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AvantGo Gets a Patent
AnElder writes: "Yahoo's Daily News Technology section is carrying a story reporting that AvantGo has received a patent for its synchronization technology. And here's an excerpt: "In legal jargon, AvantGo said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had issued it patent No. 6,341,316 covering the system, method and computer program product for synchronizing content between a server
and a client." Why didn't I think of this?" In all fairness, the patent doesn't seem to be as bad as many that have been issued. It cites many other patents as references (which helps ensure that AvantGo is doing something *different*), and is rather specific about the process - I would expect that there are many ways to "synchronize" data that wouldn't run into this patent.
Link to the patent is here.
that they don't leverage this to try to quash their competition, the most excellent Plucker
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
The patent actually reads: What is claimed is: 1. A method of synchronizing a server and a client on behalf of a user, comprising the steps of:... - from the patent database
Claim 1 basically recites a method for updating content for a client at the request of a user, with the update coming from the content provider based on a user profile stored at the server. This is my take on a quick read of the claim without looking at the detailed description, but it seems rather broad.
I'm completely against silly software patents, like the 1-click one, but I think that AvantGo deserves this one.
:)
If you've ever used AvantGo, you know that it's an incredible system. They deserve this patent! Clearly, they worked hard on their idea, it wasn't stolen from someone else or obvious.
This patent only covers server->handheld synchronization, not server->client sync (it's not overly broad). It won't make the whole Internet infringing.
This isn't a patent on a simple algorithm or something really simple, it's a patent on a complicated method (as opposed to most software patents). It obviously took a lot of work to perfect this idea, and the way our current IP system works, we let the inventors keep the right to their inventions. Whether or not you agree with our IP system, it's the way it works over here, and they deserve the patent.
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This patent looks to be worded broadly enough to cover Lotus Notes clientserver replication, which was developed around 1985. The only difference I can see is that Notes replication does not use XML or HTTP... obviously these were not available in 1985. I don't know if that's a material part of the patent claim.
I think Lotus has their own patents covering replication. I also know that some work was being done to leverage the Notes replication engine in the Internet world, (circa 1995) perhaps using HTTP or XML, but I can't prove this.
IBM, owner of Lotus and the world's largest patent holder, may have something to say about this patent.
As some of you may know, the claims that do not refer to other claims are the important ones in determining whether or not a product infringes the patent. The independent claims of this patent are terse, and use very ambiguous terms. This means that it is very broad, and so very likely to be infringed. Fortunately, the earliest filing date that they might claim for this patent is in '99, and their is plenty of prior art available to get (at least the first claim) ruled invalid. That first claim is ridiculously broad, in fact. That type of process has been around since networks were invented in the 70s, right?
Actually, such a thing did indeed happen at the beginning of the electric age, and it was entirely appropriate. The story behind those patents shaped our world in a non-trivial way:
After inventing the light bulb, Edison went on to patent pretty much all of the other components of his system to provide power generation (the famous "long-waisted Mary Ann" generators), electrical transmission, switching, etc. Of course, all these patents were for Edison's DC system. All these patents were appropriate, although some stole from the work of an employee anmed Nikola Tesla, whom Edison promised $50,000 if he would solve thorny problems with his DC distribution system. Edison did not pay as promised, claiming he was joking.
Tesla, though, soon had patents for his ingenious polyphase AC system - avoiding the troublesome commutators of DC motors was a BIG deal, and AC could actually be transmitted over reasonable distances without terrific losses. Tesla later licensed these patents exclusively to George Westinghouse for the then princely sum of $1 million PLUS a staggering royalty of $2.50 per horsepower of equipment sold. This would have made Tesla the richest man in the world, every year (even today, that royalty would be worth billions per year just for generators alone, back then it was unimaginable.)
In a financial power play (ugh) Westinghouse was forced into a financial corner by FUD from J.P. Morgan (who controlled Edison's patents.) The cash crunch made it clear that if he (and AC power) were to survive, the royalty agreement would have to be altered to avoid leaving Westinghouse too over-extended to survive long-term. Tesla famously tore up the contract granting hi the royalties making it clear that Westinghouse had treated him fairly and that Tesla preferred AC prevailing to all the money: The rest, as they say, is history...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Plucker uses a completely different, server-independant solution to gather content. It is de-centralized, and does not rely on a single point of failure. It is client-driven, not server driven. Here's some other reasons why Plucker exceeds AvantGo:
- Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
- Plucker supports 12 languages, AvantGo does not.
- Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet
(including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
- Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight),
AvantGo does not.
- Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
- Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is
399k, without content.
- Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
- Plucker is
free and open source, under the GNU General Public License, AvantGo is not.
- Plucker does not require
that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
- Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format,
and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper. AvantGo does not.
- Plucker works on
11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
- Plucker does not
"restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
- Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes
with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
- You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you
cannot.
- Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
- Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want,
AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
- Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does.
- Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year if you exceed "contract" usage rates.
While they may think they have a wonderful, bloated product, which I'm sure appeals to corporate entities with $50,000/year to waste away without much functionality, and giving up control of their own content, I still believe that Plucker has a much better future overall. It's smaller, faster, more capable, and very well documented. It's also actively maintained, on a near-daily basis. When was the last time an update from AvantGo came around?Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?