Slashdot Mirror
Prior Art to Squash Database Patent?
Marianne Winslett asks: "I'm looking for prior art to help squash a US patent that I think
should never have been granted. In particular, I am looking for
applications with a relational database back end, X-windows user
interface, and application code somewhere in between. Think of it
as an example of a 3-tier architecture, with a very thin client and
a remote relational database back end. The application must have
been released by the end of 1991." The patent in question was not revealed by the submittor on advice from legal counsel. Anyone know of any application that might satisfy these requirements?
"For any such application, I need to know
- Its name,
- Where or by whom it was created,
- A brief description of its functionality,
- Its release date in the US (pre-1992),
- Ideally a pointer to one or more pieces of evidence documenting the three previous points, such as a manual, release notes, internal or external mail, press releases, etc. (either electronic or on paper), and
- Contact information for a person or persons who would be willing to swear under oath that the software had been released by the given date and that the evidence documenting its existence (if any) is what it appears to be.
The lawyers have asked me not to say which patent this lawsuit is about, but by the nature of the prior art that I'm looking for you can tell that it affects just about everyone and really should not have been granted. I figure that there must have been hundreds of such systems out there in 1991; because time is very short, I hope that the community can help me find them.
Marianne Winslett
Professor, Computer Science, University of Illinois at U-C
http://drl.cs.uiuc.edu"
You're asking us to get involved in a legal "battle" without giving us any details whatsoever. How smart of us would it be if we got involved without a shred of information from you? We have no idea who you are, or who you're up against.
What if by giving you the name of a small company, you used that company as prior art, but then it ruined a multi-million dollar relationship that company had with one of its biggest customers? You have to remember that people with kids to feed *work* for that small company. For you, it is an (presumably) intellectual and moral battle. For others, it could be their only source of business.
Uh-uh, no way. You're asking us to submit information without any quid-pro-quo whatsoever. I think *you* should go ask your lawyers and find out conclusively what you can legally disclose. Why should I waste my time talking to lawyers when you should get this information and post it. Full disclosure is only fair.
You should atleast disclose:
1) Who you are dealing against. This is fair, since business relationships can be affected.
2) What your plans are. How do we know you're not going to turn around and create a patent of your own? How do we know you're actually an open-source advocate, or if you're just exploiting the resources of /. to further your own economic goals? What if you're trying to steal the design created by some non-profit organization (for example)? We have no incentive to help you with some information.
3) What work it will create for the company that actually had the prior art. What if you create a huge workload for a small company that frankly can't afford to spend on someone else's problem? You should explain what the total work would be required. Would we be subpoenaed? Would we need to write a 10 page essay? If it requires more than sending an e-mail to some judge, why should we waste our valuable time helping you?
I think you should answer these questions fully and truthfully before you can expect real help.
1) A company called QSP has had a 3 tier finacial suite around for the last 15 or 20 years. I dunno about the x-windows interface, tho.
/etc/passwd
character gui -> mainframe broker -> database.
2) XDM. That's right, the X display manager. Login Screen -> PAM ->
3) IBM's callup application. It's a program to look up info on IBM employees, and it has every interface known to man. I'm willing to be that some Unix dork back in the day wrote an X front end to it. It's prolly even more than 3 tiers.
as an aside, who cares why she wants the patent shut down? it's a software patent on obvious technology, and it can foad.
good luck,
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
name: Advantage Financial (I think)
company: not sure if I CAN say
release date: the initial non x version was pre 92, and it micht have been pre 90. They moved to neuron data to build a UI for it. neuron data is(was) a C API that if you program to it you can compile on Mac, X or Windows.
I am not sure how much is intellectual property here though. ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't want a lot, I just want it all
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Actually the software goes back before then, but 1987 is when I joined the company (since defunct, the technology has passed on through several hands, more below.)
The product (then) had two versions (some overlapping code), AMS (Advanced Mapping System) and GIS (Geographic Information System), the company was GeoVision Systems Ltd (in the US, parent corp was GeoVision Corporation in Canada), spun off from SystemHouse Graphics. Later the products were slightly rearchitected and made more flexible, and renamed to "VISION*" under which name it's still sold.
The core technology comprised a relational database -- primarily Oracle (Oracle 6, back then, Oracle 8 now), but we briefly flirted with Ingres and one other. The display technology was X Windows, X 10 back then, migrating to X 11 sometime around 1989 or 1990. The application code inbetween included various components such as a database-interface layer (which also added the spatial component), various form managers, display list managers, graphic editors, and a scripting language (we called it a "macro language" - GML, GeoVision Macro Language - but it wasn't really) to customize it and tie all the pieces together.
Pretty neat actually, and with potential beyond the cartographic/GIS/etc domain (I once prototyped a CASE tool based on it in about a day). (In fact, so neat I'm working on an open source reimplementation of it -- see www.cavor.org -- but there's a lot to go yet).
As far as documenting it goes -- there ought to be some documents, old manuals, etc around although I don't have any. We had a number of large companies, municipal governments, and other government organizations as customers.
The original company, GeoVision (not to be confused with another GIS company of the same name) went bankrupt back in 1993. The VISION* technology was bought by SystemHouse Ltd, (and most of the customers had source in escrow), traded hands a few times as companies were bought and sold, and is now owned by Autodesk who still markets the software.
Depending on the details of this patent, it could well threaten Autodesk's marketing of VISION*, so assuming they acquired whatever historical documents were around, they might be the people to talk to.
-- Alastair
If this doesn't fit the bill, I really think the possibility of an Ingres-related application fitting your requirements is pretty high. Ingres was widely available in the academic/university community, supported remote connections from Unix, and almost certainly sported at least one X-based app.
Babar
I worked for Ingres in the 80s and early 90s, and we sold software that let customers develop their own applications exactly like this - X-based frontend, going through a template-language-interpreting middleware bit to an Ingres DBMS backend. I can't remember the name because it was something horrible like VisualIngres, but I do remember seeing a customer demo a StarWars-related app he had built (SDI not the movie), so it must have been around the time you're asking about or earlier.
This document, which is copyright 1993, describes a similar system. If nothing else, it may give you a starting point to talk to some people that developed similar applications prior to that one.
http://www.computer.org/proceedings/meta97/papers/ pshelley/pshelley.html
O NL46.html
The paper describes components of a metadata system that uses middleware to combine an X11 UI with distributed databases. Was started in 1989 and I came across it in 1993 when it was well established and indeed in decline (the X11 client at any rate).
Also:
http://www.anu.edu.au/CNASI/pubs/OnDisc95/docs/
X.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I worked with Nortel (then Northern Telecom) in the 1988-1990 period. They had production systems with Mac, Win3.1, and Unix/X11 front ends to RPC and TP based middleware. Not that I have any application or contact names, but there is no doubt the technology was already in use.
Business/database computing classes also described such technologies when I was in university a couple years prior to that. Odds are there are some published research papers that not only describe the concept, but compare different implementations for performance.
You also might want to check out IBMs patent database. Most of the n-tier technology concepts were the result of research originally targetted at scaling mainframe applications, including departmental FEPs (front-end processors, a specialized form of middleware.) The fact that X11 provides the display instead of a terminal or PC should be irrelevant.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Bear with me...
Perl was released, IIRC, in 1988-87. When perl is used in CGI scripting it is run on the server. Any web browser would be your X-window app, and you would just have to check to see when the first DB access MOD was written for Perl. If not perl, than maybe similiar scripting languages. It would all seem to fit...or I am completely off base and I will feel the flames lick at my feet
xrn is the X-windows front end to NNTP news.
I don't know when it was created, but xrn has been around a while. It's on version 9.02 by now.
I guess it's not really a "relational" database, though, but it certainly is a 3-tier database with X-windows front end.
Just in case I pick the right one: I hereby swear that I have never met or been in any sort of contact with Professor Winslett, and I'm just doing this to be a pest, and not out of any sort of collusion :)
Anyway, some guesses:
- US6069627: Extender user interface Describes an environment "that supports the development of
Internet and Intranet applications." Likely not "the one," since this application was in 1997. Filed by big blue.
- US5335346: Access control policies for an object oriented
database, including... That's right, a copyright on access policies. Filed in late 1991, but doesn't deal directly with any interfacing, let alone x-windows. Again, an IBM possession.
- US5428737: Comprehensive bilateral translation between SQL
and graphically depicted queries Yet another IBM patent. Doesn't deal directly with *relational* databases, though that's kind of implied by using SQL. And it's all about graphical representation of queries.
- US5212787: Method and apparatus for accessing a relational
database without exiting an object-oriented environment Once again, filed by IBM (yes, I found some patents that weren't IBM - this is not a conspiracy theory). In 1991. Looks like there's some multi-tier stuff in here, with what the client has to do and what the server has to do... almost looks like they have a patent on WebObjects here.
Bleagh... To find others possibilities, check here. I've made myself sick looking through all these patents; I'm more convinced than ever that our USPTO is in bad need of an overhaul.or this:http://www .cni.org/pub/NISO/docs/Z39.50-brochure/50.brochure .part01.html
or this: http://www.i fla.org/documents/libraries/cataloging/metadata/gi ls-i.txt
That last link has a lot of very good low level contrast between the 1988 version and the early 90s version. Now all you need is someone to standup and swear they deployed Z39.50 1988 when it came out.
As happy as the patent office is to grant any patent that comes down the pike, it seems you could make a very successful business model out of taking the patents as they're issued and finding all the instances of prior art that should have kept them from getting the patent in the first place. Maybe I should patent this business model...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Shut up, be happy. The conveniences you demanded are now mandatory. -- Jello Biafra
"Grant 'em all and let the courts sort 'em out." - USPTO Motto
Or perhaps she is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois.
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
I used to be in the military and worked on a hp box that had a app like you mention well before 1991. The application was called JOTSII it had a motif front end with tons of middleware as well as database backends to store communications data. I am sure that you could do a little surfing using the JOTSII name and come up with a ton of stuff. JOTSII stands for joint operational tactical system. SAIC is Science Applications International Corporation and another company called INRI was also involved in the development.
Got Code?
1. I can't recall it's name, it was 12 years ago.
2. It was created by a man named Guy Pope, at the USAF Standard System Center, Gunter AFB, Montgomery Albama.
3. It allowed users to enter/retrieve records (accounting information).
4. It was released before I started working for them in June 1988.
5. I really can't point out where to find it (it is a military application, though). You might want to try to contact them about it. The group is GAFS (General Acounting and Finance Systems).
6. You can contact me (caver@caver.org) as I will swear it was there. I was the release manager for our group for 2 years, I ought to know what I released.
It was a C front end, runing over DOS, that allowed you to enter information that was then sent to a COBOL back end (yes, COBOL) which then retrieved/wrote the data from/to an AFORMS (Air Force blah blah Relational blah blah blah) database.
We didn't think this was original in 1988, how they thought it was original in 1991 is beyond me.
--Marianne Winslett