AOL Patents IM

ProgressiveCynic writes "CNet is reporting that AOL has recieved a patent on IM technologies. Specifically, any technology that provides "a network that allows multiple users to see when other users are present and then to communicate with them" is covered. While AOL was a leader in this space the patent was only filed in September 2002."

Comments

What about "chat" and "talk"?

[Rick the Red]

I seem to recall applications with names like chat and talk which allowed uses to communicate with anyone logged on at the same time. Do those not count as prior art because the users were all logged onto the same machine, and this patent covers multiple machines networked together? Do terminals hanging off a Vax or IBM mainframe constitute a "network"?

Granted in 2002, NOT filed!

[the eric conspiracy]

While AOL was a leader in this space the patent was only filed in September 2002.

The article clearly states that the filing was done in 1997, and the patent was granted in Sept 200.

IRC?

[Fweeky]

The ISON command was implemented to provide a quick and efficient means to get a response about whether a given nickname was currently on IRC. ...

PRIVMSG is used to send private messages between users. <receiver> is the nickname of the receiver of the message.

In rfc1459, dated May 1993, after 4 years of development. Although it is described as a "teleconferencing system", it does sound like it'd match:

"The claim is it's a system where you have a network; you have a way to monitor who's on the network; and if you want to talk to them you hook them up,"

Not what you might think....

[the eric conspiracy]

Unfortunately people don't read the actual claims, rather they read the abstract or some other part of the patent and draw conclusions about what is covered from this material.

These conclusions are invariably wrong. What a patent covers is described in the claims, and nowhere else. If you don't read the claim, you don't have a clue as to what a patent covers.

Reading the actual claim in this case, it is quite clear that AOL's patent is not affected by prior art such as BBSs chat systems that don't require a communications network. Nor is functionality like Apple's broadcast because the users are tied to specific machines. IRC also relavant as it does not maintain a list of users that you are interested in talking to, an notify you when they go online.

Following is Claim 1, what AOL actually has a patent on:

What is claimed is:

1. A communications system comprising:

a communications network;

a multiplicity of communications terminals which are connectable to said communications network and which can be employed concurrently by multiple seeking users and multiple sought users to communicate via said communications network, wherein each user is identified independently of a given communications terminal address by a unique identification code predefined for said user, which code is independent of which of said multiplicity of communications terminals that user is employing;

a monitor operative to monitor whether or not a user is connected to said communications network; and

an annunciator operative to annunciate to a seeking user, currently connected to said communications network via any of said multiplicity of communications terminals, network connection status information relating to other users who are in a list of sought users which list includes identification indicia of the sought users, which list is defined by and sent by said seeking user without using verbal requests, and for providing to said seeking user the current network address currently assigned to each of said other users for that other user's current connection to said communications network;

a user communication selector enabling the seeking user to establish communication with at least one sought user on said list.