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Prior Art to Squash Database Patent?

Posted by Cliff on from the did-the-USPTO-strike-out-again dept.

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

  1. Its name,
  2. Where or by whom it was created,
  3. A brief description of its functionality,
  4. Its release date in the US (pre-1992),
  5. 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
  6. 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"

6 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. i have several by Blue+Lang · · Score: 5

    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.

    character gui -> mainframe broker -> database.

    2) XDM. That's right, the X display manager. Login Screen -> PAM -> /etc/passwd

    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.
  2. Found in a quick google search... by jackmama · · Score: 5

    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.

  3. xrn by bwt · · Score: 5

    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.

  4. Which patent is this? by rkent · · Score: 5
    Well, I can understand if the professor has been asked not to reveal the name of the offending patent, but that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't know.

    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:

    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.
  5. 3-Tier by caver · · Score: 5

    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.

  6. If you need to know more by winslett · · Score: 5
    If you know of an appropriate application, but don't know enough about this case to commit to disclosure, and have questions that I'm not allowed to answer (is the case really important to my employer? who is suing whom? is this person really who she says she is? etc.) then I can ask the lawyers to call you. I would think that it would be in the lawyers' best interest to answer your questions if doing so would give them another compelling example of prior art, especially if your example was in wide use.

    --Marianne Winslett