Slashdot Mirror
Is the POST Method Patented?
echodave asks: "So, I happened to architect a fairly large website for one of the big three a while back, and I've recently been notified that they're in the midst of a patent infringement lawsuit regarding method="post". It seems that according to this patent , a certain Allan Konrad claims ownership of any model wherein a database is accessed via a client, whether it be web based, client/server based, etc. What's up with that? Through informal discussions, it's been identified that he's essentially claiming ownership of both "POST" and "GET" methods...which are not only used in database related applications, but even something as simple as this form on Slashdot that I'm using to submit this story. Any hints, comments, advice or ideas will be appreciated." Is there anyone in the USPTO checking these things, or can anything get in?
Well, the patent office uses "GET" here:
http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/search-adv.htm
... so I'm guessing we're ok. Don't you just love irony?
I think it's way past time the USPTO was overhauled.
The patent is dated 1997. THis was light years after POST/GET was invented and implemented in browsers, and other things.
Is it legal to patent something that was done/published before (but maybe not patented?)
Also, does this Konrad work for a large enough company to persue action on this? (I don't think anything could ever come about this.. but you never know)
There has got to be a limit somewhere when it comes to patents, how many times can we let little issues like this pass us by before we realize that our whole existance is being patented. POST and GET method's have been in use for years now, how can someone claim rights to it? This is getting rediculus.
tourettes
The patent office is in the throes of fallout over their too-broad patents issued of late. Patenting things like using a single mouse click to submit a transaction [Amazon's stupendous and ridiculous "One Click" patent], a web-based affiliate program [thank Amazone again] and now the notion of a thin client and a related standard web application infrastructure for enabling such a thin client to issue remote commands is a perfect example of the out dated nature of most government copyrighting and patenting procedures and a clear call for the public at large to take measures to protect themselves from slick individuals patenting away our every basic computer concept behind a wall of "geek speak" as effective as any used by lawyers to confuse the issues with innuendo.
So basically, all these years that I have been building web applications I have been hosing this man's patent without ever even being aware of it? How can he claim control of procedures developed independently of him with no fore-knowledge of his supposed technical advances?
Something must be done about ridiculous patents before we all end up paying for the concept of dialing up to a service provider and using a phone line as a means of digital communication...
Wait a minute...
A local host computing system, a remote host computing system as connected by a network, and service functionalities: a human interface service functionality, a starter service functionality, and a desired utility service functionality, and a Client-Server-Service (CSS) model is imposed on each service functionality. In one embodiment, this results in nine logical components and three physical components (a local host, a remote host, and an intervening network), where two of the logical components are integrated into one Remote Object Client component, and that Remote Object Client component and the other seven logical components are deployed among the local host and remote host in a manner which eases compatibility and upgrade problems, and provides an illusion to a user that a desired utility service supported on a remote host resides locally on the user's local host, thereby providing ease of use and minimal software maintenance for users of that remote service.
___
...then consider this "post" an act of civil disobedience. =P
Seriously, there HAS to be a mistake there. A misinterpretation? It would be too funny if that story were true. (who would enforce it?)
POST and GET were in common usage at the time and any claim on them by this bogus patent is really pushing it
This guy could sue Amazon for using "GET" and/or "POST" in their one-click-shopping :)
The "GET" method can't be patented, if so all web browser are violationg this patent since they all use "GET" to receive all documents excluding forms page submiting with POST.
GET /index.html
And all e-commerce site use the POST method in their application to access their database.
Maybe if the patent owner declare war on all e-commerce site using the "POST" method, maybe the Congress will understand no everything can be patented, like caching a client-id in a cookie to let its customer pay in 1-Click(TM).
--- Bouh !!! ---
imagine if some of these people used this time to create intelligent posts, the possibilities are endless....
tourettes
This patent is likely to cost mega-corporations "A_LOT" of money and as such is likely to be overturned. The Y2K windowing patent(moving dates into a window starting at a lower bound less than 1900 A.D.) was done-in for the same reason. If we look at a filesystem as a flat database, this patent is likely to effect ftp,NFS, etc.. So prior art should be VERY easy to prove as any rcs/cvs type implementation with a web interface would also likely fall under this yoke. Another case of anything utilizing the HTTP protocal immediately being pattented. I wonder if W3C ever heard of any of these guys before putting GET, PUT, etc into specs.
Perhaps one form of a "posting" mechanism could be patented, but not the simple action itself. If that's the case, every website that takes email via forms, including the Govt ones, are in violation of that patent.
tcd004
Here's my Microsoft Parody, where's yours?
Wow, if someone can patent something like this then I'm going to run down to the local US Patent Office and get the one for doors! Then everbody will have to pay royalties on their doors to me! ;)
-Antipop
The claim in question is absurd both because POST and GET were in use many years before the patent was granted and also because the patent would apply more to RPC-like mechanisms than POST ("and provides an illusion to a user that a desired utility service supported on a remote host resides locally on the user's local host...").
Someone in the vincinity please print out the patent claim and information about the lawsuit and nail it to Mr. Dickinson's forehead.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
This is bad for /., right?
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
I don't know how much difference this makes, but the patent is listed as a "continuation" of a patent filed in 1993, and lists as references several papers this guy published in 1990 and 1991. IANAL, but it seems like he might be able to use these to invalidate claims of prior art.
Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare
I tried to read the patent, and I just couldnt. If someone has to read stuff like this for their job I can imagine it causes great mental damage, possibly enough for them to allow these things to be patented. God, its awful, I've seen random number generators output stuff that makes more sense.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
I meant disobedience, of course.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
If they are planning on enforcing their patent they should go after the biggest problems first:
Microsoft's Hotmail service
Yahoo!
If they try against any others it might be seen as a double standard.
I Don't Work Here
The only solution I can see is to bitch slap this jerk until he says he's sorry.
"I'm sorry! I didn't think anyone would actually hit me! I thought it would just drag out in the courts until companies paid me to go away."
If this guy thought the payback for frivolous patents was getting punched, he never would have done it.
The obvious question is: Who decides which inventors get punched? I suggest a poll of experts in the field. Thumbs up or thumbs down.
Jon Sullivan
Jon Sullivan
www.jonsullivan.com
because he's the webmaster of the web pages at cedr.lbl.gov which include, amoung other things, textbook examples of POST and GET
isn't that kind of like copyrighting any program that uses ";" to mark line breaks in the code?
Jeez. POST is part of HTML. I don't think it's right to copyright a command. Although maybe, if the copyright were on the method the database uses to handle data sent by the POST command, he might have a chance. But that's different.
===
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
I suppose what you'll see next is an automatic moderating tool that automaticly moderates up all those automatic first posts to +1 insightful.
And after that we'll see an automatic meta-moderation tool to make sure all those automatic-moderations are 'fair'...
A local host computing system, a remote host computing system as connected by a network, and service functionalities
Telnet, telnetd, and the DARPA ARPANet, circa 1981.
a human interface service functionality,
That would be the telnet client
a starter service functionality,
The negotitation that happens at the beginning of telnet session to determine your terminal type
and a desired utility service functionality,
Such as remote access to the UNIX or VMS commands on that other machine on the DARPA ARPANet
and a Client-Server-Service (CSS) model is imposed on each service functionality.
Telnet won't much work if without a telnet client, a telnetd server, and both being compatible with the appropriate RFCs. Come to think of it, I think the RFCs would be the place to find prior art.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Thank you for your cooperation.
I just want to take over the world...Why does that automatically make me EVIL?
You would think that something as common to all databases would have hit someone at the pattent office. But since they seem to be clueless about computers in general, anything can be pattented.
Maybe I could pattent a mouse click, or maybe http://, oh, and why not pattent slashdot? But slashdot would be a trademark I guess.
All in all, this has went way beyond stupid.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
I work at Lucent and they had all web content searched for POST or GET in relation to a lawsuit last Wed.
Isn't there some way we can get it through to these companies that they're killing the advancement of technology with these freakin' patents? Perhaps something like EFF but for freedom of innovation?
/.
If anyone knows of an organization like this please reply... if not we should seriously consider starting one. We would most likely have all the support we need here on
Konrad v. General Motors Corp., et. al.
Anybody read Japanese? It's clear that Allan Konrad, the owner of this patent, is suing GM in Texas (Why Texas? The guy lives in California.) for patent infringement on this and two other patents ("remote service access systems based on a client-server service mode").
But that's all that I can tell.
-Waldo
It's time that Slashdot gives the USPO a little /. effect. We should complain till they actually do their jobs right.
:)
Also in the meantime I will not comply with anything that says I cannot retrieve information from a remote server. That is what this patent says, you could consider a directory structure to be defined as a database and therefor even mounting a remote file system is WRONG!
Ohh, btw the patent mentions having to have a mouse on your computer for it to apply.... hehe I don't have a mouse, I have a "MOOSE"
- x-empt
Ever need an online dictionary?
I tried to read the patent, and I just couldnt. If someone has to read stuff like this for their job I can imagine it causes great mental damage, possibly enough for them to allow these things to be patented. God, its awful, I've seen random number generators output stuff that makes more sense.
I agree. I haven't seen such a nasty example of repeated loops and aggravated back references in text for ages. I gave up around claim 21. I'm vaguely interested in this one though since it strikes me that the bulk of this patent is tied around a client-server database, so its tricky to see just how specific this patent is. The gist of it centres around trying to give the user on the client sensible access to the information/services on the server as far as I can tell, but I'm going to have to go and lie down before I attempt to distill any more out of the text - I feel like I've just SIGINT'd out of a infinite recursive loop.
For the first time I feel vaguely sorry for the USPTO if they have to read this stuff ...
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
What would you do if you were a patent examiner that knew the system was screwed up, but you couldn't get anyone to listen to you? I'd start approving all sorts of trivial patents in the hope that this would force some kind of change in the system...
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Bad /.! BAD! BAD! Seriously, I think I'll patent the Patent Application Process! Someones got to! See ya at the bank!!
I wanna Crusoe Beowulf cluster, with my share.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well the POST and GET method are part of the HTTP protocol so well used on more than 15,000,000 sites according to the last Netcraft survey. So first this guy is a little late to sue everyone. Second if it's true I will have to reread the HTTP specs and see what it's left to patent.
--- Bouh !!! ---
Who is this moron? Durring the court session, you may want to point out a few sites like eBay, Amazon.com, bn.com, e-trade, etc that all use, you guessed it, datbases. And your browser is the client on all of them. To me, it sounds like the guy is just angry at you for some reason and knew about your site. You might want to get some publicity on this...ZDNN might be interested...
Your car has pedals?!?
Mine has reins, and that's the way I like it.
Giddie-up!
magic
This is really quite pathetic...
I personally think that this patent stuff is getting out of hand. People are just trying to make money quick. It could be seen as a way to get back at open source. I mean we're all sharing without any issues and some person decides he wants to get in on the act and circumvents the system and gets paid for something that everyone has worked so hard to work together on. Well at least that's one way to look at it.
Pretty soon we won't beable to do anything without paying an endless number of royalties to various individuals to make something as simple as a "Hello World" program.
Oh well.. I have to live in this world, doesn't mean I have to like it.
My two cents
I was surprised by the Tim O'Reilly / Patent Office interview posted yesterday. Dickinson's attitude was outrageous in that he felt the current system is adaquate.
I remember reading editorials 10 years ago, month after month in DDJ declairing software patent office to be totally inept regarding technology patents.
A few years later, I ran into a problem implementing a self-service banking application due to a DC-based company's patent on finacial transactions originated from a consumer's home and secured with a password! "PIN-based transactions" originating from a home as opposed to a bank-run system like an ATM.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New York, NY
A good trick would be to get all of the owners of these ridiculous patents to start suing each other. I think Amazon.com would be a great first target... Just think of the millions of books they've sold by using the patented database post and get commands! I wonder if their point and click patent violates the post and get patent?
I want to patent a method for transferring an electron potential across a thin conductor sheathed in a layer of insulating material. I will call this invention (insert Dr Evil finger quotes) "Wire".
Here is a small excerpt from the actual patent text:
The present invention provides an illusion to a user that a desired utility service supported on a remote host resides locally on the user's local host, thereby providing ease of use and minimal software maintenance for users of that remote service. In one embodiment of a Remote Object system according to the present invention, a user appears to activate a Remote Object as a service of the local host. The user actually activates a starter client, which connects to a starter server on the remote host via a starter connection. The starter server interacts with a starter service, which initiates a Remote Object client. The Remote Object client on the remote host then interacts, as a human interface client, with a human interface server on the local host via a second connection, the Remote Object client connection. The Remote Object client also interacts, as a desired utility client with either a desired utility server on the remote host, or directly with the desired utility service on the remote host.
IANAPL, but this sounds to me like they just want to hide as much networking mumbo-jumbo as possible from the user. The user just should not have to care about
a) where the data is located (i.e no typing of http://slashdot.org or clicking on the bookmark)
b) how the database actually works (there are hundreds of different web interfaces in the world, everyone different from the others)
c) how the data is transferred (by http, ftp, smb etc)
They're not trying to patent blatantly obvious stuff - they're even referring to large-scale time-sharing systems in the patent text, and everyone who knows about mainframs knows that ftp and other means for transferring data from one system to the other have been around for decades. It's just that up to now the user has to use different user interfaces for different retrieval systems and also has to distinguish wheter the data is stored locally or on the net (at least in most cases). IIAR they have patented a method to get rid of this (although I wonder how this solution actually might loook like...)
Cthulhu fhtagn!
partial text:
U.s.patents 5,544,320 5,696,901 5,974,444(Patent 3 case) " The client - it is based on the service model between the servers, far Every other service access system (REMOTESERVICEACCESSSYSTEMSBASEDONA CLIENT-SERVERSERVICEMODEL. ) " It is something regarding. Furthermore, the result of investigating the patent family, no United States National patent, preference insistence application to the country other than the United States to be seen, the ? It was a plug.
Here's more text from the upper right hand corner of the page:
February 16th of 2000
Reporter: on ? international patent office
American patent attorney
Charles E bell ???
Translating & decoding: Onda genuine patent office
Patent attorney Onda sincerity
39 corporations which are sued
1.GENERALMOTORSCORP.
2.HONDANORTHAMERICAINC.
3.FORDMOTORCOMPANY
4.DAIMLERCHRYSLERCORPORATION
5.NISSANNORTHAMERICAINC.
6.TOYOTAMOTORSALESUSAINC.
7.MAZDAMOTOROFAMERICAINC.
8.VOLKSWAGENOFAMERICA, inc.
9.BUDGETRENT-A-CARSYSTEMSINC.
10.AUTONATIONUSACORP.
11.THRIFTYRENT-A-CARSYSTEMINC.
12.THEHERTZCORPORATION
13.DOLLARRENTACARSYSTEMINC.
14.AVISRENTACARSYSTEMINC.
15.ADVANTAGERENT-A-CARINC.
16.THEBOEINGCOMPANY
17.EASTMANKODAKCO.
18.LUCENTTECHNOLOGIESINC.
19.NECAMERICAINC.
20.MOTOROLAINC.
21.TOSHIBAAMERICAINC.
22.AMERICATRANSAIRINC.
23.UNITEDAIRLINESINC.
24.DELTAAIRLINESINC.
25.CONTINENTALAIRLINESINC.
26.NORTHWESTAIRLINES, inc.
27.SUNCOUNTRYAIRLINESINC.
28.AMERICANAIRLINESINC.
29.AMRCORPORATION
30.MIDWESTEXPRESSAIRLINESINC.
31.MARRIOTTINTERNATIONALINC.
32.HILTONHOTELSCORPORATION
33.PROMUSHOTELSINC.
34.SHOLODGEINC.
35.STARWOODHOTELS&RESORTS
World-wideinc.
36.THEEXTENDEDSTAYINNSLIMITED Partnership
37.CHOICEHOTELSINTERNATIONAL
38.ENTERPRISERENT-A-CARCOMPANYOF Texas
39.SOUTHWESTAIRLINESCO.
___
As far as i understand it he has patented any client-server process where you can initiate some request and then get some form of output from it.
... or is it just a very special implementation of a database?
Now what is affected by this patent? Search enginnes, network queuing systems, remotely accessible batchservices, what about a supercomputer only accessible via another computer, mpegstreams, multiplayergames, xterms, remoteshell, any remotely accessible process, java applets
I probably overlooked some serious restrictions in that patent, it can't be that overly applicable, but i can't fight that grammatics.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Now as a bit of a hacker, (as in take a large, not quite blunt, object and batter less than optimal bits of code into a crude approximation of a program), "get" and "put" seem to be features of every coding language I have seen. They are in fact part of the grammar of programming independant of the language used by the programmer.
Patenting/copywriting "get" and "put" would be akin to trying to copyright "blue" or patent the concept of "verb". Further, since most (maybe all?) programming languages allow the creation of programmer defined methods or functions, patent restrictions on "get" and "put" are either pointless (the programmer uses a different name for a method that performs the same function) or insanely broadbased (all "get" and "put"-like methods are covered by the patent, for example all I/O would be covered by the patent). I don't think this would hold up even in the States.
Which raises the spectre of yet another anti-trust trial in which the court demands that the i/o functions, memory mangement functions, device control functions, etc, etc, are all spun off into separate companies..... No, let's not go there just yet....
Mr. Konrad esentially claims patent on multi-tiered client/server architecture. Obviously, Microsoft has been delaying their Next Generation Windows Services anouncement because of delays in negotiating with Mr. Konrad, not because of the impending breakup of the company.
Seriously, the patent acknowledges so much prior art, including X Windows and Cathode Ray Tube Display, that it can't possibly be considered "inventive" or "non-obvious".
This is basicly the longest description of multi-tiered client/server architecture that I've ever read. The entire software industry is infringing on this one. And has been since the first dumb terminal was connected to a mainframe.
Get this: "The above description is illustrative and not restrictive. Many variations of the invention will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon review of this disclosure. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined not with reference to the above description, but instead should be determined with reference to the appended claims along with their full scope of equivalents." In short, the idea may be fifty years old, but I only want to claim future uses of it. Can I patent the business process of riding on the coat tails of real inovators and collecting royalties for doing nothing?
There has *GOT* to be some penalty for submitting patents without citing prior art that you can *VERY* easily prove that this individual quite literally had on his desk and certainly had prior knowledge of.
Can I just spam the PO with millions of dynamically generated patents that contain just about anything under the sun, and not be held legally liable for those requests?
"There autta be a law.."
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
De facto, you can patent anything as long as you state your claims in a way which is complicated enough.
For example, some guys filed a patent for the concept of standard byte order in the late 80s, although this concept has been used by the Internet Protocol for a long time. They even dared to cite the NFS specification as a reference!
(The US patent number is 4,956,809, BTW.)
39 corporations which are sued$l$l1.GENERALMOTORSCORP. 2.HONDANORTHAMERICAINC. 3.FORDMOTORCOMPANY 4.DAIMLERCHRYSLERCORPORATION 5.NISSANNORTHAMERICAINC. 6.TOYOTAMOTORSALESUSAINC. 7.MAZDAMOTOROFAMERICAINC. 8.VOLKSWAGENOFAMERICA, inc. 9.BUDGETRENT-A-CARSYSTEMSINC. 10.AUTONATIONUSACORP. 11.THRIFTYRENT-A-CARSYSTEMINC. 12.THEHERTZCORPORATION 13.DOLLARRENTACARSYSTEMINC. 14.AVISRENTACARSYSTEMINC. 15.ADVANTAGERENT-A-CARINC. 16.THEBOEINGCOMPANY 17.EASTMANKODAKCO. 18.LUCENTTECHNOLOGIESINC. 19.NECAMERICAINC. 20.MOTOROLAINC. 21.TOSHIBAAMERICAINC. 22.AMERICATRANSAIRINC. 23.UNITEDAIRLINESINC. 24.DELTAAIRLINESINC. 25.CONTINENTALAIRLINESINC. 26.NORTHWESTAIRLINES, inc. 27.SUNCOUNTRYAIRLINESINC. 28.AMERICANAIRLINESINC. 29.AMRCORPORATION 30.MIDWESTEXPRESSAIRLINESINC. 31.MARRIOTTINTERNATIONALINC. 32.HILTONHOTELSCORPORATION 33.PROMUSHOTELSINC. 34.SHOLODGEINC. 35.STARWOODHOTELS&RESORTS World-wideinc. 36.THEEXTENDEDSTAYINNSLIMITED Partnership 37.CHOICEHOTELSINTERNATIONAL 38.ENTERPRISERENT-A-CARCOMPANYOF Texas 39.SOUTHWESTAIRLINESCO.
___
What's going on here?
Did some dumb-ass lawyer buy into suing somebody because somebody else said the POST method was covered by this patent?
Duh!
These days, you can get a dumb-ass lawyer to sue anyone for anything!
[ps: to any dumb-ass lawyers reading this: don't bother suing me, my ex-wife got it all.]
So what the hell *is* going on, here?
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Seriously, some of the patents and other such legal nonsense I've seen over the last few months make the Obfuscated Code contest look like preschool stuff. (not meant to degrade any of the amazing things those contestants do)
-- GBF: General Brain Fart - press any key to wake up
Yes, one day I may actually learn to spell...
First off, the acceptance of bad patents is not in itself a reason to get rid of patents altogether. People, the Patent Office is run by human beings under an incredible workload. They are bound to make mistakes, and they are bound to let things sort themselves out in the courts rather than focus in detail on everything. Yes, some things like software patents and even business model patents probably should be removed, but the overarching concept of the patent is not a bad one, especially if you truly do have a novel invention that you intend to market.
With that said, the most rational response I can think of is to notify your Congressperson that their web site is in violation of a patent. According to this patent, almost everything on the Web is. Let your Congressperson know this, and then let them know that this is absurd and more important, why this is absurd. Use this as a natural starting point for showing other examples of 'bad' patents that apply to obvious ideas (note ideas, not mechanisms) and then ask them respectfully to look into the matter so that both you and they don't have to change your web site.
Trust me, you accuse a Congressperson of breaking the law and the first thing they're going to do (even before they start lying) is figure out a way to legally remove the illegality.
Reading over the patent I noticed something missing. There is no mention to Microsoft windows. Some of the Interfaces and networks mentioned are UNIX, OS/2, VMS, DOS, Desqview/X, MacOS, and X windows, plus a general references to "window manager" but MS windows is not. I wonder why? =) Considering it was filled Aug 1997.
I've filed a defensive patent covering certain methods of 'surfing' information using a 'mouse'- and certain methods of retrieving information from a collection of printed papers arranged in a bundle with easily flippable 'pages'.. You are currently infringing on said patent by 'browsing' information on slashdot. Please adjust your current habits, and send a check post-haste to avoid further legal problems.
-
air and light and time and space
It's just that the language he's using makes it seem that he's claiming rights to the model and not the methodology.
It seems to me that the software industry has made huge leaps and bounds in the 30 or so years without patents. We've all heard the claims about where the auto industry would be if they progressed as fast as the computer industry. It's my belief that lack of patents stimulates innovation. If your competitor can copy your product in a matter of months, it keeps you looking for the next product.
lysdexic
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."
lysdexic
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a t
Seriously though, I think it's time we started suing filers of these trivial patents for fraud. There's prior art, they KNOW there's prior art, and they've apparently gone to exceedingly great lengths to obstifucate the wording of the patent to make it appear is if there's not. They are doing grevious harm to the industry in the process. Sue them. Sue them hard. Like that guy who had the patent on Windowing for Y2K software, despite some 20 years of prior art (Whatever became of him anyway?) I'm pretty sure we covered windowing briefly in one of my college classes in the '80's but we didn't spend too much time on the concept becase it was so basic.
I agree with Tim O'reily. We shouldn't have to fight over the tools of our trade, and our industry is the only one where we seem to have to do so. I think fraud lawsuits would go a long way toward stopping these trivial patents. And maybe some malpractise suits against the patent office itself, which should be catching them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The patent says that the US Gov. has a paid-up license to the technology under a DOE contract. Since the patent appears to come out of a LBL project, they probably paid for the developement.
your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through
I'm going to submit a patent for the moon. That way when anyone looks at the moon I'll be able to collect royalties. I'll be nice, I promise, I'll charge only 1 cent canadian per look. Be nice to ding Bill Gates for a change . . .
Maybe after a few years, I'll GPL it!
Later . . . . . . WebBug
Oh yeah, well I own the registered trademark "" so all of you webpage authors out there better cease a desist or I'm going to sue you all into oblivion. Or you can pay me a 1-cent royalty for each use of the trademark. With 100 billion web pages out there, that would poke my kitty to $1 billion. Or maybe I should charge you for each copy that is sent over the web. Every hit you get, a penny for me. I'd be richer than Bill. BWAHAHAHHAHAHHHAHAHAHH!!!!
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Onda genuine patent office
Address
Tokyo To Shibuya Ku Yoyogi 2 Chome 10th 4
Shinjuku Tsuji building 8 F pofic 151 -
Representative
Patent attorney Onda sincerity
Facilities stand
July of 1999
The number of staff members
15 people
Business cooperation office
Related system
On ? international patent office
International technical translation center
-- looks like a japanese IP law firm
___
A paradigm of customer oriented B@B services enhancing customer experience by offering forward looking proactive services in the client-server arena.
There.
I'm not sure about claim 17, "The apparatus of claim 13, wherein said local host computer comprises a plurality of physical hosts, interconnected to act together as a single local host computing means." That implies some sort of load-balancing at the client. I don't know why you'd ever want to do that, but it seems like it would be an obvious thing to do if it was necessary.
So, as far as I can see, this patent describes any HTML form submission (POST or GET) to a database front-end, with an obvious extension or two.
Greg
The place to look for prior art is client/server SQL. SQL predates this patent by some years, it's platform-independent, and SQL host queries are invoked via a mechanism along the lines of claim 1.
One of these days some fscking retarded at USPTO will grant a pat on sex, then you americans will need a license to get laid!
I knew this would come in handy someday...
Everybody knows that Al Gore invented the Internet back in the 80s, so it should be pretty obvious that you should look in his collected writings for the best evidence of prior art. I'm thinking it's somewhere in the "Electronic Protocols" chapter of Earth in the Balance.
It's an ugly job, but I think that somebody out there has to read the collected works of Albert Gore to find that prior art. The future of the Internet, and our children, depend on it.
Babar
The HTML Manual of Style, Larry Aronson, Copyright 1994, Ziff-Davis Press, documents Post in just the way I use it in both of my database-driven websites. One of them has been on the web since 1996, incidently, accepting posts and applying them to its database. ;)
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Lovely how this guy can take a publically published standard (circa 1993 or so...) and years later after it has been used in the public domain for 5-6 years figures he can make tonnes of money in patent law suits against the world.... I don't think this will hold up. I don't think you can patent something like this, which has been in use for years before the patent was filed. He has tried to utterly defeat the purpose of open standards like http. I think Tim Burners-Lee, and everyone else who worked on the http standard and it's various iterations should sue this guy for ... I don't know, but I am sure someone could find a lawer that would find some way to make sure that this guy doesn't make any money off his scam. At the very least I wonder what Tim would have to say about it.
More Caffeine. NOW
Welcome to the U.S. Patent Office Computer System
Please login: anonymous
Password: *
You may now proceed to fill out this form to file for a patent. Because you have logged in, no checking of the validity of your claims will be done.
(If you are a Microsoft employee, please check this box to allow your patent to be entered directly into the database.)
Thank you for your patent submission.
Happy sueing!
Error in line 11
File not found, File will never be found, stop asking for it.
I cannot believe the audacity of some people. The Internet was created by a bunch of brilliant scientists to aid in communications. Then some fscking little greedy company thinks they can claim a patent for something they didn't even invent! They need the Internet Death Penalty! Ban their whole company for life. Make every machine on the web drop their IPs into non-routables!!!! Every firewall should default block them out!! This patented GET and POST to databases is the most ludicrous patent I have ever heard of. As I submit this comment Slashdot is supposedly violating their patent... yeah right!! Arghh... must quit rant now.. flame throwers getting too hot..
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
If processes can be patented, can I patent the process of getting a bad patent? If so then I'll make millions from the US Patent Office violating my intellectual property...
This article in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law proposes ways of fighting against payment demands based on spurious copyrights. One of the four suggestions is a false-advertising action which can be brought under the laws of some states. I wonder if the professor's theory (which so far as I know has never been tested on any copyright claims) might be applied in the patent realm as well.
Assuming the worst, that the patent is valid: would every web site that used one of these methods be liable for infringement, or only the makers of the software that was installed at those sites ? I am not a lawyer, but I fear that the web sites themselves would be liable, unless the software manufacturer had licensed the patent in a certain way. Anyone have any thoughts on this ?
I prefer anarchy, but only under a strong & wise anarch
I worked on a newspaper classified pagination system back in the summer/fall of 1991. Instead of PCs we used HP-UX systems that ran several Motif based client GUIs. Our client systems made remote server calls to a Tandem system running a NonStop SQL database. I even got to freeze my arse off doing onsite beta support in Buffalo, NY in the wintertime.
FYI: slashdot and every portol and just about every major ISP uses GET or POST.
send flames > /dev/null
Only 'flamers' flame!
To send our dear friend christmans cards you can send them to:
Or maybe Slashdot can just call him at (510) 486-5458 and do a phone interview. That number is from September of 1999 so he may have left his office and moved into the mansion he's bought with all of his "new found cash" from suing people over his precious "invention".
Granting patents on what is considered public domain technology by the USPO is not unusual, this is at least the third internet foundation type program/protocol the USPO has granted a patent on, to an individual. The issue is the USPOs lack of knowledge about the technical background for which they are granting patents. The bad news is the USPO keeps doing this; the good news is they are aware their ignorance is a problem and are supposedly forming / have formed an IT industry based advisory group so these problems don't keep happening. Of course, the USPO is working at bureaucratic speed, not internet speed.
Someone here must have some time to devote.
If we all put in some money we can get lawyers.
Why don't we sort this thing out??
This patent is obvious bullshit, and we know we can find lots of prior art, so why be scared?
--
Jimadilo
Jimadilo
'... I was here, you just didn't see me.'
I was doing a web based inventory for a companies machines back in '94-'95. Used this whole stream of things, post, get's, databases, heh.. Anyone off the top of their head know the address needed to send prior art too? I've got that system on disk around somewhere. *off to hunt for the address to send prior art to and where to challenge a patent*
My application would read a config file that would tell it how to decode the form contents and perform the query. The config file also contained a template HTML page that would tell the application how to format the results and display them.
Another neat thing about this app was that it included an API you could use to write Perl functions and include them in the config file to do pre- and post-processing of query and result data.
Nothing in the app was hard-coded. You could use it to do just about any kind of web-based database query. And, internally at DEC, we did just that.
This package was successfully deployed and used to power the website of the BAA (Boston Athletic Association) for the 100th anniversary Boston Marathon on April 15th, 1996. That system was an AlphaServer 2100 running what was then known as Digital Unix, Netscape web server and Oracle 7-something.
Yeah, we probably could have patented that sucker, but it just seemed so... er... obvious.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
--
I gave my boss a reality check. It bounced.
Most Likely both.
Has every body seen this article where Time O'Reilly dismantles Patent Office Director Q. Todd Dickinson?
Here's an exchange that really says it all:
Tim: Are you a lawyer by training?
Dickinson: Yes, I am.
Tim: How would you feel if a lawyer was able to patent an argument?
Dickinson: If it was new and non-obvious, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all.
Tim: And the ability to basically extract a royalty from other lawyers for using that same legal argument?
Dickinson: As I say, if it's new, and if it met the statutory standards for patentability (and that's the key question here), and it was incorporated into software in some form, that wouldn't be a problem.
Tim: No, not in software. Just in actual, in court.
Dickinson: Well, I don't want to deal in hypotheticals. The courts haven't dealt with that question.
Now, even when this guy was completely snookered by Tim he couldn't bring himself to concede the point. It was at this moment that every shred of confidence I have in the PTO evaporated completely. It went on...
Tim: Well, how about a basketball player invents a new move. Should that be patentable?
Dickinson: Moves aren't patentable subject matter.
It continues in this vein. Eventually the moderator steps in to rescue him from embarrassing himself further. Read the entire article.
In my opinion, this man is the problem.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Another reason for so many patents is that there are so many new patent examiners. Similar to the way that more lawyers lead to more lawsuits, more patent examiners lead to more patents. Over 1,000 new patent examiners have been hired in the last year alone. Expect more such things in the future. It's government policy.
**Never argue with a crazy person, people might not know the difference**
It looks like he might have patented (or intended to patent) RPC/RMI/SOAP/etc, not just GET/POST. He has a whole "remote object" section (section 3): The following is a list of examples of different Remote Object systems. It is not an all-inclusive list of Remote Object systems, but shows a number of possible
applications of the present invention.
"Remote reality-simulation object". Heh. The Sims, Halflife servers, etc.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
http://www.mindspring.com/~timrue/KNMVIC.html
There are some things you cannot patent. Physical Phenomenon, Natural Law and abstract ideas.
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
I just Patented idiocy.
You all owe me $$
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I will patent the idea of patenting various ideas. Pending Patent.
You can't handle the truth.
An anonymous contributor wrote:
This patent has very little to do with as simple a thing as GET and POST. The patent covers a much more complex usage of what can be construed as GET and POST. Read the patent, before going off on it.
My response:
Can you cite to places in the claims and description which lead you to read them narrowly ? On my reading it is a description of a method (such as HTTP + browser!) for providing a uniform local user interface for fetches of diverse sorts of information from diverse remote servers. There is a little more to it than that, since it divides the software tasks among "nine logical components" in a certain way. But it still comes across as pretty broad on a first reading.
I prefer anarchy, but only under a strong & wise anarch
Apple had always promoted the use of its new "Apple Event" technology by giving spellcheckers as an example; instead of propriety OEM spellcheckers that are different for every application, the user could have a single speller that is shared among all their applications. Since Working Software published Spellswell we felt we should take the lead in this.
It works really well and in fact can be used for any text operation, such as grammar checkers, address books, HTML verification and the like. Text encryption would work fine and I was working on a text encryptor but never finished it. I since led the binding of it to the BeOS (where is uses BMessages instead of Apple events) which you can read about here and I'd like to make an XWindows version, perhaps using the Corba API's provided by Gnome.
Recently I was contacted by someone who was searching for prior art. It seems someone patented interapplication spellchecking protocols and he has the hope that Word Services was developed early enough to invalidate that patent. I don't know the patent in question or who holds the patent.
What I especially have a gripe about is that I only started working on this method because the idea of it had been promoted for several years by Apple as an obvious application of a new technology they were promoting.
Mike
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
I think Post Cereals is or was going through something similar.
So who had it first? Does anyone have more info on this case?
------------------------
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
Hmm..
For some reason I got a error and couldn't access the replies to this article?
Maybe this guy have sued Slashdot?
Besides everything has already been invented.
GM, Honda, Ford, Daimler Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, Volkswagen, Enterprise/Budget/Thrifty/Dollar/Avis/Advantage Rent-A-Cars, Autonation, Boeing, Eastman Kodak, Lucent, NEC, Motorola, Toshiba, American Trans Air, United, Delta, Continental, NorthWest, Sun Country, Southwest, American, AMR, Midwest Express, Marriott, Hilton Hotels, Promus Hotels, Sholodge, Starwood Hotels, Extended Stay Inns, and Choice Hotels
I have a strong urge to patent the whole process of patenting, doing bureaucratic work and thinking. I think that should be easy enough. Yeah there is prior art, but does the process really care?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Here's the correct link for that story. And well done, Bob. It's beautiful.
I have nothing proactive to feedback, I'd just like to commentate that any personage who utilizes architect as a verb ought to be returned to an educational institution for further professoring.
Don't like that? So attorney me.
I think it should be like the DMCA, they have to swear under liability for perjury that there is no existing prior art.
Then you'll have to be damned sure you've done your homework before you submit one.
Winton
I would just like to inform you all that i have applied for a patent on "a device constructed of organic matter which intakes surrounding atmosphere and then expels it in a modified form to increase ambient carbon dioxide".
....I was gonna call them "lungs" but some domain squatting bastard already has lungs.com
signed with cuddles and kisses code_404
Allan Konrad, the owner of this patent, is suing GM in Texas (Why Texas? The guy lives in California.)
In an unrelated news story about Toshiba pulling a dammage-control move by settling a class-action suit in the states, Toshiba vice-president Masaichi Koga was quoted:
"U.S. law is not the same as elsewhere," Koga said. "The United States and especially Texas are very high risk zones for litigation. We feared that in the worst case this could imperil our company's chances of survival, so we made the extremely hard decision to pay the settlement." [emphasis added]
Short answer: because he can. Texas is, apparently, known to be a lucrative area for litigation.
"A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five." -Groucho Marx
For you people Freely using the toilet, BAD LUCK. I am now in the process of patenting that, so i will expect a nominal fee of $2 for the use of every toilet world wide. And also Opening doors, i am going to patent that soon, Why you may ask..? because i feel like being a total prick.!!!
After doing a quick web search on his name, Mr. Konrad seems rather interested in patents and copyright in general. Here is a posting that I found interesting: http://www.metalab.unc.edu/patent s/txt/111593.txt
I don't know what this patent is that he wrote in about, but maybe he was inspred and set out to file an equally obvious patent...
From the posting: "The most likely reaction is going to be disbelief -- 'How could anyone patent something like that?' "
zsazsa
From what I've read of this, wouldn't Oracle Applications...and most of the ERP systems also be violating this patent?
The creep was working with him as a potential business partner when he suddenly and mysteriously backed out. A few months later my friend did a trademark registration search on the name of the domain this guy was working with him on when he found that this creep had registered my friends domain as his own trademark.
On the trademark registration form you have to swear under penalty of perjury that you have listed all the potentially similar trademarks that you are aware of. I think simply stealing one that you were previously working with as a partner would count as being aware of it don't you?
My friend isn't going to fuck around with suing the guy or getting his trademark back. He's just going to put the guy in federal prison.
How could this story apply to patents?
Mike
Tilting at Windmills for a Better Tomorrow.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
A method of manipulating the digits of a person's hand, such that four of the digits are in the curled, downward configuration, and the third digit is upright and extended, as a means of communicating a message signifying hate, disgust, and anger.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
The patent author isn't just claiming "First Post!", he's saying he invented "POST" first!
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
IMHO this should not be possible in any situation. think about situation that your daily procedures would get patented: eating, driving a car, buying food.. life would be nice, wouldn't it?
ound the message used repetitively over and over still nothing grows silen
take a look at a few of the last claims...
22. A method for providing end-user access to a database service on a remote host comprising:
remotely accessing a database by
a) initiating a starter client on a local host in response to an indication by an end user of a desire to access the database service;
opening a program when you double click on it's icon that
b) sending an access start request from the starter client on the local host to a remote host;
sends a logon query to
c) receiving the access start request at the remote host;
the server
d) activating a remote object client at the remote host in response to the access start request, wherein the remote object client:
which spins a thread, to service the request
1) translates query information received from the local host in a first format from the first format into a database request format;
by translating from SQL to the native binary query format
2) issues the database request to a database service;
does the query,
3) receives from the database service a response to the database request;
get the data,
4) formats the response into a human interface request; and
puts it together into a response which
5) issues the human interface request to a human interface server on the local host; and
it sends back to the client
e) presenting the human interface from the human interface server to the end user on the local host.
which puts it into a pretty table or something.
ok, now how many programs do THAT? and how many of them have been around a LOT longer than 1996?
but it gets better still....
23. A computer network for providing end user access to a database, the computer network comprising:
I'm not even going to read this one to you....
a plurality of computers, each computer including a user input that includes a keyboard and a pointing device and access input from an end
user and includes a user output that includes a display that presents output to the end user, the user input and the user output forming a
graphical user interface, each computer executing software to issue a request to initiate communication with a remote computer and executing
software to generate commands to the graphical user interface;
a database located remotely from the plurality of computers and platform independent of each of the plurality of computers, the database
including a plurality of database entries; and
a server remotely coupled to the plurality of computers, the server executing software to receive a request to initiate communication from one of
the computers and, after the communication is initiated, to receive an access request from one of the computers for access to the database and, in
response to the access request, translating the access request into a format understandable by the database and querying the database for at least
one of the database entries software executing at the server providing the at least one database entry to the user output of the one of the
computers.
24. The computer network of claim 23, wherein the database is resident at the server.
25. The computer network of claim 23, wherein the database is remote from the servers.
holly cow. what kinda stones does it take to pattent a friken network....
and as if that wasn't bad enough... check his other two patents: 5,544,320 and 5,544,320
Tim was right, the USPTO is a mess.
All the discussion about prior art made me curious ao I decided to see what I could dig up. Found this hidden in the history files of W3.org. This looks to me to originate 1989-90 and documents the "birth" of the web from my point of view.
From http://cedr.lbl.gov/CEDRStaff.html:
Allan M. Konrad
email: konrad@sims.berkeley.edu
phone: (510) 486-5458
mail: Mailstop 50B-3238
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley, CA 94720
From http://www.lbl.gov:
amkonrad@lbl.gov
tel. (510) 486 5458
fax (510) 486 4004
From Yahoo! People Search:
konrad@cmsa.berkeley.edu
Finally, there's also the CEDR admin contact, cedr@lbl.gov, which on the CEDR website lists as directed to Mr Konrad.
A call to AC (510) Directory Assistance yielded no listing for an Allan M Konrad, Allan Konrad, nor for A M Konrad. Maybe others will have better luck.
Later.
Dear slashdot patent office,
I would like to submit the following idea as a viable, new and non-obvious idea.
I envisage a cenralised system for the collection of 'new'[1], 'non-obvious'[2] and 'viable'[3] ideas, such that the person with the idea may be duly credited as the origin of that idea...
Of course, all applications will have to be scrutinized, to make sure they meet the above three criteria[4], by word[5] and in spirit[6]...
To facilitate the uptake of this patant I believe that it would be best if legal action could be taken (and supported) against anyone who brakes all or part of one of the listed patents...
For maximum efficiency, the operation should be run by lawers...
Yours,
U. R. Aneadyit
This begs the question, has the patent, and indeed the patent office, been patented???
A... last post (correct at time of posting)...
This paragraph caught my eye:
If he thinks he's patenting the Web, then he's very, very mistaken. Last time I checked, I had to continually update my browser. It's not quite as much of one as used to exist in the past, but it's still definitely a "software maintenance burden".
We could get together and apply for a bunch of stupid, overly broad patents, then sue the patent office repeatedly for violating them. It would make for great press. :-)
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Did anyone else notice the 16 car related companies? 10 airlines? 7 hotels? that Lucent, Motorola, and Toshiba are, afaik, primarily hardware companies? Kodak makes cameras? Or what AMR even does?
Why aren't Apple, Microsoft, AOL (from Netscape), Oracle, and Sun being sued (to name a few)? Do any one of these companies, let alone all of them, have too much money and/or the ability to defend themselves?
Since you all are asking about prior art, I have a question as well. Did anything happen at Xerox PARC that could be construed as prior art? They had a gui interface, a mouse, a network, printers. I think the computers could talk to each other, and would the printer be considered smart enough, ie the information being requested something like "is there paper available" and the response enough?
The earliest reference he has is '88. I think if someone could prove PARC as prior, then there is quite a bit of time between that and 1988.
"Software patents threaten to devastate America's computer industry."
Yeah, the software industry is in real trouble--people walking away from their mortgages in the Valley, engineers and coders selling apples in the street because they can't get jobs. Those software patents are sure destroying the modern economy!
Maybe this guy has a patent on posting messages about futile patent issues which waste everybody's time. If that were the case, then this guy could have a bigger plan in the works. ;)
I went to
Many of these posts pick apart the abstract of the patent. But, the claims and _only_ the claims define the scope of the patent! If you want to analyze something, analyze the broadest claim, claim 1: (direct from www.uspto.gov):
1. A remote access apparatus for providing end-user access through a human interface to a desired remote utility service on a remote host computer, comprising:
a) a local host computer;
b) a remote host computer;
c) a network connection between said local host computer and said remote host computer allowing data transfer therebetween;
wherein said local host computer further comprises:
1) a human interface service means, for handling input from, and output to, an end-user;
2) a human interface server, for mediating requests for human interface services, said requests from human interface clients resident on at least one of said remote host computer and said local host computer, said human interface server operative to process said requests from said human interface clients during normal operation and exception operation; and
3) a starter client means, for issuing requests to a starter server means on said remote host computer, said requests for initiating interaction with the desired remote utility service on said remote host computer;
wherein said remote host computer further comprises:
1) said starter server means, for responding to requests from said starter client means;
2) a desired remote utility service, resident on said remote host computer and platform-independent of said local host computer;
3) a remote object client, for issuing requests for human interface services to said human interface server, for issuing requests for said desired remote utility service and for translating a response from said desired remote utility service into a request for human interface services issued to said human interface server; and
4) a starter service means, for initiating a remote object client indicated by said starter server means.
i think i'll patent the letter "A"
that way, i can charge mega bucks for anyone who will use this amazing letter. one penny for an "A"
any takers?
This dude is probably just making fun of Amazon w/ this post thing. And laughing his arse off that ppl are taking it so seriously.
==)
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Can you say "prior art"? I thought you could. Lets look at the abstract for this patent, dated, oh, from 1996: A local host computing system, a remote host computing system as connected by a network, and service functionalities Telnet, telnetd, and the DARPA ARPANet, circa 1981. a human interface service functionality, That would be the telnet client a starter service functionality, The negotitation that happens at the beginning of telnet session to determine your terminal type and a desired utility service functionality, Such as remote access to the UNIX or VMS commands on that other machine on the DARPA ARPANet and a Client-Server-Service (CSS) model is imposed on each service functionality. Telnet won't much work if without a telnet client, a telnetd server, and both being compatible with the appropriate RFCs. Come to think of it, I think the RFCs would be the place to find prior art.