN/6,272,781

Hope MIT dosen't have probs with patenting theirs.

I'm pretty sure this has already been done.... About 10yrs ago I was looking at the 'stun guns' and other "non-lethal" stuff in a catalog that had a leather stun jacket, it had copper wire embedded into the surface of the leather and a switch that came out the sleeve into the hand... if anyone touches you (on the coat)... you turn on the switch and ZAP. Also they had a leather glove built the same way... switch and battery on belt opposite to the glove hand. This was geared towards bodyguards and bouncers. I searched the Pat office briefly tonight, but couldn't find the jacket, although I did find a 'Electric Glove" that might have been the prototype for the one I saw.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4,370,696.WKU.&OS=PN/4,370,696&RS =PN/4,370,696

I did find a cool 'Counter-measure' jacket/garment.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,272,781.WKU.&OS=PN/6,272,781&RS =PN/6,272,781

Hope MIT dosen't have probs with patenting theirs.

If he is for real, he probably means he has applied for patents. FYI the USPTO have both an issues and an application database and trust me when I say, it takes years to even have applications turn up in the DB - I have some patents that were applied for 3+ years ago that still have not made it (and no, I am not patent protagonist, but my employer is). Additionally, when they DO show up in that DB, they show the date on which they got entered NOT the application date, which is the one that counts.

Prior art is irrelevent in getting patents from USPTO. :)

This guy has no patents. He's just trying to scare us off from stealing his idea. Why else jump to mention his patents at the first available opportunity, on a website which hates patents no less?

The Abstract from this patent is as follows:

The present invention provides a system and method for filtering unsolicited electronic commercial messages. A system and method according to the present invention for screening out unsolicited commercial messages comprises the steps of receiving a message from a sender, sending a challenge back to the sender, receiving a response to the challenge, and determining if the response is a proper response.

My boss knows what the other patent number is, but he is in a meeting at the moment. :( I am going to try to respond back later with a more detailed response to all of this.

Challenge-Response is the fundamental security mechanism for TCP,

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =4&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=5443036&OS=5443036&R S=5443036
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=5443036&OS=5443036&R S=5443036

The CR patent reminded me of silly patents like this.

Enjoy

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =4&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=5443036&OS=5443036&R S=5443036
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=5443036&OS=5443036&R S=5443036

The CR patent reminded me of silly patents like this.

Enjoy

Look at 6199102 and 6112227.

And yes, these are them. I asked.

Look at 6199102 and 6112227.

And yes, these are them. I asked.

No. A company is considered the author for copyright purposes for a "work for hire", but an inventor is always a person. Show me a patent where the inventor is a company. For example, find a patent where IBM ("International Business Machines") is the inventor. If you search current applications for that, you'll find over 4000 with IBM as the assignee, and none with IBM as the inventor. If you search all issued patents (since 1976), you'll find over 33000, but not one where they are listed as the inventor.

A company can be an assignee, but can not be the inventor. Only the inventor(s) can apply for a patent. See who can apply for a patent, straight from the horse's mouth.

No. A company is considered the author for copyright purposes for a "work for hire", but an inventor is always a person. Show me a patent where the inventor is a company. For example, find a patent where IBM ("International Business Machines") is the inventor. If you search current applications for that, you'll find over 4000 with IBM as the assignee, and none with IBM as the inventor. If you search all issued patents (since 1976), you'll find over 33000, but not one where they are listed as the inventor.

A company can be an assignee, but can not be the inventor. Only the inventor(s) can apply for a patent. See who can apply for a patent, straight from the horse's mouth.

No. A company is considered the author for copyright purposes for a "work for hire", but an inventor is always a person. Show me a patent where the inventor is a company. For example, find a patent where IBM ("International Business Machines") is the inventor. If you search current applications for that, you'll find over 4000 with IBM as the assignee, and none with IBM as the inventor. If you search all issued patents (since 1976), you'll find over 33000, but not one where they are listed as the inventor.

A company can be an assignee, but can not be the inventor. Only the inventor(s) can apply for a patent. See who can apply for a patent, straight from the horse's mouth.

The patent says it also reacts to light and other things.

You might try to use some type of sealer. If it is really a chemical reaction, some substance out there will halt the reaction.

Maybe somebody better in chemistry can figure it out-

USPTO Patent Link

United States Patent: 6,293,874: User-operated amusement apparatus for kicking the user's buttocks

More info here:

For many years, some courts also ruled that a patent could not be granted on a "method of doing business," such as a sales technique or an accounting method. A recent court decision, however, has opened the door to patents in those areas by ruling that so-called business methods can be patented. Companies that rely on computers for accounting, electronic commerce and communication may be prime beneficiaries of those new types of patents.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has the final word on patents aside from the Supreme Court, ruled in State Street Bank & Trust Co. vs. Signature Financial Group that a computerized accounting system was patentable, even though it concerned a method of doing business and involved mathematical algorithms.

...

The court's ruling provides new opportunities for those who seek patent protection in areas such as accounting, electronic commerce and computer software. Computer programs once considered merely abstract ideas can now be patented as long as they produce a "useful result." ... Even Einstein's famous equation, if applied in a useful manner, could form the basis for a patent.

US Patent 6,368,227: Method of Swinging on a Swing I truly don't know how they didn't get busted for prior art on this, or obvousness. According to patent lawyers I know, the guy got away with it because it's an exceptionally well-written patent.

and US Patent 3,216,423: APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING THE BIRTH OF A CHILD BY CENTRIGUGAL FORCE, which I think is actually very non-obvious, and I doubt there's much prior art on it. But I'm not surprised it was never productized.

USPTO for 6,560,634

I don't have the time, but could someone answer the above?

True ... unless the patent office starts following the stated rules, that is, and not awarding patents for inventions which are "obvious to an expert in the field".

The thing that people rarely get when they point out this rule, (which is more accurately stated, "obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art") is that the meaning of the word, "obvious" in the patent law sense is completely different than the meaning of the same word in the normal sense. See MPEP section 2142 for the tip of the iceberg of the patent law meaning of the word.

- "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

You mean this?

Traditionally, patent protection was awarded only to technical inventions, such as light bulbs, shavers, medicines and so on. New financial techniques or ways of selling things were often explicitly excluded in patent laws. As electronic commerce became more popular, new ways of selling things were offering services over the Internet were developed. Since these new business methods involved computers, communication systems and other technical things, many inventors in this field tried to obtain patent protection. The 1998 State Street Bank decision in the USA ruled that patents on business methods were as valid as any other type of patent. The combination of these two of events resulted in an explosive growth of the number of business method patents.

Which led to this.

When they start letting you patent methods of doing business, you can patent anything. Anything. You could patent picking your nose. You could patent swinging on a swing set. What if Picasso patented cubism?

It may be a good idea, but it's not something that should be protected by the government against competition.

It's an idea, not a technical innovation. It doesn't cost anything to have an idea. And it's impossible to verify that you were the first person to have that idea. Technical innovations do cost money to develop and there really wasn't any unique technical process that had to be invented and invested in in order to implement this particular idea.

This patent should never be allowed.

I wonder if Apple could file suit based on this patent.

It describes "ornamental" light use, but I didn't check to read the whole thing if it covered functional feedback.

Mark Brehob

Can you provide any reason why it can't be trademarked? Not only can he trademark it but if he can prove that he used it obviously and consistently as a mark before he for at least 5 years before he registered it then he might actually have a case. Here is some info from the USPTO.

What's really interesting about that trademark application is that it is under opposition. (See here.)

You'll note that not only did Cohen's trademark lawyers "fire" him, but that this application is about to die.

And as a note to an above post, the USPTO actually does kind of act like the "trademark police" in the opposition process. Think of it like an administrative court.

Actually, only ONE year. Well, more like seven months.

According to Whois.sc, the domain name was registered in October 18, 1995. The Sex.Com trademark, however, was registered on May 20, 1996.

Slight difference there.

The patent office's own website also infringes this patent. It covers any kind of static menuing system that remains static while the content changes. Hmmm, does that mean then that this site is also guilty: USPTO Patent Record in Question Anyone want to donate money to pay their license? After all - they're making tons of money in license extortions...er...fees. Hey, SBC faggots - why don't you sue the USPTO? Morons...

Actually, spinning-screen displays are capable of viewer position-dependent effects, such as occlusion. The spinning screen isn't the point - it's the screen. In order to make an arbitrary light field (through piecewise approximation), you need to be able to control both the amplitude AND the trajectory of each "ray bundle." If you use a screen that is not a diffuser, but something with beam-steering capabilities, you can do occlusion. For instance, see US Pat. 6,487,020.

patent link

-gregg

SBC's patents were filed May 17, 1996. There are several ways that something can qualify as prior art, but the most clear-cut is to find something that was public more than 1 year before the filing date. In this case, before May 17, 1995.

See the problem is that you can't just mix and match prior art until you get exactly what the patent it claiming. You need to have ALL the claims from the patent in ONE prior art document for it to be considered prior art.

Nevertheless, I don't think this patent is valid at all and someone should present the one piece of prior art that is surely out there to get it refuted. Or better yet, someone should point out to SBC that these guys are in violation of the patent and should be sued. Now that's what I call killing two birds with one stone.

Claim 1 of the first patent claims, "a browser for viewing documents having embedded codes . . ." The other claims also seem to be specific to browsers, not documents (a web site designer creates documents, not browsers).

At first glance, it does appear that SBC should be going after Netscape and Internet Explorer. Of course, Netscape is owned by AOL/Time Warner and IE is owned by Microsoft.

Claim 1 of the first patent claims, "a browser for viewing documents having embedded codes . . ." The other claims also seem to be specific to browsers, not documents (a web site designer creates documents, not browsers).

At first glance, it does appear that SBC should be going after Netscape and Internet Explorer. Of course, Netscape is owned by AOL/Time Warner and IE is owned by Microsoft.

• SBC filed for the patent [uspto.gov] in May of 1996.
• Netscape 2.0 was released [hmetzger.de] in March of 1996.
  

Hamster

• SBC filed for the patent in May of 1996.
  
• Netscape 2.0 was released in March of 1996.
  

Hamster

I'd quote your whole post, but by debunking the following FUD, the whole premise of your comment falls apart:

The problem is of course the ionic breeze *ISN'T MOVING AIR*

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I bought one for a relative, and I tested it before I gave it to her. When you turn the Ionic Breeze on, you can feel air flowing out of the front of the unit, and if you tie little streamers (like thin, light ribbons)to the front grating, they start flapping in the breeze the moment you throw the switch. Yet there are no moving parts, and operation is totally silent (not just really quiet, I mean SILENT). I can't even hear any high-pitched sound from the power supply!

(Needless to say, they have an even better unit now, but oh well.

So how does it work, you ask? Well, Sharper Image has a somewhat-dumbed-down explanation of what they call the "Zenion Effect" here, or you can dive in head-first here.

One more BS rumor debunked. <accent character="Apu Nahasapeemapetilon">Thank you, come again!</accent>

After all that, if you're interested in buying an Ionic Breeze, don't buy it from the Sharper Image for US$299 or US$349 or whatever stupid amount they want for it. You can get them on eBay for something like US$160 or so, either new or factory-refurbished with full warranty (but photocopied manual, oh darn).

On another note, what's with the "No Subscriber Bonus" checkbox? Am I gonna start posting at +3 by default now?!

According to the USPTO website, the Strawberry Shortcake mark is owned by "Those Characters From Cleveland, Inc." Those Characters From Cleveland appears to license their marks to American Greetings or is a subsidiary. I haven't found a page that explicitly mentions their relationship. (Note: I think USPTO query links 'expire.' You can always search again using TESS.

According to this link, it looks like American Greetings, Those Characters From Cleveland, and Rinda Vas have previously gone after alleged violations of their marks. (In the linked page, the case appears to be a reasonable attack against a domain squatter.)

According to the USPTO website, the Strawberry Shortcake mark is owned by "Those Characters From Cleveland, Inc." Those Characters From Cleveland appears to license their marks to American Greetings or is a subsidiary. I haven't found a page that explicitly mentions their relationship. (Note: I think USPTO query links 'expire.' You can always search again using TESS.

According to this link, it looks like American Greetings, Those Characters From Cleveland, and Rinda Vas have previously gone after alleged violations of their marks. (In the linked page, the case appears to be a reasonable attack against a domain squatter.)

The description says that the user can push it side to side or up and down.

Can you please point out where in the patent it mentions the disc being clickable in any direction. I've run through it fairly closely now and have yet to find anything that says the wheel is clickable at all. It says the body of the mouse is clickable, like the current Mac mice are, but that's about it. There's a diagram (Fig. 6) that shows two double-sided arrows indicating the rotation that someone might possibly have misunderstood... maybe.

> It's a rotary dial

No, it's not.

Ummm... Yes, it is.

Come on, people. As patents go, Apple's actually done a pretty good job making this one pretty darn easy to read. Here's one of many claims that make it clear that the disc rotates:

12. A mouse for moving a cursor or pointer on a display screen, comprising: a mouse housing; and a disk coupled to the mouse housing and rotatable about an axis, the disk being configured to facilitate a control function on the display screen, the disk having a touchable surface for rotating the disk about the axis, the touchable surface being completely accessible to a finger of the user such that the disk can be continuously rotated by a simple swirling motion of the finger.

Anyway, here is a link to patent application 20030076303. You can see the images from there also.

Could we soon see Apple-branded, multibutton, scrolling mice?"

Could we soon see Apple-branded, multibutton, scrolling mice?"

Radial discs for user input are not exactly a new idea; that said, they didn't take off in earlier incarnations.

Anybody remember Intellivision?

The #2 competitor to the Atari 2600, the Intellivision had a controller with a disc very similar to that described on this patent application (see the picture shown at the above link). The radial dial controller (along with a phone-like keypad and a couple 'action' buttons) was used rather than a joystick or a mouse.

The Intellivision controller is described at the bottom of this page, and the problems with it are aluded to in this video game history, notably that:
Unfortunately, the control discs are not a huge hit with players, along with the fact that their flimsy design leads to frequent controller breakdowns. Hardwired right into the system, this becomes a big problem for owners who have to slog the whole machine back to the dealer for repair.

I'd imagine Apple will avoid these mistakes; mice aren't integrated and I don't see why they can't insure higher quality. Personally, I found the disc an acceptable substitute for a joystick after playing with it a bit at a friend's house.

So I think there's a fair bit of prior art. I searched for 5 minutes for Intellivision and Coleco patents and found it described in
Patent 4,486,629, 4,470,012, 4,462,594, and 4,439,648. I didn't see that prior art cited in the Apple patent.

That said, the new patent does A) control scrolling actions rather than main-locus-of-control actions, and B) as the patent application says, "pressing down on the disc for clicking does not cause the disc to rotate" which seems like an advance to me over the Intellivision controller.

I guess the question comes down to: how well is the usability testing going?

--LP

P.S. For a Slash-based forum on post-PC UI issues, see Nooface.

Strawberry Shortcake, Popples, Care Bears and related trademarks are federally registered trademarks of Those Characters From Cleveland ("TCFC"), an American Greetings Company. All 978 Trademark Records at USPTO.gov

American Greetings Corporation (AM) (#2 US maker of greeting cards)
One American Road , Cleveland, Ohio

DesignWare party goods, GuildHouse candles, PlusMark gift wrap, and Designers' Collection stationery, balloons, giftware

Subsidiaries:
Those Characters From Cleveland, Inc. (character licensing)
AGC, Inc. (Design licensing)
Learning Horizons (supplemental educational products)
Magnivision (nonprescription reading glasses)
AmericanGreetings.com (online cards)
Bluemountain.com
Beatgreets.com
Passitar ound.com
AG Industries, Inc. (Product display fixtures)
Gibson Greetings, Inc.
American Pie Acquisition Corp.
Egreetings Network, Inc. (egreetings.com)
Plus Mark, Inc.
Carlton Cards Retail, Inc.
CPS Company of Delaware Inc.
Carlton Cards Limited (Canada, UK)
Camden Graphics Group (UK)
Hanson White Ltd. (UK)
Gibson Greetings International Limited (UK)
The Ink Group Publishers Ltd. (U.K.)
Carlton Cards Ltd. (Ireland)
Carlton Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
John Sands (Australia, New Zealand) Ltd.
The Ink Group PTY Ltd. (Australia)
The Ink Group NZ Ltd.
S.A. Greetings Company (PTY) Ltd. (South Africa)
Memory Lane SDN BHD (85% owned) (Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia)

Top Competitors:
Hallmark (principal competitor)
123Greetings
Corbis - owned by Microsoft

Last 10k

Scientific, nautical, surveying, electric, photographic, cinematographic, optical, weighing, measuring, signalling, checking (supervision), life-saving and teaching apparatus and instruments; apparatus for recording, transmission or reproduction of sound or images; magnetic data carriers, recording discs; automatic vending machines and mechanisms for coin operated apparatus; cash registers, calculating machines, data processing equipment and computers; fire extinguishing apparatus.

From the USPTO site:

For over 200 years, the basic role of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has remained the same: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries.

As much as I agree that this is a laudable goal, I think it's obvious from this case and others that in today's high-paced climate, patents often serve to do exactly the opposite.

There already is a disincentive to keep unprofitable patents. Maintenance fees are charged to all patents and have to be paid to keep the patent in force. If a patent is unprofitable, the patent hodler will allow the patent to expire.