Slashdot Mirror
Online Greeting Cards Patented
Trailer Trash writes "According to this story at bizreport.com, Hallmark has given in and licensed Tumbleweed Communication Corp's patent for delivery of online documents with e-mail notification. Will the idiots at the patent office never stop? Jeff Smith of Tumbleweed claims to have been granted three patents last year."
Yup, the whole world has gone insane. I'm going to go cry now.
Yeah, right.
I came into work to find my office door bolted shut. Apperantly, the idea of "working" has been patented.
;-)
Although, that's not entirely a bad thing...
Couldn't just about any service that delivered greeting cards online for the last 3+ years (for example, Blue Mountain, etc.), be considered prior art for this??
;)
If this keeps up, we'll soon see a patent for "facilitating data-entry via an alphanumeric input device"
i invented reading. i also copywrited everything i've ever written.
reading my post and thinking about it violates some sort of law, i think.
send all settlement checks to me asap. thanks.
--donabal
Safety First Day?
I hope this patent stifles the shit out of the email-a-link industry.
Isn't Blue Mountain who started the greeting card email craze?
hahaha ahahahahahahah hehehehe, hoooooooo ahhhh.
that's some funny stuff.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Oh well, I've reached 50 karma. Why stop now?
Carousel is a lie!
You know this might be the first _good_ stupid patent.
There are few things I dislike more than having some stupid piece of flash animation sent to me by email, or wore notification of said flash animation.
If this Patent stops webisites from getting my mom to send me anymore dancing hamsters, or singing chiefs I will be only too happy.
Next up I want someone to Patent SPAM
Another licensee on my patent on "a method in which a female and male, in combination, create a being of signifigant mental incompetence."
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
According to Tumbleweed's press release, the patent in question concerns "Private URLs for Directed Document Delivery", which sounds pretty damn elementary. It's not like no one could have possibly come up with the idea of private, dynamically generated URL's for document retrieval. In fact, given the way that the use of URL's is, well, intrinsic to the way the web works, who wouldn't do this if it was unsatisfactory to send the whole shmear over email, as is obviously the case if the html content you want to send involves custom rendered gif's and the like.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Communication with other people via the Net.
Distribution of information via the Net.
Puchasing of objects via the Net.
Getting off via the Net.
" will use the technology for all Hallmark.com online offerings that "provide for or facilitate document delivery over the Internet, and those that include the provision for sending an e-mail delivery notification to the recipient." "
Provide document delivery over the 'net- like email?
provision for sending e-mail delivery notification to the recipient- like "return recipts"?
Once again, it looks like patents are getting way, way too broad. Soon the patenet office is going to accidentally give a patent to someone for urls (oh wait, isn't a British company working on this one?), pausing TV (oh wait, isn't Tivo {or someone else} claiming this one?), or even a single click technology (the famous Amazon debacle). Maybe someone can try and patent the "right click" or contextual menus.
Seriously, the whole thing is really getting way out of whack! I wonder if Chesebrough-Ponds has patented the "single stick ear cleaning device"? (Q-tips)
Time to go get a drink, me thinks....
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Does this mean there will be less companies which allow our friends, who think we geeks will love these, to send us these annoying stupid e-cards? Do I really need another annoying MIDI soundtrack on top of an animated GIF with message as a "surprise"? I think not. These were cool two years ago when they were still a novelty.
God I hope so! This patent may not be all bad!
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I hope they don't plan to use RDF!
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
OK well tumbleweed put this in your ass and smoke it. I patented YOUR FACE! I not only patented the patenting process but I also patented the patent process and the patent for patenting patent is patent pending. Patenting the Patent pending patenting process is pathologically pathetic so ill leave that up to the RIAA. Permitting a patent pending processing pricky pears and a peter piper picking pickled patented pickled peppers patent patent patent patent patent......
If you are now desensitized to all meaning of that word you know how I feel after all those damn patending decisions. When will the madness end?
And not to be a flame, but is it really that important? What exactly is the real implications of this besides the obvious??
...a system for encapsulating and transporting oxygen and carbon dioxide through an extensive network of branching tubes of diverse sizes.
US Patent Office, here I come!(Next on my list: convince a venture capitalist that my pet rat qualifies as a proof-concept model...)
Isn't one stupid patent article enough for one day?
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
The patents in question are:
Electronic document delivery system in which notification of said electronic document is sent to a recipient thereof
and
Private, trackable URLs fordirected document delivery
I demand that all cards transferred via this system that Hallmark is utilizing be transmitted via a private encryption system. If the rights of greeting card artists are blatantly ignored by people who can simply steal these cards upon receiving them, and send them to others without any proper repayment to the cards' creators, what will stop entire underground cartels from springing up and allowing people to share them freely?! I don't care if Hallmark licenses it, they have to work to protect the people how MAKE these things! The little guys! That's who they're here for, right? The GIAA is swiftly working to put a stop to this kind of filthy behavior, by developing a private network that transmits greeting cards in a proprietary .NIP format, but their system won't be in place for another year! We must work to protect the rights of greeting card fashioners the world over, lest all fairness and equality within the internet be lost forever. What's to stop some clod from printing one of these cards that I've fashioned, and giving it to a friend for free? Nothing. And that's just not right. Not at all. I should be paid for every single use of it. I deserve that much, for all the hard work it takes to come up with an illustration of a naked man sitting unawares on a toilet bowl with the caption "Caught You At A Bad Time, Huh?" over the top!
Tsk tsk, such thoughtless copyright violating ... when will people learn?
over 8 years ago. I think I will sue Tumbleweed, then license my idea back to them..Hah
Win if you can... Lose if you must... But always CHEAT!
Two patents within the same time frame, really hope this isn't going to go on for toomuch longer at this pace...Too tired to list prior art, no doubt someone will.
Wonder who will patent the patenting process?
Matt
IAJAM (I Am Just A Monkey), but it just hit me that /must/ publish every thought I ever have to
/business/.
I
protect myself from this slimy patent system we
have, and slimier patent applicants.
I suggest everyone else do the same. Document
everything you think, whether it seems significant
or not. Document the way you wipe your ass; the
way you lift food to your mouth; the way you pick
your nose. Document the method of transferring
thought to a transportable medium.
Fuck! I'm sick of the software
What f*ing box!?!?
How about an "F-Off" postcard from MY site? q:]
www.fuckaway.com
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
For example, I have patented a system of communication not involving face to face speech or psychic transmissions, usually involving another medium for transmission.
That's right, I have patented letter-writing, faxing, email, telephone conversations, chat rooms and telegrams, among others.
In other news, the patent stupidity train keeps a rollin'.
SIGFEH
The company I helped found in 1995 started doing this in December 1995, with a launch in February 1996. It was an internet greeting card site, and included such AMAZING features as e-mail notification of a new card to a recipient, and an e-mail to the sender when the card was viewed. The Internet Archive has an archive of the page as it was in December 1996 at:
http://web.archive.org/web/19961226182315/http://w ww.cardclub.com/
Anyway, if anyone is challenged by this in court, let me know. I'm sure I can dig out all sorts of documentation that predates the filing dates of the patents in question.
Hey, if you read their press release, they have a list of the their other patents in their "patent portfolio." Mostly stuff dealing with document distribution, encryption and notification.
Over the past two years, I've been working on a distributed system where an operator in Wash, DC scans 250+ pages a day and is turned into PDF, OCRd, indexed, and then distributed via the web. We're up to 9GB of data and a few mil in annual revenues. There's gotta be a patent in there somewhere if these idiots can patent this stuff. Or at least prior art!
Here's a quote from one patent description:
"Each private URL ("PURL") uniquely identifies an intended recipient of a document..."
Now, why on earth didn't the acronym "PURL" catch on? The world will never know.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
The link seems to be slashdotted, try this one.
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. -- Homer J. Simpson
How is this different from any password protected site which uses http basic authentication and email based registration.
Say you go to a site and create an account (the details of which are emailled to you)
That then means that the url:
http://username:password@website.com
has been created for you!
Bizreport isn't responding for me so i am just assuming that the description of the patent posted by other users is valid.
I wonder if I can patent online pr0n?
So climate's changing. So what? It has always changed. The big news would be if it wasn't changing. - Dr. Philip Stone
"As well, E-mail is not the medium of choice for the distribution of complex documents..."
But what about HTML embedded in email? For instance what you get with CNETs and Discovery channel's mailings. Those typically contain graphics, tables, etc. And what about attachments?
I just patented the process of complaining about patents. Slashdot readers everywhere, I ownz joo!
-------------------------------------------------
charlton heston is more of a man than yo
Now that you've thrown your reflexive anti-patent knee out of joint, try getting upset about something important for a change.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Apple icards?
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
If i had me some monies.. I'd patent me up the patenting process itself.. that'd learn 'em.
I'm pretty sure DavidJones.com.au was doing this way before anyone else. (They even had classy cards, long before bluemountain ever rose from the bloody sea). It was quite funny, as they are a respectable retail outlet down in Australia (similar scale to Sears, sorry aussies), but all its site was really useful for was sending cool postcards of dalmatians or pointy hats.
I have an idea to apply for a patent on "all your base" and see if they grant it.
You said Gro**y - thats patented by Duke - of the DookNookum3D fame - look for an email from 3DRealms >:)
Subject: [Slashdot] Moderation of "Not just cards..."
A user has given an "Offtopic" (-1) moderation to your comment.
Not just cards... http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=0xdeadbeef
Surely that counts as an 'online document' and 'email notification'...
*forwards message to Tumbleweed*
From now on people will have to *pay* to mod me down! My karma is unstoppable! Except for the cap...
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
- PURLs are temporary, dynamically generated uniform resource locators which uniquely identify the intended recipient of a document and the document itself, as well attributes associated with the delivery of a document. PURLs avoid attaching information to e-mail messages to send documents, but rather attach a general reference to a document to be sent, and then enable the recipient to access a document via the reference.
Really, any user-specific link sent via e-mail is covered by this patent.I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
I'll patent the process of executing code by clicking on attachments and sue every poor sod who infects his computer with a virus and GET RICH QUICK!
Give a man a fish and he eats for one day. Teach him how to fish, and though he'll eat for a lifetime, he'll call you a miser for not giving him your fish.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Let's see here... we're sending documents to people over a computer network using a store and forward protocol. SMTP, anyone? WTF?
SMTP + POP3 covers this in spades.
When is the patent office going to realize that this is getting WAAAAAAAAY out of control?
-nate
An electronic document delivery system and methods of its use are provided. A document, preferably in a portable format, is forwarded to a remote server (e.g. using HTTP to "push" the document to the server). The server sends a generic notification of the document to an intended recipient, and the recipient can download the document from the server using local protocols. In preferred embodiments, the invention is used for the controlled delivery of portable documents from a sender to a large number of recipients, using a network of servers that route the documents and notifications in a store and forward manner, while providing routing and accounting information back to the sender.
Egad! Sounds like a glorified e-mail system! With attachments! And distribution lists! What a novel concept! But wait...It's not even attaching the document in question??? It's merely sending a link to a site where the file is located! Well,I don't know about you guys, but I was sending hyperlinks via e-mail prior to the patent filing date. Either I get to patent the wheel, or this is a non-starter. Somebody in the patent office needs a few whacks with the stupid stick... And don't even THINK about trying to collect royalties on this one.
You're using her as bait, Master!
You're new here, aren't you?
Next time you do a Google search, try reading the entire text of any of the search results. You'll have "mad-uberGoogle skillz" in no time.
And another thing: try to think of something more orginal to say than "Slashdot should cache webpages". And keep in mind that while "I can't parse text for the word 'cached' even when it's highlighted and underlined" is a fairly unique statement, it probably won't get the editors here to take your complaints seriously. Not that they're going to anyway, but at least you won't look like such an idiot.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Thanks to 2600 Magazine and The EFF , we all have a legal precedent for the right to link from our sites to wherever we wish (More info at 2600). Might this also apply to linking from our emails, thus invalidating the patent? Which takes precedent? I would imagine a judge and/or jury.
In that case, I would receive email notification that there is a new document (new version of the web page) available for me.
That sounds a bit like an infringement on the patent to me. In fact this technique os rather widely used.
U.S. Patent No. 5,790,790 for the "Electronic Document Delivery System in which Notification of Said Electronic Document is Sent to a Recipient Thereof."
If you have a look at the this link:
Bluemountain.com already had this in place back 12/1998! How did they ever get the patient application approved?
What a joke this patent is ...
s /p ress_releases/2002/01_02_02.html
= PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5,790,790'.WKU.&OS=PN/5,790,790& RS=PN/5,790,790
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='6,192,407'.WKU.&OS=PN/6,192,407& RS=PN/6,192,407
/ /w ww.cardclub.com/
Anyway, here is what TumbleWeed has to say:
http://www.tumbleweed.com/en/company/news_event
The first patent was registered in October of 96 and was granted in August of 98. The title: Electronic document delivery system in which notification of said electronic document is sent to a recipient thereof. The link:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1
The second patent was applied for in April of 97 and granted in February of 2001. The title is: Private, trackable URLs for directed document delivery
The URL is: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
Prior art exists for both of these. Thanks you wayback machine! Link from earlier post:
http://web.archive.org/web/19961226182315/http:
I'm heading to the patent office to patent greeting cards which use e-ink. I'll be back in a little bit.
Our tears will form a river.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Of course this and the other example of patent stupidity posted on slashdot earlier today are just the umpteenth million reason why we should be doing something more to give all these comments about our rights online and offline some kind of greater impact than they currently have.
/. can probably rattle off of their evolution 1.0 address books in their sleep.
Its been suggested before, but i still havent seen much action from anyone on the idea of a Slashdot - or slashdot related - Advocacy Project (org/fund/website). What kind of hybrid creature that might be could be born of the wonder of the slashdot threaded discussion process, but essentially the best ideas that ive heard so far would involve making the connection between comments here on slashdot and useful recipients of those suggestions, like elected officials (or those seeking election) and company executives, etc., along with drawing in donations through pay pal and other means for a fund to support legal action and education and research and such (like what the EFF and the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic are doing).
Hell, at the very least it could be a form of a distribution network for those kind of funds - raising donations for projets that users mod up in importance and comment on and help coordinate - with the redistributing of those funds to the most effective and support needing of those working on projects (like the eff with the adobe/sklyarov situation).
Yeah i know theres the EFF and the ACLU and a bunch of other undersupported, overworked, undercoordinated organizations but do we seriously think that adding our support would do anything other than help.
Id personally think that a major focus should be to bring programming, web design, networking and other skills to help out EFF and all the state and local chapters of the ACLU and others by the ton...
Projects need IT support. Slashdot is the feeding trough the tech junkie world comes to for news and such. What better fit could there be... and how hard could it possibly be for a few dozen or more people to start passing emails between each other, maybe start up mailing lists, email and bring in big name types like Lawrence Lessig and Pamela Samuelson and all the others that anyone on
According to Tumbleweed's site, they claim this: "Within 5 years all Internet communications will be secure and Tumbleweed® Secure Guardian(TM) will be the industry standard for securing every channel of Internet communication, for every enterprise, everywhere" Based on that, can we trust these people to do our online greeting cards?? Any company who thinks there sole product will be the only security device is absolutely absurd. Find one bug, and everyone is doomed. I want my greeting cards to be secure and not open to some random hacker looking for a good laugh. However, at least they are starting a little good by not running Microsoft NT/XP server. A quick lookup on Netcraft said that they were running Apache on Solaris I wish them luck and hope to a year of supposedly secure greeting cards where I can just leave one out in the open and no one will attempt to even read it or if they do, they will get lost!
Greeting cards for a secure environment and a secure environment made just for greeting cards!
I personally think you should be modded down as this is an article about the patenting of greeting cards. What the fuck are you talking about?
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Hallmark Cards settled a lawsuit filed against it by Tumbleweed Communications Corp., agreeing to license Tumbleweed's patented technology for delivering greeting cards online.
Neither company made financial terms of the settlement available, and both Hallmark and Tumbleweed officials were unavailable for comment.
^M According to a statement issued by Tumbleweed, Hallmark will use the technology for all Hallmark.com online offerings that "provide for or facilitate document delivery over the Internet, and those that include the provision for sending an e-mail delivery notification to the recipient." ^M Tumbleweed Chairman and CEO Jeff Smith in the statement said it is the third patent for the technology issued this year. ^M P One of the other patents was secured in a similar settlement with American Greetings Corp.Yes, it's an ugly display.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
...I have a patent pending on sticking flyers under the windshield wipers on peoples' cars to notify them of sales and such. Soon I plan to pattern the technique of having a number or blinking light flash on an answering machine to notify people that they have messages waiting. Now I'll just sit back and wait for the licensing fees to pour in.
sigh...
The invention to be patented must NOT be obvious "to one of ordinary skill in the art."
This patent fails the test... as do most patents like it.
The patent office is clearly violating the public trust by awarding patents for "inventions" which which are clearly obvious "to one of ordinary skill in the art."
There's a certain aire among many immature or just plain uneducated entreprenaurs / management / executives that patents are some sort of holy grail of the American dream. Unfortunately, they've forgotten the hard work part. Instead they have delusions of grandeur that somehow they'll patent the "right thing" that everybody and their brother will want and suddenly they'll be rich. But alas, these people are not engineers, scientists or other tech workers. Their "big ideas" are the mere childs play of true intellectuals. And unfortunately, with so many idiots flooding the patent office these days, the bar has been significantly lowered to the point where such nonsense actually gets through.
Patents don't have to be this way. Sure, if an individual or company puts a significant amount of time and money into developing a sophisticated physical design, they ought to be compensated for a *short* amount of time. What we need is massive patent reform.
So, let's look at the broadest claim of the newest patent:
1. A document delivery system for delivering one or more documents between a sender and at least one recipient, said system comprising:
a server that temporarily stores said documents, wherein said server generates a URL for each intended recipient of said documents, the URL unique to each recipient, and sends each of the URLs to each respective intended recipient; and
a database which is associated with said server and which records log data describing which recipients accessed said documents;
wherein said server sends the log data to the sender of said documents.
What are the simple limitations in this claim that make it narrow enough to be uninteresting. Well, let's see:
1. The server must store "each of the documents" temporarily. So, dynamic URLs are pretty much out.
2. Log data must be "sent to the sender." This means that if you require the sender to log back on to your side (the traditional way of doing this) instead of sending them the log, you do not infringe this claim.
What do you want to bet that none of the prior art (from BlueMountain to standard email) meet all of these criteria? And this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that likely those limitations were discussed during the prosecution of the patent. If you really want to analyze the scope of the claims -- if for example you want to invalidate the patent -- order a copy of the file wrapper from the patent office, which includes every scrap of communication between the PTO and the company. Once you've reviewed that, we can get a real discussion going.
If you actually look at the patents, and in particular 6,192,407, you will find that they cited a huge number of references, including most of the references that you have discussed. This strongly implies that the patent office actually took a look at this patent, before allowing it. Now, whether patents should be permitted at all or not is a different discussion. But assuming that no prior art technology, articles, or patents were referenced is rather silly, when the patent is available for review.
I will agree that this claim is too broad in my (not-a-legal) opinion. However, it is not nearly as broad as /. seems to imply.
So... for future reference, read the bloody patent claims (not just the abstract) before starting to bitch.
Thank you,
Thalia
So, what are you going to do with all of the money you get from licensing fees? ;-)
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
I'm going to patent using your brain to think thoughts of things.
The way the patent office is going about it, no one will even blink twice and I'll have a monopoly!
I'll never lose another argument again!
The only thing left is for someone to patent continuation of the species via sex and/or artificial insemination!
FreeBSD for the impatient.
What happens when a patent is invalidated by prior art? Can the parties who demonstrated prior art file a patent? Or does the fact that they didn't file a patent invalidate any claim they have on the invention.
Bleh!
is to patent the process whereby one obtains a patent. If we do that, perhaps we can end this nonsense. But in all seriousness, how many of these trully absurd patents have ever made it to court? Has the British telco that patented hyperlinks attempted to sue anyone for the use of them? The funniest part of all this is that the companies would waste the money to apply for such worthless patents in the first place.
-- It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
I (I mean, er, an anonoymous reader. I was working at a competitor at the time, and wouldn't dream of slamming) submitted this when it was approved. It's sad that it's being enforced.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Except you violated copyright by using the word "batman".
No, that's trademark. And there are other generic senses of "batman" other than the trademarked sense for comic books, films, TV shows, and toys. For example, in Turkey, batman weighs only 157 pounds.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As A Greeting Card Artisan... [I demand that Hallmark encrypt all cards it sends so as not to violate my copyright]
Are you Sam Butcher of Precious Moments Inc? If so, any claims of restrictive copyright on your Precious Moments characters have two checks:
What's to stop some clod from printing one of these cards that I've fashioned, and giving it to a friend for free? Nothing.
Other than traditional copyright law.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Don't worry about all this. Soon their gonna patent online threading and commenting, and then slashdot will be history anyway.
In fall of 1995, I was one of the developers for a US Gov't website that provided online statistical analysis to the general public.
.sig.
We wrote a system that emailed the user both a summary of the results and a unique link to the stored results. This was done because the analysis was too computing intensive to do in real time and we couldn't hold the browser connection open for more than a minute or two...
We did both of the things that are in the claim, and a couple of things that aren't. Anonymous logins to websites, which are similar to anon. logins for FTP sites, and we generated, on the fly, a unique piece of software to compute the dataset (which saved the results in a temp. dir).
So, BTDT and I can prove it. If anyone cares, they can find me at the URL in the
-- I don't have a cool sig.
I have a great idea for a patent!
a mechnaism for weath accrual whereby various individuals and or companies deliver cash to me in small amounts every time said individual or company duplicates in spirit or in deed anything i've ever done including but not limited to sleeping, breathing, blinking, reading or sneezing. I HAVE PRIOR ART. many of my impromptu performances of these acts have been thoroughly documented, as far back as the 1970's!
but seriously folks, and only slightly OT, i can see the need for the protection of actual human beings that come up with valuable ideas. Obviously there are flaws in the execution.
a key element, and this particular claim does NOT fit this bill, is that any technology which substantially improves the general quality of life in the world should be exempt from protection.. e.g. cures for cancer, the hyperlink, etc. should not be enforceable patents.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Firstly, give all those idiot patent examiners a raise. (keep reading)
Secondly, every time a patent gets overturned in court the patent examiner responsible gets docked pay.
While we're at it, I think everyone in congress and the senate deserve pay raises too.
Every time a law is declared unconstitutional dock every one that voted for it. (I'd really rather toss them in jail for a while, but somehow I don't think that'll fly.)
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I think this suggestion wouldn't work out as well as making our 18-month publication system apply to all applications. I suspect part of the reason this one patent seems so shocking to everyone is that they should have seen in published three years ago. Anyway, broadening the publication system to include everybody would be far less likely to completely end biotech work, like I suspect an "openpatent" office would.
I think I have been infringing on this patent myself since 1995 :-), as I started telling my friends at that time: "don't send me heavy documents in the e-mail, dump it on the web with my name on, and send me the URL". This patent quite simply covers things that the web was specifically made for. But that isn't publicly available information so...
Make sure you to go to BountyQuest every now and than to check if a bounty is posted, so that these patents can be killed once and for all.
Hm, come to think of it, there should be a similar site that organizes prior art claims and challenge patents on the basis of it... Anybody know about anything like that?
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
It really sounds like an april-fools joke (and I really wish it is!)
F FX 0ADFPLOC.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/state/2001/07/02/
Looks like we've devolved to a state where we can't even make wheels anymore.
Does someone already have a patent for breathing?
Tumbleweed applied for the pattent in early 1997. I believe US patent law allows you a year to prepare your patent application, which means that prior art would have to be before early 1996. I don't think BlueMountain was around then.
However, this is NOT what is important!
Somehow slashdot readers like to get worked up about each _specific_ case of stupid patent being granted. However, there is little discussion of the underlying legislation. People like to think that it is all just due to stupidity in the patent office. However, with many "stupid patents" the patent office does exactly what it is supposed to do according to the law, yet the result is just as ridiculous.
Does it really matter whether Tumbleweed actually was the first to document this idea? Would this condition make this patent fare or good for the society?
I think it would be good for all of us to spend less time getting excited about the specific cases and more time looking at this topic in a broader way.
...running a patent office :-)
...what e-mail program should I use?...let me consult my magic 8ball! *slosh slosh* hmmm... "outlook not so good"
There's something serious wrong with our system when patents are valid only for 20 years while copyrights can be retained forever and ever, and thus controlled and monopolized infinitely.
eTrade SUCKS
Is it just me, or does it seem that as soon as you do something with a computer, it can suddenly be patented? This patent seems to me as stupid as if someone would patent a (secure) method for delivering postcards. Lets see.
It would involve setting up a whole bunch of special (secure) postbox where people can place their postcards within. Special certificates (called stamps) are buyable and should be placed on the post cads to identify them as valid ones. Then a system of transportation will handle the transportation of the post card to the correct recipients through a unique address that would be printed on the post card. The recipient should set up his own private post box labeled with the unique address so that the post card can be delivered to that post box. And so on.
Oh well. As soon as it is done through computers only and over the internet, suddenly one can get a patent on just about anything.
because Outlook automatically re-formats even manually-typed URL's to be hot-clickable? It would be hilarious if they were the first ones sued for infringement.
The wording of the claims in 6,192,407 reads on the process of session tracking using URL rewriting (appending an id part to a URL rather than using cookies) in the context of any http exchange, rather than just the case of using email:
a server that temporarily stores said documents, wherein said server generates a URL for each intended recipient of said documents, the URL unique to each recipient, and sends each of the URLs to each respective intended recipient; and
a database which is associated with said server and which records log data describing which recipients accessed said documents;
In an interaction between a web client and a server that uses URL rewriting, unique URLs are generated that point to other documents uploaded to the server, which matches all the elements of the claim.
Notice also that the phrase 'intended recipient' is not defined in the claims. So it can be interpreted to mean the visitors of a given web site. Or to make it a precise list, we can interpret it as: all the users registered at a web site.
- erzlo
What they are really patenting is the delivery of those services in a secure manner with billing and tracking for the customer.
I think Hallmark (and others) gave in cause they charge for thier services, so it falls more in line with the patent. Free/unsecure services seemingly would not apply to this patent
.
Also when you read it they try to ruse you into what they want you to think those services are used for. Like email is plain text only and http is a search and pull technology only.
I find it ammusing that people are so desperate for a money making idea that they now patent the idea of using already existing technologies in a certain fashion.
This would be no differnt then patenting a process that asked you questoins via the world wide web and stored them to an electronic media for later review. It's not inovative or an original idea, so it never deserved a patent.
Will the idiots at the patent office never stop?
Will the idiots who don't understand the USPO responsibilities every shut the hell up?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This may be be a little off topic, but I believe that this is worth a mention here:
This story give you an idea as to how patents are not only inconvenient to us but actually kill people every day in America. This story explains how patents keep a quick HIV tests out of the American market, thus needlessly exposing many to a deadly desease.
Tumbleweed Communications
We claim:
1. A method for secure document delivery from a sender over a wide area network, comprising the steps of:a sender encrypting a document using a secret key;
the sender contacting a Delivery Server to query a public key associated with an intended recipient;
the Delivery Server dynamically retrieving the public key in real time from a certificate authority;
the Delivery Server transmitting the public key back to the sender;
the sender encrypting the secret key with the public key; and
the sender transmitting the encrypted document and the encrypted secret key to the Delivery Server for transmission to the recipient.
If a Delivery Server is equivalent to a server such as a mail server, and if the same server is a proxy, firewall, or otherwise in the chain between user and certificate authority, then it would seem in my inexpert opinion to be infringing, though these operations were in wide use before this patent was applied for in 1997 and should therefore be more precisely considered prior art.
The USPTO's decision to allow patents on software is a nightmare and should be reversed; the EU should take special notice of our IP follies before embracing them.
(In this case real time could be a mistake that renders the patent useless since "real time" is an ill defined concept in computing: do they mean literally instanteously, do they mean within a framed interval as in an RTOS, do they mean without human intervention?)
The patent in question seems to be the same one mentioned in this article. It's one of their older patents, at least two years old I think.
Will the idiots at the patent office never stop?
Not until you beat them at their own game! Here's what you do...
First, apply for a patent on the concept of a patent office. This patent will be approved because it is obvious, intangible, and has prior art readily available.
Second, apply for a patent on the concept of specifically patenting obvious and intangible ideas. This patent will be approved by the same logic.
Next, file a lawsuit against the USTPO for violating your two patents.
Finally, remember to re-apply to your own patent office for the two patents you obtained with the USTPO so your patents will still hold after the USTPO has gone bankrupt. Your two patents will of course be approved by your own patent office by virtue of the second patent.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
Doesn't remember the companies that did stuff like this for kicks? Like the company with a patent on something like "emotion expression through ASCII based text". Smiles anyone? :-) And how about the company that took the tones of a phone (usually just two music notes played together), and patented "music", which was actually phone numbers. I checked, and yep, they have a patent on my phone number. So when I call home, I'm breaking the law... Thankfully these companies are doing it for shits and giggles. *Gulp* I hope...
that when you quote prior art in a patent, you are explicitly saying that what is covered by the patent is ONLY those things that aren't in the prior art. So to understand what a patent actually covers, you have to research the prior art too.
Even the claims in the patent don't mean a lot without that, because of course a lot of them are describing steps that are also in the prior art.
Most patents are a lot narrower than they seem, at first glance.
It seems like the supreme cout of the european community is yet after them...