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.

Comments

It is another assinine patent

[victim]

Claim 1: The client subscribes to aa set of content, the server gathers this content and later sends instructions to the client to transfer the content.

Claim 2: As above, but use a single message for the request and a single message for the transfer.

Claim 3: As 1, but also identifies "information that is of interest" during the sync.

Claim 4: Claim 1 where it happens over http. victim: I may become ill and stop typing this.

Claim 5: Claim 4 but transfer some XML on the HTTP. Yep, that's it. I can't go on. I mean no one would ever have considered transfering XML over HTTP! My GOD these people are geniuses!

There is nothing in this patent that a handful of competent engineers wouldn't come up with in their first brainstorming session.

I propose that the US Patent Office has so badly mismanged software patents that ALL software patents should be vacated and the patent examiners held personally liable for any damages claimed by the affected patent holders.