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Canadian Company Claims RDF Patent
quinticent writes: "Looks like they are at it again. Companies seem to like to let a standard become, well, standard before pulling out the lawyers to claim they own a patent on it. Now some Canadian company is claiming they own a US patent on RDF (doesn't Slashdot use RDF?). When will the US government realize that allowing patents on common ideas is just wrong? The CNet article is here."
(doesn't Slashdot use RDF?)
Here it is.
So, any bets as to how long before [Read More...] on slashdot stories is copyrighted?
When will the US government realize that allowing patents on common ideas is just wrong?
That's the problem. Say company A creates something and company B is jealous. Well, company B could simply say "Oh yeah, we came up with that too, and so did company C and D and E. It's common!". Thus, there would be no patents.
Note if you don't think patents should exist, please don't argue about it on this thread, I'm just pointing something out.
It just seems silly that all the geeks are bitching about common ideas on patents now when common stuff has been patented since the beginning of patents.
Free Mac Mini
The Patent Enforcement and Royalties Ltd. (PEARL) sponser plenty of this so called "patent investments" take a look here.
I think that's the trick. File a patent with a bunch of obscure phraseology like "method and apparatus utilizing bond identifiers executed upon accessing of an endo-dynamic information node", wait for a technology that remotely could be stuffed into the obscure phraseology, then claim a patent on it. Easy.
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Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Vancouver-based UFIL Unified Data Technologies, a private company, claims that it owns U.S. patent 5,684,985, a "method and apparatus utilizing bond identifiers executed upon accessing of an endo-dynamic information node." The patent was awarded in November 1997.
Didn't we pass a bill to make English the official language of the United States? Wouldn't that make this patent null and void?
Makes me wish I'd voted for that stupid idea...
To quote Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn): "Huck, if a Frenchman is a man, why don't he talk like a man?" (With apologies to French-speaking slashdot readers. :) )
I just don't see what "a method and apparatus utilizing bond identifiers executed upon accessing of an endo-dynamic information node" has to do with RDF, but I'm sure the U.S. patent office knows better than me.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
This is from the RDF specifications available from W3C:
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) integrates a variety of applications from library catalogs and world-wide directories to syndication and aggregation of news, software, and content to personal collections of music, photos, and events using XML as an interchange syntax.
They sure love that word.
As endo means inner and Dynamic means changing, I guess they are sayinga an internally reconfigurable system.Or a system that can react without external interference. Sounds like anything that is based on
an interpreter/parser to me...but anyway
(a) generating an information structure and relationship in the memory of the computer as one or more Endo-Dynamic Sets (EDS), the EDS comprising a list of one or more Endo-Dynamic Information Nodes (EDINs), the EDINs each representing an atomic component of data, and the EDINs each comprising a subject identifier, an attribute identifier, and a bond identifier, wherein the bond identifier defines a relationship between the subject and attribute identifiers;
OK, we got a two objects, and a relationship between them. Hashtable, anyone?
Maybe there is some subtlety hidden in all that gibberish. I am a programmer, and I have trouble reading it, I feel sorry for the poor bloke at the patent office that had to struggle through it...assuming one did.
I realize that most computer programs, converted to english, would probably translate as well as that one did. Wopuldn't it be eiser if they just tried to patent their original source code.
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
What kind of a remark is this? What determins a "common idea"? Would you say that polaroid's patent on self-developing film is a "common idea", just because everyone knows how it works? Protecting ideas is the whole point of patents. Just because an idea is common NOW doesn't mean it has always been so.
Not that I support this RDF patent (it's just an application of XML, and XML isn't patented. What, are we going to start patenting every DTD out there now?), but this statement is absurd.
Great Idea (tm):
Why doesn't the guy trying to patent the HyperLink sue the fellow patenting RDF?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The Patent was awarded November 1997, but was filed in Dec 1994.
Scanning through the patent, the patent seems to be filed on a mathematical system. of course I may have this wrong, but the language of the patent is filled with it.
It is like trying to patent arithmetic, but making it so complex that it is not obvious to most people looking at it.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I own the patent on all files ending with .txt. No, I do not accept PayPal, and yes, this is a joke.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Didn't we pass a bill to make English the official language of the United States? Wouldn't that make this patent null and void?
Uhhh what good would that do? Everyone knows Americans don't know how to speak English!
You're using her as bait, Master!
http://www.w3.org/RDF/
there's more than one way to do me.
I skimmed the patent, and I can't understand why they are even bothering. The RDF model (ignoring the syntax) is just that, a graphical model. Now, if I could see some diagrams of their idea in the patent, then maybe I could give them some credibility. However, all I see is Figure references without the figures! That really sucks.
There doesn't even seem to be any mention of something like a 'triple', one of the foundations of the RDF model. All I see here is mentions of information be both static and dynamic. Umm, sorry but this is very general.
Slashdot does not use RDF.
/dev/null where it belongs. RDF can be used to create very complex graphs which computer systems can understand.
What you are thinking of is the slashdot RSS feed.
This is not true RDF. This is actually Rich Site Summary.
Early in the development of RSS there was a slight intermingling with RDF.
The only current remant is the shared RDF namespace that RSS 1.0 uses. Slashdot uses RSS 0.9 so I can understand the confusion.
True RDF is REALLY cool and I hope this patent gets knocked back to
We are working on a distributed Reputation system and RDF graphs will probably play a major role.
Also. If you are interested in doing some cool stuff with RSS I would recommend checking out Reptile
Kevin
Well, I suppose that *MAYBE* this could be interpreted as an RDF triple.
bond identifier == URI
endo-dynamic information node == a Resource
So has anybody actually read their patent and care to speculate about prior art that may exist?
Reading through the claims of the patent in question, I think that SNMP may be an instance of prior art. SNMP contains all that atomic, compound, "endo-dynamic" and static information contained in an hierarchical identification node schema. Take the data returned from an SNMP tree walk and put it in XML and you have something nearly identical to what they've patented.
Anybody seen this?
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
I want to say Robotech Defense Force, but that's probably not right...
Damn, there goes my plan for fleeing to Canada.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
This patent is so general that it could 'protect' any mark-up language or indeed any hash or indexed data structure.
IMHO it's clearly invalid.
If you look at what they say below, they are describing a hash or indexed data structure in memory in their first claim. There is clearly prior art which invalidates this claim. This patent is bunk:
---------
1. A method for dynamically organizing and processing data in a computer having a memory and a data storage device coupled thereto, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) generating an information structure and relationship in the memory of the computer as one or more Endo-Dynamic Sets (EDS), the EDS comprising a list of one or more Endo-Dynamic Information Nodes (EDINs), the EDINs each representing an atomic component of data, and the EDINs each comprising a subject identifier, an attribute identifier, and a bond identifier, wherein the bond identifier defines a relationship between the subject and attribute identifiers;
(b) associating each bond identifier of an EDIN with an organizational structure of data stored in the memory of the computer; and
(c) traversing the organizational structure of data in the memory of the computer through the EDINs.
After reading another post that had a good quote from the patent, I have changed my mind... I think they do have the basic idea of what RDF is written down here. Howevever, I don't think they should get any royalties.
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generating an information structure and relationship in the memory of the computer as one or more Endo-Dynamic Sets (EDS), the EDS comprising a list of one or more Endo-Dynamic Information Nodes (EDINs), the EDINs each representing an atomic component of data, and the EDINs each comprising a subject identifier, an attribute identifier, and a bond identifier, wherein the bond identifier defines a relationship between the subject and attribute identifiers
In RDF, a relationship between two objects would be a URI (typically represented in URL format). The two objects are called Resources. This is the "bond identifier" they speak of.
A Resource identifier is the "subject identifier" they speak of. These would contain some fields, "attribute identifiers" with references to other resources, a collection of elements, or a literal that contains actual data.
After recognizing all of this, there is this: "wherein the bond identifier defines a relationship between the subject and attribute identifiers". This is exactly what an RDF triple is, and is basically the building block of the RDF model specification.
So, I do agree with their claim that this is RDF, but I really don't think they should get any royalties from it. If they were that concerned, how could they let the RDF specification reach recommendation in 1999, and just now in 2002 finally say something?
Such a typical stupid fucking slashdot reply. If you read the article, you'd see that the patent was filed in 1994 and awarded in 1997. RDF wasn't even a spec until 1998 and was a W3C recommendation by february 1999. So how the hell does that equal "wait(ing) for something to get big then claim you own it"? At least do the rest of us the favour of reading the material before you blindly comment and subject us to your uninfomred drivel.
do not read this line twice.
You're at least somewhat off the mark.
One of the challenges in bottle cap technology is designing a device that is guaranteed to seal despite rather gross variations in the bottle top.
Some of the designs to compensate for these variations, while still ensuring a positive seal against outgassing, are pretty darn innovative. Certainly worthy of patenting.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Since, I have done a lot of work with RDF, this article has really tripped my trigger. After pondering this, I am now agreeing that they do have a patent on the fundamental ideas of RDF. See my post here.
Here is a document from October 1999 announcing the enforcement of the patent. Seems that they started this process a long time ago. Considering that the RDF specification reached recommendation in February 1999, it seems they noticed.
I really hope that they receive something out of this (at least some recognition), but charging royalties on RDF at this point is impossible. RDF is a great web technology that is going to be put to free use for possibly decades. They snoozed, they losed.
http://www.udtl.com
Their server seems down though. Impressive company.
Simple. think about it in other terms, though. Rather than simply manufacturing a claim after the fact, these guys have patented something. I don't say something because I'm unaware of what their patent concerns, but rather because that's all it is. A patent so ambigiously phrased could be manipulated after the fact. If you would read the patent information, as provided in the article, you'd see that the patent is not truly that similar to RDF. In fact, the section where they began referring to its applications in the field of operating systems should have been your first clue. Their patent concerns something referred to as an IOS, or Information OS, not RDF. Having failed in succeeding in this legitimate endeavour, they now seek to make money on their patent by suing for infringement. This conclusion is bolstered by the prolonged absence of their website from the internet. Try a search. I doubt you'll find it. I couldn't even get a google cache. I found only the links to PEARL, and a link describing the IOS of the company. The link to their corporate site fails, by the way.
Pax Digitalia
The patent offices are supposed to hire experts to go over patent claims and reject bogus claims; this makes it fair for everyone. Other patent offices do this; why can't the USPTO?
Because Congress siphons off the USPTO's filing fee revenues and uses them to balance the budget instead of letting the USPTO use them to hire more competent examiners.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Ya know, I think his father can prove prior art here...
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
The process of taking a basic patent and then lodging in the patent office pipeline a lot of iterative "improvements" can cause problems. In legal parlance, these "submarine patents" are kept under wraps until products they cover come to market, and then create a legal minefield as the patent holder seeks licensing.
... at a bare minimum it should be demonstrate that there is a period of continuous (or near continuous) improvement/development/implementation. Ie, use it or lose it. If the idea is so great and thus worth the expense of patenting it, then why are they sitting on it? Waiting for someone else to do the hard work of debugging and actually convincing the rest of the market to adopt it (the hardest problem in todays software world) and then taking a slice of the action is nothing more than parasitic behaviour.
I would note that perhaps we should set specific hurdles for software patents
Perhaps another reform should be the more innovative a software technique is, then the longer the period where it could be held by the originator.
LL
yeah.. the patent is way to broad ALL female orifices will not work. Now I think I'll go and patent aural sex. If you meet me again... speak loudly..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
How about "A process for storing energy using organic phosphate compounds"?
The problem is that the judicial system is based on trial-by-combat. (A slightly better choice than basing it on trial by ordeal.)
The purpose of the legal system originally was to limit the occasions of out-and-out internal wars breaking out. Thus a display of strength would be used, and whoever looked as if they would actually win was awarded the victory by the state, which then backed this up with the threat of addtional force. "We don't like internal fights, and if you fight him, then he'll win. So we'll come in on his side if you do, just to get it over with quickly." It worked reasonably well for this purpose, and over the decaded it became more and more a pro-forma matter. This is why british lawyers are called esquires. The word is from squire. During the 1600's and 1700's it became more and more a matter of displaying fancy arguments. Sometime in the 1700's a guy who faced loosing showed up in full armor and challenged combat. He won, but the right to do that was quickly removed. The MAJOR purpose, remember, was to limit internal conflict. This is the basic concept behind the brittish/american idea of justice. Now instead of fancy armor the champions wear the "proper" suits, and speak with the "proper" accents. This protects them from damages. And it does. A lawyer who showed up in jeans and a tee shirt wouldn't even be allowed to speak. A client might well be charged with contempt of court (at the whim of the judge), and to that there is no appeal.
This system has been carried in it's reasonable extension into the Patent Court system. A patent is descendant from a "special favor" awarded by the King. For this to not cause unrest among the powerful, it must almost always be presented to the powerful. Knights in charge of breweries to awarded by the crown, etc. (I understand that the original Carlberg brewery is actually on royal lands in Denmark.) This special award was called a patent. So was the award of a rank in the nobility. And this would have been clearly known (and recent history) among the people who devised the word patent to describe a limited monopoly issued by the state. That's what patent meant to them. The unique difference was that it was supposed to be a reward for a useful invention. But this was the creation of a group of men who largely believed that only land-owning males should be allowed to vote. (Again, think of it as an attempt to ensure stability by giving those with power the right to have a say in what choices would be made, if only indirectly.) Even originally the very powerful were not satisfied with an equal say, and used various schemes to undermine the nominal equality. As they were learning to cope with this (buying votes via indirection, favors to politicians that weren't considered bribes, etc.) the franchise was extended to a larger and larger segment of the populace. Now in the US this has reached the point where almost everyone is allowed to vote, but where who they are allowed to vote for has been sufficiently constrained that it nearly doesn't matter. Would Gore really have been any better? He probably would have been less arrogant. He probably wouldn't have gone out of his way to offend other countries. He probably would have been more concerned with a positive image. But he showed signs of being just as devoted to the increasing centralization of political power. And that's the big evil of the current government. He was at least as dedicated to surveillence of the populace. (That was one of his campaigns as vice president.)
So corrupt isn't the correct word. It's a basic matter of system design. This system was designed from the initial steps to be stable. Currently it is undergoing a profound, and I believe dangerously misguided, centralization of power. To me this looks as if the stability is being sacrificed for the sake of temporary power. But corrupt doesn't to me appear to be the proper concept.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
One of the challenges in bottle cap technology is designing a device that is guaranteed to seal despite rather gross variations in the bottle top. And to do it very, very cheaply. That's where the real inventiveness comes in. Anyone can seal a bottle with $1.00 worth of rubber, but to handle variations in the bottle top for half a cent, that's tricky.
Anyway, these bottle top patents apply only to a very specific design. If you can improve upon a patented cap at all, you've probably changed it enough to be non-infringing. To get a general patent on the idea of sealing a bottle, you'd have had to file in 5,000 BC or so...
However, software patents often claim to be about that general, in most cases without much justification. IANAL, but what I've seen looking at those that I could to some extent read is:
1) The RSA patent (now expired) would once have been questionable because it patents a mathematical algorithm (if performed by computer), but it did cover a specific and genuinely new idea. Not too bad.
2) Patents describing one specific implementation of a not-especially-new idea, coupled to claims alleging to cover all implementations of that idea. (I haven't looked up the hyperlinks patent, but what else could it be?) The implementation is probably patentable, but easy to work around. The claims are, IMO, way too broad and cover lots of prior art. Bring these guys to court with evidence of prior art, and their claims will get trimmed way back. But why in heck should it be necessary for you to pay lawyers to take the case to court just to continue doing what you were doing before the patent was filed? The problem is, (1) the patent office is out of its depth in evaluting these claims, and (2) there is no penalty for ridiculous claims. So why not make the claims ridiculously broad and see if you can scare someone into paying royalties? My suggestion: loser pays, plus you can lose the valid part of the patent by over-reaching with overly broad claims. That is, if two claims in a patent are invalidated, the whole patent is invalid.
3) Patents filed for ideas the applicant cannot actually implement at the time of original filing, in the hopes that eventually someone will implement it, then discover that they owe you money. This ought to be disallowed in total, on the grounds that if you can't make it work, you haven't _invented_ anything yet! But the USPTO has not been enforcing that in the last few decades.
In addition, the way US patents were handled until recently, it was possible to file an application and keep it in limbo for decades with continual small amendments, changing it to match technical developments, and then finish it up and spring it after the technology had matured. And it stayed secret until then. Hence we got applications first filed about 1960 and 1970, becoming patents in the 1980's claiming to cover integrated circuits (in general) and microprocessors (in general). These were not from the engineers who actually designed the first IC's and uP's in production. And somebody had to go to court to fight them.
4) This "RDF" patent seems to be a new class of "stealth" patent: whatever the actual history and whether or not there was prior art, it looks to me like they used obfuscating language to ensure that no one would realize they were infringing on it until the patent owners started sending out threatening letters. Looks pretty close to fraud to me. (It probably also wasn't truly implemented -- since technology like RDF isn't much use until it is public.)
As badly as the patent office is doing, (and at least the USPTO never allowed a patent on the wheel), we might consider simply removing the "checking" function from them entirely and just have them run a public on-line database. Applications get posted.
There is a public comment period during which anyone can see the patent and send in examples of prior art, or whatever tends to limit or invalidate the patent. The office appends this to the on-line file. At the end of this period, the filer may withdraw the application and only be out a few $ for the posting fee, but it stays in the database as public-domain prior art. The filer can amend and re-post it just once, but the history is retained. Or the filer can assert that it _is_ a valid patent. There is no government certificate that the patents are any good.
If you still think the patent is invalid, you can sue in a (special, technically savvy) court. You don't have to possibly break the law first by infringing and wait for them to sue you. Both challenges and infringement suits are judged under these rules:
1) Obfuscated language will be interpreted to the advantage of the challenger. (See also "defend it or lose it")
2) If the patent does not contain a specific implementation that was workable at the time of filing, it's invalid.
3) Claims (defining the actual reach of the patent) may be broader than that specific implementation, but overly broad claims are penalized so that someone searching the database doesn't have to manually examine dozens of patents for whether the patent is validly that broad. Any claim that applies to something that was either obvious or had prior art or publication at the time of filing is completely invalid. Two claims invalidated will invalidate the whole patent. And it costs money -- see "Loser Pays".
4) Loser Pays: If any part of the patent is invalidated, the filer must pay all court costs, legal fees, and a penalty to the challenger. (Bad patents are a big enough public nuisance to make it worthwhile allowing lawyers to profit from knocking them out.) Invalidated patent applications, or parts thereof, stay in the database, marked either as public domain or with a cross-reference to the earlier patent. If the patent is upheld, the challenger pays, and the database notes that it was upheld and points to the court record.
5) Defend it or Lose it:
(a) Statute of limitations for damages for infringement: 1 year before the defendant is formally notified that he is in infringement, or 2 years befor suit is filed, whichever is less. (Exception -- if it is proven that the defendant knew of the infringement and attempted to conceal it while continuing to infringe.)
(b) Delay in defending patent: If defendant was openly in infringement for two or more years before patent holder notified them to cease, defendant gets one year of royalty-free operations for every two years before notification.
(c) Obfuscating the search process: If it is shown that the use of non-standard terminology in the patent kept it from being found in a reasonably thorough automated search, this is not only a valid defense against damages for infringement, but it will also allow the defendant to continue producing infringing products for at least two years.
A system for analog, parallel, intelligent data processing using an elctrochemical information distribution system, in which the state of a connection is controlled by Seratonin(tm) or Dopamine(tm).
:)
You were doing well until the end, far too easy for patent examiners to look up the specific chemicals you mentioned
Also my phosphate compound one applies to anything from blue/green algy up...Alternativly there is "using compounds containing phospates and 5 carbon sugars for self replicating data storage", which covers viruses too.
I would _hope_ that the patent defines the terms. I don't want to spend the time reading it to find out, if that's how they write. And of course, it is quite possible that between 1994 when they filed the patent and 1997, they discovered which way the RDF team was going and added the appropriate definitions to the patent...
If I was on a jury concerning this patent, that language would certainly put me on my guard and predispose me to find something wrong with it. In my experience, made-up words like these occur in four ways:
1) The inventor or scientist is doing something so new that it is necessary to invent words to describe it. However, serious inventors and scientists don't make up words like "Endo-dynamic information node."
2) The "inventor" is a crack-pot.
3) The "inventor" is utterly unaware of existing work in the area, so does not know the proper terminology and makes up his own. He also doesn't know about prior art. And, to make up words like that, he is either a crack-pot or his marketing side is a lot stronger than his technical side, so I'd wonder about whether he really can invent anything.
4) The non-standard terminology is deliberately used so that no one doing a patent search, is likely to find it. This lets the patent holder wait until someone has committed their business to using this technology, instead of working around it by changing the implementation, and then spring the patent on them. If that's not fraud, it ought to be.
Isn't there a single Mac user in the USPTO? At least in the Mac community, it is well knows that Steve Jobs invented the RDF. See http://www.appleturns.com/scene/?id=96
Liberty uber alles.
All very well, but you can't patent something this general. I'm reminded of the guy who tried to claim a patent on air-to-surface torpedoes early last century (I typed that as early *this* century the first time, it's still disorientating...) based on a "likely" technology.
That patent was not upheld, because no torpedo existed that could survive being dropped into the water from a plane, and no plane existed that could safely carry such a torpedo. Simply saying that such things could be developed from existing technology is not enough, you have to be able to produce a practical demonstration (ie. prove the idea works with the technology currently available).