Slashdot Mirror
IBM Patents Web Page Templates
jalefkowit writes: "More follies from the US Patent & Trademark Office ... now IBM has been awarded US Patent #6,304,886 for software that automatically "generates [a] customized Web site without the Web site creator writing any HTML or other programming code", based on "a plurality of pre-stored templates, comprising HTML formatting code, text, fields, and formulas" that are then customized through the process of asking the user a few questions. In other words, they've patented the ubiquitous wizards found in FrontPage and other newbie-oriented HTML editors. This was submitted to the USPTO on June 19, 1998 -- surely someone out there knows of prior art for this?"
I have prior art. I use templates for all my websites. Instead of creating a new product page from scratch I always have a pre-made template which i then modify. Can I please have $10 million dollars? Thanks,
David
I wrote code for this in (Openmarket's - then ICentral's) Shopsite Manager back in 1997. Fill in your products, pick some options, get an e-commerce website. Sigh.
--Just the place for a snark!
I'm not sure when ms word got the ability to save HTML, but combine that with the generic document-generating wizards it has and *presto* you've got html templates. Not that everyone wants to read a web page that starts off "Interoffice memo"....
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
IBM espouses so much about being an open company and promoting open things. And then they go and pull something like this. I seriously don't get this company. I really want to like them but more and more I can't.
Sure, how about FrontPage97?
-foxxz
The RIAA patents sound in an attempt to draw royalties on everything that makes any sound including but not limited to musical works and things that go bump in the night.
Film at 11:00
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
A friend of mine (Nathan Anderson) wrote something that I believe is quite like this, and posted it right here to slashdot, a number of years ago. Here is the article. Judge for yourself. When he sees this he'll probably post something about it as well. Does this count as prior art?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Someone has to answer this.
"customized Web site without the Web site creator writing any HTML or other programming code", based on "a plurality of pre-stored templates"
In 1996 I wrote JavaScript that would give a different action based on browser detection. This did require "programming."
I recently wrote a content manangement system (1999) and e-commerce site, the creator does no programming. Steuben.com.
Same workaround: different browsers see different-looking page (CSS or simplified version for IE 3.0, which cannot deliver different colored links on the same page). Similar effects for other features, pop-up windows etc. Also different menu actions. Many done with included page fragments ("templates").
Perhaps a lawyer would say I am the creator, although the tools were handed over to non-techies, they loaded all the images, content and products and now run the site.
Another answer is browser detection sending to a Flash or vanilla html site. Which are "templates."
Am I missing the point?
"Help him! Help the programmer!"
wouldn't this cover any program that has a "save as HTML" option?? That lets you create HTML without typing any HTML codes, and somewhere in the guts of the program are some HTML templates, right?
a patent of beowulf clusters?
:-P
Yes, there is, the info was posted here on slashdot a while back
In the wild there are no dumb lions tigers or bears. Only humanity subsidizes the continued existence of the stupid.
Why doesn't the patent office implement a system whereby patent holders who are found to be abusing the system are denied the right to file any further patents for a specified period (say, 5 years) or lose the rights to other more valuable patents that they own? I think that'd make corporations like IBM which are looking to make a buck off trivial patents think twice about what they're doing. This software patent madness has to stop before it spreads to Europe.
IBM seem to be pretty good about this. Remember both IBM and Unisys held patents on LZW compression (IBM's application was filed 3 weeks BEFORE Unisys), but it is Unisys that tried to extract all the money from it. IIRR IBM have released may of their patents to the public domain.
In working for an IP law firm, I see the rediculousness that is the USPTO every day. The fact that they could grant such a patent doesn't surprise me in the least.
This is a fairly specific patent. After having a look at it im not really concerned. Their definition of "tool" is a little loose, which bothers me somewhat.
Having worked with content management systems in both PHP and ColdFusion using a WebBrowser and a VB client for managing the content.
The chances your specific interface emulate completely IBMs described interface are little to none.
Before I rise up to say how evil IBM is I will say this. Patents are an eventuality. It is like a nuclear arms race, if you don't patent it someone else will, and then they can use it against you or at least hold it over you.
Is this new, unique, exciting, or worth a patent? No probably not. It seems from their description to be little more than a super-duper WYSIWYAG (What you see is what you almost get) type site builder. WIth IBMs drive to do ecommerce this definitely fits with thier overall marketing and business plans.. This would obviously be for the low - medium end of the ecommerce spectrum
THe system also defines a system of content approval and rights of some sort
All in all I have designed systems this in depth or more. The systems may do similar things but the means of doing it are invariably almost completely different. (Of course my system focuses on already having a site and allowing an administrator to build the site without the overhead of really thinking up the design aspect at all.. just manage the content)
Again, this is just an incremental evolution.
Jeremy
Having interned at IBM for a summer (2000), I was somewhat nauseated during a meeting I sat in on where the focus was 'What can we patent?'. While I understand the purpose of such meetings, anything not nailed down was fair game to have a patent attempted for it.
We were constantly reminded that IBM was the corporate leader of patents (whoo hooo! How about getting my damned stock price up again!) and that meetings like this were common.
I found it to be pathetic.
Why don't we hear about this stuff _before_ it's a done deal? I realize that the chances of it actually affecting any given person are slim to none but in the event that this type of patent actually gets leveraged in some way or other, I'd prefer to have a chance to voice my objection before the patent is actually granted.
I'm no expert on deciphering patent-language, but the free community hosting service I started in April 1998 seems to do more or less exactly what this patent covers.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Someone really, really needs to get a clue over at the old patent office. This and so very many other idiotic patents have slipped through the US patent office in the last few years.
There's TONS of prior art on this. I worked on a product for Proxicom in 1997 that let you fill out a fancy wizardy thing that built websites from your web browser.
Everyone has mentioned FrontPage97, etc, etc, etc. This really is criminal -- when you do a patent search, you're supposed to DO A PATENT SEARCH, which also includes A SEARCH FOR PRIOR ART.
And the patent office should ALSO DO A PRIOR ART SEARCH. What the hell?
-nate
Some small people with CREATIVE ideas cannot go to patent their creation because of the legal fees, plus the pattent application fees, (a patent application plus extras comes over 5000$ easily for those of you who don't know)... meanwhile, big companies can patent useless stuff that will break innovation (I'm starting to hate that word) instead of it's root concept of being to PROTECT I.P.
:) ).
Of course this means, those who might actually BENEFIT from the system for a just cause cannot access it (well depending on your cashflow as a startup for example , you have that great idea, you get 100K$ seed money to develop a simple prototype application/device so you can demonstrate your idea and get even more financing... will you use 5 to 10% of that budget for a PATENT (which will bring even more fees in the process) or will you concentrate on the project itself? Yep.. you guessed it right, and as soon as you go for your round of financing and approach people with money, funny how those NDAs mean nothing for them (since anyways, you won't be able to sue them) and if you get thru all of that crap, normally you get bought out for a fraction of what you could have made, because probably the investors will tell you if you don't comply with their rules they'll invest in that X company that can pull out the same thing and even better (and drive you out of buisness) etc etc, so probably you lose control over your project (51% shares not to you), and if you're really unlucky, the appointed CEO is a jerk and makes the whole thing goes down... if it works and becomes a success, notice you probably not even have 1% of the company with the dillution and all the maths applied after. (still, 1% of 100M$ is not too bad if you get there
Of course with SOFTWARE it can be a bit more positive, but for let's say, some cool hardware application, or innovative invention, it's another story.
This is almost depressing. heh...
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Murray Hill, NJ -- Today AT&T sued IBM for patent infringement, noting that IBM's patent on web templates is an infringement of AT&T's patent on #include.
#include, found in the C language's preprocessor, was invented in the early 1970's by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. "The #include directive is really a very innovative invention", said John Law, director of language sales at AT&T. "The technology landscape just wouldn't be the same without it".
Representatives from IBM were unavailable for comment, but were heard muttering something about how they "can't stand it when someone beats us to it".
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I could be wrong here, but it sounds like this could apply to more than just wizards. What about web-based content management tools, which allow the user to copy and paste plain text into an input box, check a few options, and have HTML pages generated on the fly?
(I tried reading the claims of the patent to see if this is true, but got lost in legalese. The patent has 24 claims, and I'm assuming each of those claims must be violated in order to be considered patent infringement.)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=2&p=1 &f=G&l=50&d=ft00&S1=nazem.INZZ.&OS=in/nazem&RS=IN/ nazem
Not sure how this conflicts/contrasts with the IBM patent.
I just realized the paramount reason to not patent internet "inventions"... by the time it gets approved, nobody gives a damn about it anymore. This thing was submitted in June of 98, for crying out loud!
RP
How about Ralf Engelschall's WML language? According to the copyright, WML came about in 1996.
a quick and dirty product that uses a Paradox database engine under Windows to generate a mass of perl scripts to auto generate a simple web store, complete with graphics, etc., which are then uploaded by the program to you site on a Unix server.
By Stumpworld Services, the owners of which have since sold the company and got out while the getting was good. It is now integrated with a hosting service, which cuts out the hassle of mom and pop businesses trying to deal with clueless ISPs.
The date of the original software press release to market was July 15, 1998, and there was an extensive beta period before then.
I think there is enough prior art to have this covered.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Hi there. I led a team that developed the Interactive Advertising Agent, a product that allowed a user to create a customizable web site, including forms and layout customization. This product was released in 1996. If you are a person or company who would like a copy of this software as a defense against this patent, please let me know. I'm going to try to make it available on a public HTTP server, but that will take a while.
People should stop complaining when organisations do what they are designed to do - namely make money (in the Patent Office's case, this means granting as many patents as possible). Don't bitch about the RIAA when they push for freedom-curtailing laws - THEY DON'T CARE - their job is to protect the interests of those who pay their salaries. Don't bitch when a for-profit corporation exploits dumb laws to increase their profit margins - THEY ARE DESIGNED TO DO THAT.
Instead, bitch about the stupid laws which allow and encourage them to do this, and the customers who keep them in business (of course, very few of IBM's customers are likely to take a stand on this issue - but IBM does seem to care quite a bit about its reputation among the Open Source community these days).
This is just the latest in a *long* line of trivial, abusive patents that have been discussed on Slashdot. They all make a mockery of what intellectual property rights are intended to protect, which is innovation.
What, other than making sarcastic comments about 1-click shopping, can actually be done to effect change on how patents are granted?
Who's e-mailbox should we all slam with requests for reasonable IPR laws?
Anyone?
-Rothfuss
I seem to remember Netscape Gold 2.02 (from 1996 or 1997?) having a WYSIWYG editor.
Given the length of time it takes to work a patent through the system, I'm sure we're going to have many more years of foolishness like this ahead.
Patents exist.
There are two things that patents do:
One is a sword, one is a shield.
If IBM doesn't use the patent as a sword, then who should care? Nobody. If they start charging royalties for those who "infringe," if they start trying to attack other companies who have since done the same obvious thing, then you can sound the alarms of righteous indignation.
Until then, STFU. Please.
[
Frontpage 97 (or perhaps an even earlier version) came on the Windows NT 4 CD (released 1996).
Does all of this conversation spawn from boredom? The ONLY reason this topic was modded up to the main page is that it's Funny. IBM cannot enforce this patent. Anybody with at least half a brain, can see that it is not non-obvious. In fact, the Patent Office could use a rule similar to this to avoid handing out idiotic patents in the software industry:
./ers? Bored?
The birth of computers obviated the USE of computers to automate tasks that previously would have been done manually or with another device. Thus any use of a computer to automatically do anything that would have previously been done by hand or with another tool is obvious. This also applies recursively. In other words, any use of a computer to automate the operations of a computer to do work that would have previously been done through manual usage of a computer is also obvious.
This one simple, OBVIOUS rule would strike down just about every software patent in existence, and only grant software patents that were truly deserving. I can't think of a truly deserving software patent off the top of my head, but methinks the posibility COULD exist.
Either way. Why all the drama,
Based on the vague generalities of the patent, I think I could claim prior art based on Perl programs I wrote back in 1997 that did this very thing. User goes to web site, has a variety of templates they can choose from, inputs some information for the web page, format, etc., and presto! The new page is uploaded directly to a web site that hosts the user under a unique name, along with all the other users that made their own pages. In addition, the user could go back and modify the page later if desired. Completely automated from start to finish, no HTML required.
I wrote several versions of this program for different companies, none of which (to my knowledge) managed to survive the dot-bomb. But I know for a fact that my idea wasn't an original one; several other sites were doing the same thing. I visited these sites to see what they did so that I could 'one-up' them with my own program and improve on what they had to offer.
So unless I've got the wrong take on IBM's patent *I* can prove prior art. I might even have the programs backed up somewhere in storage. But there are others that can prove prior art to *my* claim as well.
How can IBM expect to enforce this claim? This wasn't something new and innovative at the time the patent was submitted.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Look to the patent claim, which governs the scope of the patent grant. Understand that the meaning of that claim may depend upon many other things. And be cool -- most patents are much narrower than they seem to a lay reader.
Probably not. IBM doesn't really have a history of shaking down people for royalties RAMBUS or Unisys style. It's probably a defensive move to keep someone else from filing it first and using it against them offensively.
file a patent on filing patents on obvious software practices for which there exists lots of prior art.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
I joined Amazon.com as an engineer just before they went bonkers over patents. As a long time free software fan, the whole one-click deal was a real shock! A bunch of us who worked there were totally bummed.
We were told not to talk about the "one click" patent AT ALL. So people would write "I'm not talking about it", etc, on elevator whiteboards.
It was a sad joke. And oh yes.. The whiteboards went away as the layoffs came.
This seems only to cover the generation of multiple, browser-specific versions of the same web page from one template. It doesn't cover template-based HTML generators generally.
Coincidince?
-- The Hoss Man
#include <stdio.h>
int main (int argc, char** argv) {
char buff[100];
printf ("Please enter in your web text: ");
scanf ("%s", buff);
printf ("Your web page: <HTML><BODY><b>%s</b></BODY></HTML>\n", buff);
}
I don't know what the rule is for "prior art" (does it need to be published?), but I worked for Nando.net back in the early-to-mid 90s and we had a system that would qualify. We had a legacy system for newspaper editors that eventually got the data back in those systems back to a series of Perl scripts that we wrote that formatted it according to the site's format. Anyway, the editors wrote only text - no HTML.
I seriously doubt that they still use the same system, though.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
Might it not make sense that IBM, (now a good open source ally) is now actively, and proactively plugging holes in the anti-open source dike?
After all, we've often discussed on this very site the notion of patenting everything we think of, as a community, as a hedge against the multinationals!
Big Blue could very well be on our side here. God knows.. given all of the support they've supplied, and how severely entrenched we are so far, pissing us off NOW would be a Bad Business Move(tm) on their part. They have everything to lose, and very little to gain if they actually think this patent is truly enforceable.
I vote a Benefit of the Doubt for IBM.
Who's with me?
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
IBM: "I patent the HTML wizard"
MICROSOFT: "Well I patent HTML"
IBM: "Well I patent the whole internet."
MICROSOFT: "Well I patent all the computers."
IBM: "Well I patent YOU!"
MICROSOFT: "Well I patent you times one thousand"
IBM: "I patent you times one million"
MICROSOFT: "I patent you times infinity. No returnsy, personal jinx, sucks to be you!!!"
*SMACK!*
MICROSOFT: "MOM!... IBM hit me!"
MOM (aka US Supreme Court): "Stop your whining! I thought I told you: 'No more patenting after you stole Java from your baby brother'."
:)
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
If I'm not mistaken, wouldn't something like the /. user preferences be under the wing of /. ops answer this one?
this patent? After all, the preferences allow you to customize the html presented to
you without the need to actually write any html on your own -- it asks you questions
about how you want it to be presented, and you get what you ask for. How long has this
system been in effect? Can any
A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion. -- Chinese proverb
How about using the OBVIOUS argument???
The problem here is not that IBM uses a screwed up patent system to their advantage, the problem is that the patent system is screwed up in the first place.
What if it wasn't IBM that got this patent, but somebody who would use it more like a sword? What if IBM in ten years changes their policy and starts to use patents for attacking? What if IBM indeed intends to use it as a weapon against somebody?
I think most of the aggression here was pointed against the patent office and not IBM in particular. The patent system has just become one big machinery who's main goal seems to be to sustain itself and all the lawyers working with patent issues. It simply doesn't protect and promote innovation anymore the way it was meant to, at least not in the fields of software and business models.
People should stop complaining when organisations do what they are designed to do - namely make money (in the Patent Office's case, this means granting as many patents as possible). Don't bitch about the RIAA when they push for freedom-curtailing laws - THEY DON'T CARE - their job is to protect the interests of those who pay their salaries. Don't bitch when a for-profit corporation exploits dumb laws to increase their profit margins - THEY ARE DESIGNED TO DO THAT.
Every time a story about a company doing something irresponsible or evil gets posted on Slashdot, somebody invariably makes this argument. "Don't blame them! They're just trying to make a profit!" Apparently the idea is that anyone who's trying to make money is exempt from any moral responsibility whatsoever. I've never heard a good explanation for why this is supposed to be true. In fact I've never heard any explanation for it; some people just assume that the profit motive is enough to justify any misdeed, as long it stops short of breaking an actual law.
Abusing the system by filing frivolous patents is wrong. Yes, there should be a law against it, but the fact that there isn't doesn't mean that the people who do it shouldn't be criticized.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
We can't be pissed that they applied for the patent and still say that they're better than most companies in the computer biz, cause you can't have both. If Microsoft were to release a few open source apps, would that make them an open source friendly copnany? Make no mistake: IBM is a corporation too (a big one at that) and will do whatever it can to increase shareholder value, even if that means switching strategies whenever its convenient.
I believe the original NCSA httpd delivered some templates for producing HTML but not sure. :)
Looked on sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/www/converters for old code. (sunsite's been a linux host since '93 at least - or at least that's how long I've been using it
t2htmll.tgz - Aug 29 1997
webtex-0.96.tar.gz - May 29 1997
info2www-1.2a.tar.gz - Mar 2 1997
What this suggests to me is there's a lot of prior art. I'm using sunsite as an example as it's dating is fairly accurate btw.
Check perhaps postgresql95, MySQL, NCSA HTTPD-1.0 (perhaps), and maybe even original Netscape server and Netscape composer - circa '95 IIRC.
But I think the best connection is TeX/LaTeX WWW formatters which probably first came into existance in '92-93 when the physicists developed WWW. After all TeX is fairly common for documentation under unix...
surely this is a good thing though? hike the price up and make people pay every time they use a MS template. the ratio of good/horrific websites will change overnight :)
Goto BounteyQuest.com and sign up. This is a site that's set up to help kill patents with existing prior art, and is a sensible, practical, and legal way to help restore some sanity to the patent process.
(It may be argued that the patent issuing process is broken beyond repair, but even if so, a viable alternative has yet to emerge.)
Disclaimer: I have no interest in the above site other than a registered user.
Ubi dubium ibi libertas: Where there is doubt, there is freedom.
More seriously, I do like the example someone posted of Netscape Gold as prior art. Also, HTML is not really much more than the old troff -mm macros with angle brackets around them, and there were WYSIWYG editors for nroff/troff around in the 80s. And when did Slashdot start? Or web-based conferencing systems? Did any of them predate Bianca Troll's Graffiti Wall? The stuff just ain't new.
* Actually, there was a guy named Eli who worked in the basement who *did* write original JCL, but he was one of those rare wizards. Regular users never touched the stuff.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The product was called "Pages by Pages", and it was a word processing package for NeXTSTEP. Their "WebPages" product was on the streets around 1993.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Actually, it is quite possible that this is a legitimate patent. ....that's how it works. OR they could have conceived of teh idea in 1992...or even earlier....
1. IBM filed in 1998.
2. You need to understand that invention starts when the idea is conceived. If IBM *conceived* of teh idea in, say, 1994, and diligently reduced it to practice from 1994 to 1998, then, then file with the uSPTO,
This is how the process works....all you need is some documentation of when you first conceived of the idea, and some documentation of having diligently reduced it practice in teh intervening time frame between conception and filing.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
This is so long overdue. We need to have a process in which applications for the issue of a patent are presented to the public for review on a web site before the patent is issued so that cases of prior art may be presented. It isn't easy being perfectly vigilant and informed about developments in technology so as to be better able to separate true and legitimate innovations from ridiculous applications, and indeed the USPTO has goofed up too many times to count.
We desperately need better public review as such errors are immensely detrimetal to the advancement of society. This is the only way that the interests of the public can be more effectively protected against the horridly selfish and capitalistic schemes of these corporations.
Believe it or not, every claim is written as a single sentence because it is required by regulation.
The reason I'm not sure it's "prior art" is that this system asked the web-page writer exactly nothing. They entered the text (one paragraph at a time - the system could also let you pick what style of paragraphing you wanted to view the text with), and they specified the images. Everything else was between the computer and the end-user.
IMHO, this kind of system (where the end-user, NOT the "web developer", gets to choose how the page looks) is superior to the half-baked template systems I've seen since. After all, it's the user who wants the information, not the developer, so why should the developer have any say in the process at all?
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)
Look at USPTO # 6,163,779
"Method of saving a web page to a local hard drive to enable client-side browsing"
Granted almost a year ago on December 19, 2000.
Why didn't THAT make the slashdot news?
And finally, for those who think that patents are evil or somehow inappropriate for software, processes, and "obvious" inventions,[hey! he's talking about me!] consider this. There is a 100% direct correlation to a country's GDP, the strength of its intellectual property protections, and the number of patents filed by its citizens.
All dogs have four legs. My cat has four legs, therefore my cat is a dog.
There is a 100% direct correlation between a country's GDP, the number of people who own TVs, and the number of TV shows produced, therefore TV increases your GDP?
There is a 100% inverse correlation between a country's GDP, and the percentage of the population who sleep in mud huts, therefore destroy all mud huts!
A quote from an article on causal reasoning:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Publishing is not a requirement.
Showing that you did it prior to the patent application and award dates is all that is required.
Here's a famous example:
Marconi held the patents on radio, it was shown that Tesla had come up with a more sophisticated (as in a voice device) that was shown at the World's Fair some time before Marconi had even sent his telegraphy signal for the first time. Tesla didn't pursue his device because he was working on something "better" in his mind than hertzian wave radio. Marconi's patent on radio was then subsequently revoked.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Our client wanted to be able to post reports that were output from the software to the web. Our head programmer put a very rudimentary web template system in place that would output reports with choices of sort order, gawd-aweful background colors (from a 16 color palett), and customized headings and footers. This was all done without the user having to know any HTML. You can see samples here dating back to 1997.
The About SCORE page even references automated HTML authorship. From the page:
SCORE (Scheduling Classes with Order Reliability and Efficiency) is an application developed by a group of Computer Science students enrolled in the Software Engineering sequence at Ball State University. SCORE is an application that is a flexible scheduling advisor for use by faculty involved in the creation of course offerings by a department. SCORE has features which allow for powerful schedule reporting, class conflict catching and reporting, persistent and consistent data retieval and automated HTML authorship of documents for Internet/Intranet display.
Though ugly, I think these qualify as prior art and beat IBM's 1998 application.
During the IBM/Microsoft divorce, IBM was supposidly able to drop a big, thick pile of patents on the table to prevent Microsoft from really shafting them.
Didn't IBM have a software patent way back on using the TAB key to move between fields in software? They never charged anyone for that one.
Netscape composer, used it in 1997, I'm very sure... but yours would be better...
Bizar technology?
Uh, what world are you living in? If the cost to any individual company of paying up is less than the cost of fighting it in court, the company has a duty (to its shareholders) to pay up.
Nobody's going to take a stand against this, unless IBM picks the wrong targets.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
TIBCO PortalBuilder, which was the initial engine for My Yahoo! and is used by private firms for personalised customer web services.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
I commonly used templates to generate websites for customers way back when.
The idea, software, and everything was my own. I did not think it was revolutionary.. more like 'obvious'.
Visual tools make modifications as simple as dragging-and-dropping.
...
- Drag-and-drop hyperlink editing
Desktop publishing features create professional-looking results.
...
- Hide HTML code with WYSIWYG editor
- Create "hotspots" on images with clickable image editor
- Add interactive forms with just a few mouse clicks
WebBots (tm) eliminate programming tasks while Web Wizards guide you through the creation process.
Built in WebBots let you:
...
- Create bulletin boards for threaded discussion groups
- Save information from fields automatically
Web Wizards simplify the development of:
- External Web sites
- Internal Web sites for corporate information distribution
Select from over twenty page templates or create your own.
So is this prior art or what?
sulli
RTFJ.
They're in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle - I'll bet they'll find this quite interesting.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Constitutional basis for federal patent and copyright systems is to be found in the Constitution of the United States Article 1, Section 8, clause 8 which states:
... to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. "
... "
"Congress shall have power
Federal patent laws have existed since 1790. The first United States Patent Act, that of 1790 was a short act of seven sections only entitled "An act to promote the Progress of Useful Arts". Under its terms any two of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and the Attorney General were empowered to grant patents for terms of up to fourteen years for inventions that were "sufficiently useful and important" provided that the grantee submitted a specification describing the invention (and where appropriate a model thereof) to the Secretary of State at the time of the grant.
In 1793 this act was repealed and replaced by a slightly longer act, the drafting of which is largely attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who was at the time Secretary of State and therefore intimately involved in the administration of the 1790 Act. The Act is notable for its definition of what constitute patentable subject matter in the United States, which definition is almost unchanged up to now:
"any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter and any new and useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter."
In the same year the Supreme Court in Grant v. Raymond made it clear that failure to provide an adequate description of the invention was a ground under which a defendant might use when sued for patent infringement, it being held that
"as a preliminary to a patent a correct specification and description of the thing discovered (was required). This is necessary in order to give the public, after the privilege shall expire, the advantage for which the privilege is allowed and is the foundation of the power to issue the patent
A major review of the law was undertaken in 1836 in response to complaints about the grant of patents for things that lacked novelty. Under this revision the Patent Office was set up as part of the State Department and a specification had to be submitted to it and be examined for novelty before a patent would be granted. As a consequence of this provision of the 1793 Act requiring the inventor to distinguish his invention from the prior art was expanded upon to require the applicant to "particular specify and point out the part, improvement or combination, which he claims as his own invention or discovery".
Nowhere in there do I see anything about being designed to make money.
What I do see is that the Patent Office was set up to ENSURE sufficient novelty in those items submitted for patenting. If it fails in this IT IS FAILING IN THE ONE THING IT WAS DESIGNED TO DO!
I think CNet came up with PRISM years before that, and it is a template based language. It is now sold as StoryServer.
Only 'flamers' flame!
To pick a nit:
There are two things that patents do:
let you sue someone who copies you
Actually, patents allow you to sue not only those who copy you but anyone who independently invents the same thing that you did. There is no requirement that somebody have copied, or indeed even have been aware of the invention or patent, for that person to be sued.
This is the real evil of patents: You could be infringing on one right now and not know it. We frequently have to deal with this where I work, as we discover that systems we spent years writing may have been illegal because of a patent we never heard of on a product that never made it to market half a dozen years ago.
Patents don't just prevent copying. They prevent re-invention.
--G
"In the meantime, the rest of us will enjoy the fruits of an economy created by companies that work and a government that protects their work."
Pity IBM in this case DIDN'T DO THE WORK! I guess then you won't mind the patent being overturned when any one of a billion pieces of prior art are brought up?
Corporate apologists like you disgust me. I don't know whether you're blinkered by your simple-minded faith in capitalism, or are simply being cynical twats. Either way, you need to get your collective heads on straight. A corporation, doing any dirty thing it can manage for money, is not somehow an "honorable" or "right" thing. It is not something we can expect, and it is not a success we must depend on. I for one would as rather live in a country built on the financial misdeeds of a megacorp, than I would live in a country built on any other sort of crime, like genocide.
Oh wait, I live in a country built on both... damn.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
This is one of those catch-22 stories, something which makes me simultaneously dislike and love the prospects.
:)
I am one who believes that software patents are bad with three M's and a silent Q. I mean, the base concepts aren't too original, so what's the point of issuing 28-year patents on things which, within less than a quarter of that term, are so behind the SOTA (State Of The Art) that everyone and their granny could think of it and possibly code it if they (a) were technically capable and (b) otherwise unencumbered by it.
That's the dislike part.
Now the love parts.
First off, IBM's investments in one of our favorite offspring from the fount of the Open Source, Linux, is rather impressive. Most of their hardware runs exceedingly well on Linux, and probably BSD as well (though that's not what I personally use often.. it's good in ultra-security apps, though...)
Second, it allows Big Blue ammunition to attack our Great Satan And Enemy Of Everything We Love, Microsoft.
This is a potential legal matchup that makes Vegas bookies drool in anticipation, like the matchup between two undefeated boxers or the ALCS. (Granted, Seattle has a bit of an advantage IMHO, but (a) they were wiped by the Yanks last year and (b) their power probably is an extention of Redmond's satanic verses... )
Iff Big Blue wins, it's more money to (potentially) feed into the Linux R&D pool. Iff Microsoft wins, it still loses a lot of legal fee money and IBM gets one less patent in its portfolio.
Choices, choices, choices..
Doesn't affect me, though. I use echo to code html
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.