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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.
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 hope this patent stifles the shit out of the email-a-link industry.
Isn't Blue Mountain who started the greeting card email craze?
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
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
" 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
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?
Scary part is- someone may actually seriously try this at some point.
:)
Except you violated copyright by using the word "batman". Universal Studios would now like their check for $4,000,000.
Oh shit, that would be another 4 mil from me, now... bastard!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
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.
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.
"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?
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;
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.
- 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
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!
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.
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:
Our tears will form a river.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
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.
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!
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
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.
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 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
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.
But in all seriousness, how many of these trully absurd patents have ever made it to court?
Even if they do does that mean that the judge won't be just as easy to fool as a patent examiner. Especially if cases where one party is much richer (and with better lawyers) than the other. Extreme senario large corporate vs individual LIP...
The reasons they are absurd include that they are "obvious", but only to someone skilled in the appropriate area or that they are old ideas reimplemented, but it needs someone to be able to see through the jargon and technobabble.
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
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.