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SBC Patents Links, Dynamic Pages
Oculus Habent writes "Robert Cringley has an article on a patent that SBC aquired. Patented in 1996 is the concept of linking to dynamic content with a static element of a page. First approaching museumtour.com, a small site, and asking them to obtain a revenue-based license, SBC appears to be trying to set precedent. He goes on to note that SBC is not a villian for doing this - it is after all a valid patent, and that what is needed now is prior art."
Wow of all the things. Static content ona dynamic page. Soon peole will be asking for patents on text because they had the idea of symbols and letters representing words.
What we really need now is patent reform. Companies should not be allowed to sit on IP while it gains broad adoption and then come back and extort companies in order to generate profits. We've seen too many companies do this, it's unethical, they know it, when are we going to stop them from continuing the practice.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Go check Apple's patents (maybe Xerox's) for hypertext linking. I think Apple covered this for Hypertext to Quicktime links.
Is this a FP? My first.
dot-sig.
I guess you have to sue Slashdot too, cause of the preferences page too, right?
Says a lot about the nation
> He goes on to note that SBC is not a villian for doing this - it is after all a valid patent, and that what is needed now is prior art.
No, what's needed now is IP law that promotes innovation rather than blood-sucking.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I don't know who, maybe a congress person or my senators, but this has to stop. It is absurd the patents that are/were granted over the last decade, and how easy it is for these knuckleheads to abuse them. They deserve jail time.
i think this was already discussed
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
Anyway, here is the letter itself and here is the obscene pricing scale for using navigation bars. I'm having a hard time thinking of a site that DOESN'T use a unified navigation interface...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Sometime in the last week, presumably.
2003-01-21 01:53:12 More Patent Nonsense (articles,patents) (rejected)
I'm patenting 1 and 0's
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
okay here is prior art..
Bluestone formely owned by HP coded a vendor website for NSA 1995 that used the same linking mechanisms!!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Three letters: P H P
Conceived in 1994, first public version in 1995.
Why not just patent images on a screnn conveying information.
that way you don't need to specify "buttons" of "frames".
I think that web pages should be treated as just a novel way to replace a library, and tell these wanna be patent millionaires to take a hike to the nearest cliff.
Information is information - doesn't matter if it's in a book, newspaper, or a bunch of pixles on a screen.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Hypercard came out in 1987.
'sfunny but my story on this was rejected over a week ago. Anyhow SBC actually have 2 patents on this type of technology: 5,933,841 6,442,574 both are entitled Structured Document Browser.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
DataBinding anyone ? afaik worked on ie3+ (1995) i believe, linked static content on the page with dynamic server data, enabling updates to be performed in realtime without refreshing the interface
Wired had an article last year about British Telephone's lawsuit against Prodigy for violating their patent on hyperlinks. So who really owns this patent?
One thing I don't understand about this (probably because IANAPL) is why the prior art search has to be limited to web applications. It seems as though the patent covers a pretty common user interface element. And slapping words like "over a computer network" on the end shouldn't be enough to differentiate (though, didn't some company get a patent for dutch auctions on the web?).
So what I'm saying is, isn't something like the "bold" button in Microsoft Word prior art for this. Or, if we want to get more related, can't we look for prior art in the CD-ROM applications that were common in the early nineties? They had user interfaces very similar to web sites.
http://www2.museumtour.com/sbc.html:
Harlie D. Frost
President
SBC Intellectual Property
6500 River Place Boulevard
Building III, 1st Floor
Austin, TX 78730
(512) 231-7000
It's been seven years. Patent's over. Right?
The idea that this is corporate greed rights all wrongs is really getting old. The catch all justification of our times. Where is this going to end?
What about linking to a search engine search results? Infoseek, Altavista or older search engines had the ability to bookmark query results, so there must be some use of that before.
If that can't be found in "normal" web, probably some results can be found in google groups.
SBC isn't a villian for trying to bully small companies with a horde of lawyers, any more than a dog is a villian for humping your leg. It's the expected nature of the beast.
Nevertheless, when the dog starts humping people's legs, we cut his balls off. SBC will need similar treatment to stop their anti-social behaviour.
Karma: Bad (mostly affected by being such an asshole)
I'm patenting protons, neutrons, and electrons, (as well as anything else that may be smaller that comprises these things) ... and I'm patenting all uses and configurations of my newly patented items! .... beat that!
....
Now I will never go out of business!!!! I can sue anyone that makes anything (or that tries to patent anything because they are using my patent to patent their item or idea
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
The fact that, due to a stupid ruling during the Raygun administration, software patents are now able to exist (they were previously and properly not permitted) does not absolve companies abusing this fact to steal money of being immoral ("villians"). As the US legel system is based on the "whoever has the richest lawyer(s) wins", you'll be waiting until Hell freezes over for "IP law that promotes innovation" -- IP law is not compatible with innovation, it's only compatible with blood-sucking. These IP law slime need a good ass kicking, not coddling by columnists.
Gopher was exactly that.
Links to dynamicly changing pages. So it existed before the web.
I am also pretty sure that I made an assignment with hyperlinks around 1988 at university. Think it was a help system.
manx / xman is actually prior work. Represents a list of links in one windows, and when you press it, it will compile the corresponding man page and display it in the same or another frame.
This is way older than 1988.
Haven't others claimed this before? IIRC, a British telco tried this a year or so ago.
How on earth do they propose to collect on this? Shut down millions and millions of web sites? I'm getting this imagine of a corporate exec or lawyer rampaging around his office "You wanna mess with me?! I can shut down the INTERNET! Bwahahahahah!!"
Is this the latest in dodgy business models after the dot com crash - profit margin by lawyer?
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Both Yahoo! and Amazon (at the very least) were doing this in 1995, well before May 1996. Proving prior art on this patent is trivial.
That's so ridiculous, that such a letter should be simply ignored ("allo, yes ? who ? you sent me a fax ? about what ? a patent on my website ? ok, ok, boy, go play your funny tricks somewhere else, will you, i'm doing business here").
I mean... it's so... "le ridicule ne tue pas" : that is a shame.
Anyway, isn't it the case that since they haven't defended this patent for years they have effectively given up their rights? Don't you have to show the court that you have been harmed economically?
The court may also consider that they didn't try, for example, suing Amazon first.
Anyway, Great Outdoor Recreation Pages is a fairly old site, and while wayback only goes back to November 1996, I think it may be older.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
SBC *is* a villain for doing this, a big fat hairy villain.
Patenting the fundamentals of the net is like patenting the alphabet then charging every writer in the world to use it.
It's a scam and it may take awhile, but SBC is going to go down.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
The best part of the article has to be that they approached museumtour.com (a site based in Oregon that sells educational toys over the Net) first. I WONDER WHY.
This is obvious. You knock over a small site to set a precedent, and then you go after someone with some real money. Build up your cash to knock over some real players out there.
This is its best moment in the article:
To its credit, SBC Intellectual Property was very polite in its approach to Museumtour, pointing out the existence of the patent, citing specifically how it believed Museumtour is in violation and offering to sell the company a license based on some percentage of gross sales.
I specifically love how they say they initially came in and asked nicely for a gross percentage of sales... it reminds me how the mafia is so polite, explaining how that you could avoid an "financial incident" by "licensing out protection" from said "financial incident" say, from, somebody you just met. Capiche?
If they really want to do this right, they need a fat man in a fedora and wingtips saying this to them in a raspy voice:
"Ya know, not saying that it is going to happen, but if it did happen it might cause you to lose some money there, pal. You better just license with us on your gross earnings, cuz, well, you never know. We live in strange times."
Yes, the article is right. They are very polite.
Until they attack you.
Microsft Patents Ones, Zeros
In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
Software Wars
That *always* works.
As I read what SBC has in one of the patents, they claim the use of frame tags to make a static menubar frame that controls a dynamic target frame is covered...
Funny thing is, the frame and frameset tags were sort of designed for that...
I would liken this to patenting the notion of paragraphs when typewriters came out with carriage return keys.
I'm patenting patents!
Then just like Eric Cartman, I won't let anyone use my stuff
Hopefully by then the damn government can get the laws straightened out before we get too more of these totally rediculous patents flying around!
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
I worked for a company called America.Net (an ISP in Atlanta) during this time providing tech support for ours and other companiews, including UU.net customers. UUnet had a web page with a link to "network status" that was dynamicaaly generated.
As for "structured doc browser", when did Acrobat appear? Basically it looks like the patent is more for a table of contents with icons that jumps to specified text... what you get with Acrobat table of contents.
meh
I remember designing BBS menubar interfaces using 'The Draw' way back in 1995 .. The menubar would be static but the content on the page (in this case user comments or lists of images and files) would change.
...than a patent on the human genome, which has been done more than once. (Note, for instance the patent on the genetic material of a member of the Hagahai tribe of Papua New Guinea - patent number 5,397,696.)
Like the article states, any kind of patent can be invalidated by the demonstration of prior art. This particular patent seems a bit too general to be nontrivial when it was filed in 1996.
The actual fees (starting at $570 annually for a company with a revenue of $100,000) aren't really all that large, though. My website would probably only have to pay $14 a year! But I do understand how this whole patent nonsense is spiraling out of control.
We can either work hard to prove prior art, or we can work hard to get the IP system restructured. Or we can just shell out the money and be done with it...
for great justice, this sig has been moved
I'd like to hope that other, bigger websites and the companies that own them will realize that if this goes through then SBC will be coming after them eventually. Maybe then they'll band together and help the little guys out with some lawyers, take this to court, and get it shut down. Better to use the lawyer horde now than be paying licensing on some ridiculous patent forever. Hey, I can dream can't I?
do not read this line twice.
I'm going to patent the use of an absorbant cellulose polymer material for cleaning the defecatory organs. Then you'll all be shitting yourselves...
IANAL. If you use XHTML, does this patent cover you?
--
Annotateit at Annotateit.com
one word "Ebay" Founded in September 1995. Try running an internet auction without static and dynamic elements.
Get a free ipod.
Of course they are. They choose to enforce the ridiculous patent, don't they?
He goes on to note that SBC is not a villian for doing this - it is after all a valid patent, and that what is needed now is prior art.
But SBC is the villan. Who cares if they have a patent or not?!
If the some Nazi benefitted off from the murder of a few million Jews -- can he be faulted? After all, that Nazi had the law on his side! (/. tip: Always bring up Nazis to prove your point -- it works wonders.)
Morality is based on the Golden Rule. SBC's actions fail this. They used an overworked, clueless patent office to get a patent on a common, obvious process. And now they're attempting to profit from it by picking on a little guy. They not be villans under the laws of capitalism, but that doesn't mean they're not villans.
Don't worry about all of these stupid patents. Big companies might try to push little companies around, but sooner or later it comes down to another big company that can also afford to litigate... and the patent falls.
Besides, if you really don't like it, dig some prior art and file for a reexamination hearing! The system is set up to get rid of shitty patents... just give it time.
Every time I see these stories I feel I've slipped into some sort of alternative fictional world or something. Surely no sensible patent system would allow the patenting of ideas that are *so* simple.
We're talking about a patent on an idea that can be implemented in like 10 lines of HTML/$(SCRIPTING_LANGUAGE). The abstract of the patent probably contains more characters than what they're patenting.
Prior art? One word:
Hypercard.
Heck, it even PREDATES the web!!!
"Now listen, Museumtour.com, we just want to make you happy, and we want you to make us happy. The last thing we want is for anyone to get hurt. We don't want to get the lawyers involved, you should see what they charge us! I'm sure you'll do the right thing, won't you? I'm being as polite as I can."
it looks like cringlys article is not as original as one might think .. here are some examples of prior art:
. sh tmls /gove rnment/legalissues/story/0,10801,77789,00.htmlt tp://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story/0 ,2000024981,20271409,00.htm. com/article/03/01/22/030122hn sbcpatent_1.html?s=IDGNS/ Articles/StupidestPatentEv er.htmlc patent/
9 33 %2C841&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&met a=
http://www.flazoom.com/cooler/1043159104,60826,
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopic
h
http://www.infoworld
http://www.larkware.com
http://www.itworld.com/Man/2687/030122sb
http://www.google.com/search?q=U.S.+patent+5%2C
I can't wait for them to try this on Microsoft or any of the large companies.
Prior art? I find it awefully strange that Navigator 2.0 was released in the fall of 1995, introducing frames to the HTML worl, and months later some corporation is trying to patent one of the primary purposes of this innovation. From the Netscape website:
If you read the legal letter they sent, it seems this is precisely what they think they're patent covers. I'm beginning to get to the point where I think we need to enact criminal penalties for this type of obvious scum-mongering.
I'm still not clear why the Southern Baptist Convention wants to involve itself with such a clearly satanic technology. Better go read the article ... .... oh, SBC Communications. Never mind.
--- have you healed your church website?
after all, what is an IP address?
It will be interisting to see who they sue next. Their going after this small .com because they know they cant fight, they know theyll roll right over them... set a precident, and then go after big dogs.
Our only hope is that the big dogs back the little guy.
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
As long as SBC doesn't "flex its might" and try to collect on this kind of patent, then this could be a great thing! If they use their patents in the same manner as IBM does (they have the patents, they just don't enforce their legal rights on many things), then this could keep other shady people (or the government) from doing the unthinkable
Don't get me wrong, I think that is is totally absurd that anyone can patent something that is so commonly used and that should be placed in the public domain due to the over whelming number of grandfathered exceptions, but this could be much worse!
Think about this for a second
Just my $0.02 cents
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
The letter to museumstore specifically lists claim 13 of the later patent. Here is claim 13:
13. A browser for navigating a document comprising a plurality of sections, the browser comprising:
a display window displaying a document; and
a user interface comprising a plurality of selectors automatically configured to correspond to a respective plurality of sections of the document regardless of what section of the document is being displayed in the display window;
wherein the plurality of selectors are not part of the document displayed in the display window of the browser and continue to be displayed after one of the plurality of selectors is selected.
The thing is, the claim covers a browser. Museumstore doesn't make a browser. IE, Netscape, Mozilla, etc. are browsers. I'd have to look more closely at the patent to see what they mean by "browser."
As far as I know, you can charge for GNU software (redhat, SuSE, and others) but the changes you make must be published. This is the huge difference with BSD: no publication needed, although there are many reasons to keep up with the public changes and publish them anyway.
Well, at least he noticed that we were reading his column...
Maarten Sneep
All the bozo's from Ameritech had to do was attend the second WWW Conference at the University of Chicago and watch a pair of ex coworks display the "Phonecia" system.
Then run home and patent it. Hell I even had a system that did this before I got to the U of C that I developed in 1994 as well.
Jer,
http://www.uspto.gov/ appears to violate this patent itself !
The patent is for a UI that contains icons down the side that correspnd to content in another location.. so a set of frames with buttons in one frame, and content in another. You click a button, and navigate to another frame. Imagine the following code: Frame 1: Frame 2: : This framest would violate the patent, but probably exists in some old example of how to use FRAME tags. So search those online book repositories on FRAME development for examples of this behavior. I thought that this sort of thing was what frames were add for!
meh
Check out this page for prior use -
I suppose in the same way that somebody that evicts his own mother from his house, to leave her destitute and homeless (to name but an example), is not a villian because he was in his legal right to do it. Swell reasoning.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Although the primary way this functionality is implemented today is through frames, the SBC application appears to pre-date frames appearing in Navigator. Remember, they had up to 1 year from the time of their work in order to apply for the patent in the first place. This pre-frames software, released in September of 1995 but well known far before that, shows all of the features claimed in the SBC patent, through use of LINK and GROUP tags. This should be all that's needed to invalidate the SBC patent, which was applied for in May of 1996.
What? Not hard to blame them for patenting some twiddling thing and then charging other people for those people's creations? They're fucking assholes. What's sad and absurd is that it never occurs to anyone just how sleazy, reprehensible and disgusting practices like this are.
We don't need prior art. We need firebombs.
OK, it is not related to a web page but this kind of ergonomy was already in either Atari/TOS and Apple MacOS...
(if the page is seen as the screen and the omnipresent-though-changing elements are seen as the menu bar)
I guess there is some sort of plagia, here.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
You couldn't patent patents themselves. But, you CAN patent a business model. Why not patent "a method for using patent law to extort money from legitimate businesses"? The only drawback is that (sadly) it would be trivial to come up with prior art. Still, it would make for a nice piece of political theater to illustrate the ridiculousness of the patent system. And who knows? If the system is screwed up *enough* you could win and either stop people from using your patent or get rich by forcing them to license you patent.
The way that the patent is worded includes any graphical application with a toolbar that is loaded based upon a config file.
There should be some way to make the corporate patent pool a negative asset. Pity you can't just browse through all the patents a company owns and file preemptive lawsuits against them requesting that the court bar them from ever attempting to enforce their frivolous patents. Or file restraint of trade suits against the patent office itself. Bleh.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I was reading the letter on museumtour.com and SBC makes lots of references to frames.
The specifically mention the document frame over and over.
On a side note, maybe we can blame SBC for frames!!
In the US, you have one year to file for a patent, so prior art needs to beat the filing date by a year. This is not true for patents in the rest of the world, which have an "absolute novelty" requirement.
:)
If the only prior art that can be found is from early '96, we will have to relocate all our websites to Europe, which will really show how US IP laws protect American business
Maybe Cringley is trying to be polite, but I think he's being far too gentle. I'm not a lawyer, but . . .
Legal or not, the patent seems to be the implementation of a very obvious idea on the internet that has already existed in real life. I push a button on my remote, my TV channel changes. I push a button on my calculator, the display changes.
So now the company is quietly testing the waters to see if, by owning this, they can suck a ton of money out of people. Maybe this is legal, but it may just mean we have serious problems with the law.
And it'd be nice to dig up prior art, but who knows if someone ELSE can claim this right and THEY can go on trying to get money out of people for implementing the bleedingly obvious.
I'm all for being polite. I debate if issues this ridiculous warrant politeness anymore.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Does anyone besides me not equate legal with ethical, moral, righteous, virtous, etc.?
By Cringley's logic, if I do something vile that happens not to be illegal, I am not a villian. This is absurd.
</rant>
I want to patent my sperm so I can sue my cloned children.
flinging poop since 1969
Fark you for trolling that post. That person had a valid point, and you trolled it. Sure, it had nothing to do with the story, but that doesn't matter. It seems that noone here has any idea how to spell anything with more than one syllable, and that's just pathetic.
-----------
Enjoy every day like it's your last. One day you will be right.
IANAL, but could the patent be applied to other two-pane navigation structures? If so, there's a rather high-profile piece of prior art in the form of the Windows 3.1 (and earlier) File Manager.
The question is if any site did this before 1996 when the patent was applied for. That's called "prior art" and proof of that would invalidate the patent.
-- From Denmark
I believe I know of prior art for this. I used to work for a company called Security First Network Bank (The worlds first online bank) that went live October 1995. They had navigation bars in the bank summary, etc. The navigation bars were static but your account information was dynamic. It was www.sfnb.com (The link doesn't work anymore) but they got bought out by the Royal Bank of Canada who still uses the software. The company that wrote the webpages and banking software was Security First Technologies (www.s1.com). They may have patents related to the online software that would help.
So I must owe at least a couple dollars to SBC for posting these links to various sites whose content changes dynamically and regularly.
While Cringley is correct to point out that the only thing that can save us from this is prior art, I have to disagree with the assertion that there "are no villians here." In that respect, he's dead wrong. SBC is the villian.
They are attempting to wring money out of people (money they didn't provide any good or service for) under threat of imminent negative consequences. Perhaps you've heard of extortion?
Also, the fact that the letter doesn't specifically threaten legal action is irrelevant: When SBC's law firm sends you a letter asking for money, the threat need not be present to be implied. You can bet the next letter they receive won't be quite so friendly.
In my opinion, a patent should only be awarded to the person (or organization) who invents something. If I invent something new, I can patent it. If I invent something new for a company, they can patent it. If I see somebody else's cool (unpatented) idea, and run out and slap a patent on it, I should be guilty of a crime. Not only should that patent be nullified, but the filing party (in this case SBC) should be liable for damages to the real inventor, any parties you've attempted to collect royalties from (including all legal fees to fight your false patent.) Repeat offenders should be jailed on mail fraud or extortion charges. This is, after all, a very prettied up extortion racket.
Even though these racketeers wear three piece suits and drive Mercedes Benz to work everyday, its just the same as Johnny "No-Neck" Locascio coming to your mom and pop store with a baseball bat and threatening to trash you and your place if you don't "pay up."
This type of patent filing is like a corporate extortion lottery. They burn a few thousand dollars financing a (frivolous) patent application in the hopes that one day they can milk $1 billion out of said patent.
If we want to stop companies from playing this game, we have to introduce some negative consequences to people who commit these frauds. Slap a couple white-collar Benz drivers in jail for 7 years and see how quickly this stuff stops.
Better yet, send over Johnny "No-Neck" Locascio to have a talk with them...
Who did what now?
Not that they're bad guys. They're just prosecuting a questionable patent claim against tiny players. I'm still reading the claim, but my first reaction -- and please remember that IANAPL (thank God) -- is that the patent applies to SGML or structured language browsers that have buttons mapped to specific parts of structured documents. In the claim summary:
(Emphasis added)So, it seems that webpages, which are themselves documents that contain "links [that] may take the user to other documents or to locations within the same document," seem to be specifically disclaimed by the patent authors.
Furthermore, from a functional perspective, the purpose of the invention is to allow people to "browse[e] documents according to their structure instead of their contents," whereas a frameset navigation layout either uses links to documents or anchor tags within documents.
This seems to be a case where the problem addressed by the patent solved itself, and now the patent owners want to squeeze money from a better, but irrelevant, mousetrap (to hack a metaphor to death). Perhaps one of the lurking patent lawyers would care to discuss this further?
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
On British TV's there's a ceefax system called teletext. In the 80's a further extension called fastext became available. Fastext was 4 (some static, some changing) links to other pages colour coded to 4 keys on the TV remote control.
m l
See http://www.mcmordie.co.uk/computing/develhist.sht
for more information.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Actually, I'm considering filing a patent on all slashdot stories.
;)
This way, whenever a dupe shows up like this one, i can claim infringement, show my prior art and make the story disappear as fast as it reappeared.
Up until this point I had been spending a large amount of my time writing dynamic html code that usually had links in it for various employers.
Now that this is patent infringment, my employers are far less likely to want to deal with it and instead we will just put up static text - which is way easier.
I hope I still get paid the same... or hell, a raise.
also, I'd like a nap.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Many of these outrageous patent claims are not only frivolous, but fraudulent. Unless they were unthawed from a glacier in 1996, it is difficult to believe that the 'inventors' of this patent did not have actual knowledge of all the prior art. If it can be proven that they did know that they were not the original inventors, they can be subject to criminal prosecution.
I was viewing the patent link to this site last week. Guess what. The US Patent Office web site that dislays the patent I think is also not in compliance. Talk about Self referential humor.
Slapping my face, that was funny right, slap slap slap.
Call Harlie Frost 5122317000, tell him you are discountining your service with SBC. I just did.
"... is not a villian for doing this ..."
Nothing wrong with patents but you should have the common sense to know when and how to use them. This is an obvious abuse of the system. It is the responsibilty of the patent owner and the patent office to get this right. You don't get off the hook by just blaming the patent office.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
Yeah, that's it. AmigaGuide, which was conceived possibly in AmigaOS 2 (early 90s), was a hypertext system. The browser program always had a static set of buttons at the top (prev, next, toc, index, and so on).
Patent claims have to be carefully analyzed, often they don't mean what they seem to mean at first sight, and one has to be extremely petty-minded. ...
You have to break up the claim into single features. In this claim, features are:
1. a browser for navigating a document
1.1. comprising a plurality of sections
2. The browser comprising
2.1. a display window
And so on. To infringe this claim, your "device" has to have ALL the features, if it lacks a single feature, it is no infringing the patent.
On the other hand, something that is "prior art" needs to have all this features, too. The only exemption from this: If the additional feature is "obvious", whatever this means.
Before you start looking for prior art you need to know when the patent was applied for.
Like the infamous one click shopping of Amazon, the reason they could enforce it was they applied for the patent before everyone started doing it. If the application date is before the prior art, the art isn't prior.
I don't know the particulars, but keep that in mind when searching for prior art. And did they purchase the patent from someone else?
This is truly an unacceptable situation. Many posts I've seen call for IP reform, and I think that it needs to be specific, as in:
1) If you do not enforce a patent against a certain infringement within two years, you lose the right to enforce it. If you don't LEARN about it until that point, well, tough.
2) Current User-Interface patents and similar software patents are released into the public domain two years after application, and new ones will be denied patent protection. Between junk like Amazon's 1-Click and this mess, we need to stop this type of patent.
3) In liu of this, a new type of UI/Software algorithm protection needs to be established with reasonably high entry guidelines - industry/community review, intense prior art search, reasonable announcement, significant achievement, etc. These would not have a preset term - this would be decided on with the application, with NO recommendation by the person applying. This would prevent 'hyperlink' patents but would secure important developments, like the predictive text input system on slashdot a month or two ago and other INNOVATIONS.
It's nice to call for patent reform, but you need to say what you want. The numbers and specifics are arbitrary, but you get the idea.
Tell your congresscritter that you want patent reform and then they'll probably *lengthen* the terms.
Have you met these people? SBC has quite a lot of pull in SBC.
get sued by sbc and slashdoted in the same week.
Well, I think it's time Sun and AOL weighed in to defend THEIR patents against this unwarranted assault on them by SBC.
... yes, for their patents on Java. One of the original purposes of Java was to permit websites to include dynamic content, INCLUDING NavBars (in fact, I believe the first JDK (1.0.3, IIRC) I ever downloaded included a navbar in the example code), and to not have to worry about what platform their dynamic content would have to execute on.
... yes, I'm SURE there is probably an old dusty Netscape patent relating to javascript and it's use for things such as site navigation aids, creation of dynamic content linked to a static element, and all those other client-side tasks that we've all come to love like acting as spyware, creating & reading cookies, pop-up windows that resize to take over the screen (oops ... my bad) ... heh!
Sun??
AOL??
Anyhow, couple those with Apple's HyperCard patents and there's PLENTY of prior art out there. Maybe, just maybe, if we could get Sun & AOL fighting with SBC over who owns what, the sharks might eat each OTHER instead of the small fry.
utter rubbish
Did anyone else notice that he claimed one could not charge for code distributed under the GPL? Is this person capable of getting a fact correct?
http://web.archive.org/web/19961030020512/www.berk eley.edu/about/
No sig, sorry.
The "bold" button does not refer to "sections" of the document.
However, claim 13 of '574 starts with "a browser for navigating a document". A website is not a browser. It is a document. In fact, the title of both patent '841 and patent '574 is "structure document browser", not "structured document" or "structured document browsing".
Acrobat Reader's outline view (where it continues to be displayed on the side) to be might infringe. Powerpoint might infringe (browsing the presentation with a list of the slides on the side). Web browsers might infringe because it will render documents with this functionality. However, I do not see how one can objectively construe a website (a set of (possibly dynamic) text files with loose definitions of layout and navigation) to be a "browser", unles the website navigation is writtin in Java (thereby perhaps making it a "browser").
2) Prior art. Anyone remember webworld from 1995? It had navigation buttons, but I think they were in a element rather than a frame - therefore they were part of the dynamically generated pages. At least that's how I implemented them in my 1995-6 webworld ripoff that I never completed (but was online).
3) I still think the way to stop the abuse of the system is to find a way to use the system against these people. Don't ask me how, you're a smart bunch. Stop bitching about the system and start using it.
Let them have the patent, and hope they don't sue. I'm sure we can trust them. Why don't we let them patent everything, and trust their goodness to lead us to a glorious future?
Losing a patent case to prior art just makes other patents easier to attack on the same grounds. Whole patent portfolios get devalued. This dog has more bark than bite, so you keep him from biting.
The language of the patents cover document browsers. Web pages are documents, you know that things that are browsed by document browsers.
Even though it's a bull shit patent I could see trying to say it covered Explorer/Mozilla/Opera.. etc, but web pages? Come on.
IANAL but if a web page can constitute a legally binding agreement isn't that legal proof that it's simply a document?
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
The truly unfortunate thing here is the future of www.museumtour.com. A huge company like SBC comes along and starts throwing its legal weight around and this poor company will be crushed. Hundreds of thousands of dollars spent defending the entire internet will be a huge burden and possibly destroy the company. On the other hand, If they give in and pay the license, they set terrible precedent.
The BS WILL eventually blow over. People WILL still be able to use their links. But, the unknown is whether www.museumtour.com, the random-target website, will survive.
(sig on loan to Smithsonian)
I was just wondering,
Can I patent patents?
Maybe with this all the mess would cleanup....
but hey!
if I patent patents then patents should pay me for my patent or stop using patents.
what would happen to my patent then?
errera hunamum ets
You may complain against all this greed, isn't that the whole basis of government in the US.
Here's a simple overview and reasons why it's a good idea.
Company X has a good idea/is successfull.
They lobby government, or hire expensive lawyers.
Since company X has enough money to do this, the company must be run in a way that benefits the US economy/people.
Weaker people/companies with less money/power aren't doing so well and don't benefit the US so much.
So the rich win because there good enough to be rich. The poor loose because, well, you could be rich and win if you were better. Can't say fairer than that.
My morals are a little bit to the left of that viewpoint.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
HOW ELSE COULD IT BE DONE?!?
What other way could you link to dynamic content? You could use a "dynamic link", but if it was a dynamically generated link then it would itself qualify as dynamic content! So how did you link to that? Must've been (eventually) from a static link, whether on a page or in your browser preferences.
All dynamic content is traceable to some static link. It's not a new idea, it's a necessary condition!
This is not a "valid patent". Every dynamic page which existed prior to this patent was prior art.
That's an excellent point. I've only glazed over the patent, and certainly I may be missing something totally obvious, but I think this answers your question:
Trouble is, I can't find anything in the Abstract or Claims that would indicate that their claim is limited to hypertext documents on the web. Surely interfaces other than web applications fit the vague definition they've given? OK, so a constant user interface for displaying and viewing that displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes? Glancing around my desktop, here are some other interfaces that seem to fit this description:
Then there's this gem:
The keyboard. The keyboard!! I guess all the mainframers out there aren't safe from IP liability either. Who do these clowns think they are?
As soon as my patent is issued, you're all screwed! I'm going to sue the entire internet!
HA HA HA HAHA!
I'll be richer than Gates!
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Yes, we need cute cartoon firebomb graphics. They look great on anarcho-syndicalist agitprop, and are amusing to young people.
Karma: Bad (mostly affected by being such an asshole)
I mean, I somehow doubt a bunch of people saying 'prior art here!' on slashdot is going to invalidate the patent. What is the proper thing to do?
I've got a website still sitting around which used static links in a frame to link to dynamic content (news pages and forum), and I've got timestamps on the files that show it was before the patent date.
The question is, what is the proper thing to do with this information?
whoever has the richest lawyer(s) wins
I am not so sure that this is true in patent law.
True, big money can be used to drag a case out via numerous motions, discovery resistance, etc.
But the tendency for the federal circuit to rely on intrinsic evidence (evidence within the patent itself) instead of extrinsic evidence (expert witnesses, trial testimony, etc.) in determining the meaning of a patent's claims renders a lot of the litigation dollar as going toward production value only (One side attempting to show the other side that it intends to fight hard).
There have been a significant number of patent cases where 15 attorneys have been employed in order to bring forth a lot of weak arguments in a losing case because the intrinsic evidence within the patent itself does not favor their side.
I think that (IMHO) a lot of the reported "high cost of patent litigation" is expended by large corporations that are duped into paying $500.00 / hour for what boils down to producers of eloquent but ultimately useless ruffage.
You can do the same thing without changing a static document documents, just using a simple symlink in the filesystem... since 1970!
It will take all of a day to find documented prior art on this.
I personally can't see a world where you need to be a lawyer to create a web page. It seems like there are a great many patents that relate to ANYTHING you do in a web page.
Maybe we should just include micro payments in the browser. Every link you click costs you a micro payment to Microsoft and the patent holders. Maybe this should be in IIS and Apache as well. Maybe all ISPs will need to track this through network sniffing because hacks will come out of for the browser. Maybe companies should think twice about having a website due to all the licensing costs and possible legal troubles.
The reason that the format became popular is because it was "free". If it becomes not free, the ROI for most websites will not be enough. (Slashdot would cost $50,000,000 for a license by SBC's estimation).
Hmm.. maybe we all need to come up with patents just to survive. I'm just waiting for someone to claim they have patented fatness. "The act of placing foodstuffs into the stomach to such a degree, that certain parts of the body achieve a bloated state" Maybe there is a "prior art", but I could still sue all the fat people not worthy enough to have enough money to defend themselves - muhahaha. That would really be a cash cow in America. Maybe I'll start with Wisconsin. Just thought of something - are cows fat or is that how they always look?
Hmmm.... I wonder if I could tack "over a network" on that one....
- Just because you can't, doesn't mean you shouldn't
...is to stop supporting these companies.
Do you have Southwestern Bell Phone service? Switch to a local provider.
Do you have a Cingular phone? Switch to a different provider.
Do you have SBC DSL? Switch to RoadRunner.
It's easy. And when they ask why you're disconnecting, tell them that you don't like this lawsuit.
Archive date: May 11, 1996
http://web.archive.org/web/19960511013133/http://w ww.altavista.digital.com/
Check out that graphical navbar at the top.
No sig, sorry.
That villan is the US Patent Office, and indeed the entire US Patent System.
That something like this would be granted a patent is just crazy. That we have a system that would grant a monopoly on this-- a very obvious extention once you've got hyperlinks in the first place-- is a system that is broken and wrong.
The only people-- THE ONLY PEOPLE-- who win out of this mess are the frikkin' patent lawyers. Maybe, sometimes, the company that takes advantage of the bad system wins. (And, yes, I consider SBC a villan for taking advantage of evil laws.) But no matter what happens, the patent lawyers win, because they get billable hours out of it.
I shouldn't say this, because I know students who plan to become patent lawyers, and because after all one of my personal heros (Lawrence Lessing) is an IP lawyer, but sheesh we've got an entire parasitic class feeding quite nicely off of some of the truly stupid and evil things written into our laws.
-Rob
DIAMOND v. DIEHR, 450 U.S. 175 (1981)
Argued October 14, 1980.
Decided March 3, 1981.
Judges and who nominated them.
For
Renquist -- Nixon
Burger -- Nixon
White -- Kennedy
Stewart -- Eisenhower
Powell -- Nixon
Against
Stevens -- Ford
Blackmun -- Nixon
Marshall -- Johnson
Brennen -- Eisenhower
Nice jab at the Reagan administration, but wrong as alway lib. He was in office a whole 2 months when the opinion was given. Why didn't that lib White dissent? Why didn't all the repulican nominated justices agree? This is hardly political.
That is, noone can stop me from producing a medical drug myself, for my own use, even if it's patented.
Thus, someone trying to sell a Content management system using static links to dynamic pages would be infringing. But just putting your own pages online is allowed. Or am I just uninformed?
The circa-1994 version of IBM's BookManager Library Reader for Windows predated (and outclassed!) the circa-1996 SBC/Ameritech 'Structured Document Browser'. This 1994 User's Manual figure clearly shows the concepts of frames, icons, and menus all at work in one screen two years before the initial Ameritech patent filing. As others have mentioned, the Ameritech patent specifically notes that it covers "any computing environment", so you needn't restrict yourself to the web (Ameritech didn't!).
This is the best comment I've seen so far, but it doesn't really prove prior art. The page you refer to is dated 1999. As with many innovations, the presence of an enabling mechanism does not necessarily indicate prior art.
Can you prove that frames were intended for use as contemplated by the patent, i.e. a consistent user interface across a document or site? Not from that article. Remember too that not only frames are at issue here -- a navigation bar using tables or divisions would appear to be covered by the patent as well.
While it is blatently obvious with hindsight that frames can be used in this manner, some Googling around will show that a huge amount of web design material at the time references a document called "Ameritech Web Page User Interface Standards and Design Guidelines" by Detweiler, M.C. and Omanson, R.C. (1996), on the matter of creating a consistent user interface by using frames. If that doesn't ring a bell, Ameritech was the original holder of the patent, and recently acquired by SBC.
Reading the patent provides some more insight too: they contemplate a document with embedded codes indicating document sections, that conforms to a predefined structure. Read this way, the patent does not partain to HMTL frames, because HTML is a hypertext linked collection of documents, not a single document. A navbar or frame moving the view to named references within a single document, however, would clearly violate the patent.
So is the patent valid? Well, that involves proving prior art; not just that frames existed, but that they were used for the purpose of navigation, both in a single document and between documents. Any evidence of tables to do the same thing would also be useful. Also crutial is having an incontestible source -- printed information is best, a reputable online news source or journal is the next best thing.
w3.org records Edelstein's Sep 1995 proposal to include frames in the HTML specification, but the example page he sites is no longer available.
The Netscape Navigator 2.0 announcement contains "Frames, a new page presentation capability that enables the display of multiple, independently scrollable panels on a single screen, each with its own distinct Internet address. They also enable a region of the screen to be frozen in place as the user scrolls through information on a page". Tantalising, but it doesn't mention using the frozen region for navigation.
Most promising are the Mozilla 2.0 release notes. Two of the example links are broken, while third doesn't work in my browser, although the pages appear to be there. It clearly demonstrates the use of a navigation frame to select different pages in a site, and view them in a "dynamic" frame. That said, the navigation frame itself is not entirely static (it scrolls, but does not change), and there is no navigation inside a single document from the frame.
There is a lot of effort required to find proper evidence of prior art that will hold up in court. The Wayback Machine would provide great evidence, if only we can find it.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
Close .. except he wants to change the navbar too
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8 &threadm=3129F6FB.6B44%40sq.com&rnum=3&prev=/group s%3Fnum%3D100%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sco ring%3Dd%26as_drrb%3Db%26as_mind%3D12%26as_minm%3D 5%26as_miny%3D1981%26as_maxd%3D17%26as_maxm%3D5%26 as_maxy%3D1996%26q%3DFRAMESET%2Bnavigation%2Bimage %2Bmap%26spell%3D1
VERY close.. using images to navigate from one frame to another.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8 &threadm=4djkpi%24r3p%40news.halcyon.com&rnum=2&pr ev=/groups%3Fnum%3D100%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DIS O-8859-1%26as_drrb%3Db%26q%3DFRAMES%2Bnavigation%2 Bimage%2B%2522A%2BNAME%2522%26as_mind%3D12%26as_mi nm%3D5%26as_miny%3D1981%26as_maxd%3D17%26as_maxm%3 D5%26as_maxy%3D1996
all we need is an "A NAME" anchor in the document and we are golden.
Find a Frames Navbar that has links to anchors in a content frame prior to may 17,1996 and you win!
meh
In 1995, the first website I ever did (www.worldford.com, for a Ford dealership in Fort Lauderdale, FL) used frames for a consistent left-hand navigation system. Of course, the website no longer exists in that form, but I have plenty of witnesses, as well as my backup files, the original contract for the job, etc...
I thought it was pretty cool, too. We used 3D buttons to look like a car stereo, with a green LED-style readout at the top telling you which section you were in. Anyone remember this one?
(No, it doesn't show up in the Wayback Machine, which only goes to 1996 anyway)
dude, you have to seriously improve your faster-than-light posting before your post becomes prior art.
Free as in mason.
Find any site that has a webcam display that's been running prior to 1996. Then tell SBC to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Should be a piece of cake.
blog |
... where he shoots back at the /. criticisms of Windows on Linux. But I guess this is off topic, right?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I work for Oracle and have worked on database driven web sites since late '95. The technology seemed so obvious to me that i never even considered that it was patentable.
It seems to me that any sort of linked interface in a browser is simply a re-expression of every graphical windowing interface in history - Apple's Hypercard thingy for instance. Or Xerox's Star(?) interface. Or Apple's Finder, circa 1983 which is, of course, a conceptual copy of the Xerox interface. Or any X-windows program interface.
What we're talking about here is an absurdly obvious application of linking which is implicit in the HTML spec all the way back to 0.0 and which, as far as I can see, copies every point and click interface forever. IA-Obviously-NAL, but it seems patently obvious that this SBC patent can hold no more water than the recently overturned and completely lame patent on linking that BT tried to press against Prodigy.
Somehow, we have got to get some sanity into the patent process.
I'm sorry, but they simply cannot believe what they're doing. Set aside hypertext systems before the web. HTML/HTTP were fundamentally static and stupid protocols; dynamism on the web is a kludge, and one of two oldest and most common kludges is the distorted GET request: part of a URI names a program which executes on the server, and then a clever program will examine the URI and discern extra components which should guide its behavior.
Of course, it wasn't (and isn't) necessary to encode extra information in the address. For example, look at NCSA's old collection of CGI scripts: one included example from Jan 1994 is a script which outputs an audio file pronouncing the current date: if I submit a GET request for the "saytime" file on somebody's web server, I get back a dynamically generated audio file. The saytime file doesn't move around. It doesn't expect you submit your zip code. It just generates some timely noise. If the owner of the web site wants me to try out his nifty and dynamic "saytime" system, he'll just put a link in his web page which (like all other web pages at the time) was static.
The technique is obvious, and other examples will be numerous. Anyone who touched the web -- the new and exciting hypertext system that _everyone_ was getting into -- by 1996 should have recognized it as obvious and common. Whoever had the brilliant idea of intimidating small web operators with disingenous patent claims deserves a host of harsh words, and it would be hasty to preclude "villian" from that set.
I submitted this story a week ago!
Hey, here's an idea!
I think I'll patent "putting one foot in front of the other in such a manner as to propel oneself forward". Then, I'll patent "inhaling and exhaling air". I'll be rich!!!
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Perhaps I'm being naive but the "locked" screen areas of 3270 displays (and non-scrolling areas of vt100 as well) seem like the perfect prior art. From the 70s.
Wow, this is gonna make me old, but...
anybody remember BBS RIP graphics? it was like the pre-Mosaic WWW. But yummy 16-color EGA.
and yes it was slow at 9600 baud.
And if you try and relocate to the UK I will hit you with my lawyers as I built a website for my university as part of a degree project in February 1995 that used images in a menu bar linking to articles for the main frame... Doh! I didn't patent it because I assumed that that's what frames with links were for and because many online tutorials suggested that. That's the problem with us Brits - we invent all these things and never make any money out of it.
I am an Canadian, but I belive that basic US patent law says that patents can be granted for inventions that are "not obvious". Some how that requirement for a patents seems to have been forgotten by every one including the courts.
The question about replacing the NT kernel with a BSD or Linux kernel isn't about what is possible, profitable, or whatever. It's about the fact that there is nothing WRONG, per se, with the NT kernel, and replacing it would cause very much harm and yield absolutely no benefit.
In a sense, a kernel is a kernel is a kernel. Yeah, they have different features and design philosophies, but it's a piece of software that provides an extensive set of OS facilities. Sure, it could use improvement. Linux could too. And indeed, Microsoft does improve it when they find it to benefit them financially. But the most important idea here is that the majority of complaints about Windows apply NOT to the kernel but to applications that USE the kernel, which presumably wouldn't change.
The NT windowing system is already written for the NT kernel. Add to that all of the other applications that would have to be rewritten as well, and you have a nightmare. And for what? Like I said, changing kernels wouldn't improve anything. If Microsoft wanted better multitasking and resource utilization like Linux, they could just make changes to their existing kernel. But again, the majority of Windows' resource hogging has to do not with the kernel but with applications that use the kernel, so replacing the kernel doesn't help.
If Microsoft wanted to do something practical and useful in this vein, all they would need to do is add a compatibilty layer to their kernel that runs BSD and Linux applications, much as they do for DOS and OS/2 apps. Another practical thing would be to make the GRAPHICAL GUI optional for servers. If they were to change ANYTHING for a benefit, it would be to replace that bloated windowing system with something much simplified for server apps to optionally use. And making loads of other applications (like IE which IS an application) optional as well would cut down on the pointless waste of disk space.
Now, about the impact of the windowing system, although it is big and slow, it's only a problem if something is actually DISPLAYED. If you were to have a server that somehow avoided using the windowing system entirely, then, in theory, the windowing system would get swapped out to the swap file and have no impact on memory or CPU, only disk space.
Oh, and it's not like X11 isn't big and slow too (although admittedly much less so than Windows). I like X a lot, but I also recognize that the Windows windowing system is also just an application program that acts as a display server for Windows apps. On that level, there's no difference.
I like Linux and hate Windows, but in the end, they're both operating systems, which is all just the same crappy idea that's going to be obsoleted in a few decades anyhow.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
I'm just not sure I can prove it.
Our web store was established 17 April 1996, using static links to content that changed as the catalog is updated.
That's a month before the patent was applied for.
The problem is, the first few months of our business, our backup policies, were, well, nonexistent. I don't believe that ANY of those original pages with any kind of datestamp exist.
I will check with my previous service provider, and see if they might have a backup tape from before May 1996 -- but it's doubtful.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Between 1994 and 1996 I worked for US-Digital in Flint, MI. We built a dynamic site with static navigation called HomeWeb. It was a commercial real estate site, one of our early customers was ReMax. The site first launched in early-to-mid 1995. We considered using scripts to build static pages, but at the suggestion of Mike Maiten (then of Net+Effects in CA) we used a C++ app to dynamically generate pages off a database. I can't find any public cached snapshots of the site but I bet I can find the source code, and there were marketing brochures printed that I bet Brian June or other USD folks could dig up.
t ml
Here is a sun managers posting relating to the 9GB drive we added to the secondary web server to handle the volume of home images we were accumulating:
http://www.sunmanagers.org/archives/1995/1476.h
Probably other supporting docs elsewhere.
Canon recently ran advertisements claiming that they patent a hundred items a month to ensure you get the best pictures.
L'Oreal are running adverts at the moment with the tag line of something like "1,740 patents a year. Because you're worth it" (or something like that).
Funny old world.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I hope at least a few people who are slashdotting museumtour.com buy something. Paying SBC might have been cheaper than paying for all the bandwidth that is being consumed as a result of this story. This of course, is not even counting the loss sales if the site crashes from all the hits.
Support them with sales. Buy something off their site to support the cause.
How about those billboards that have those rotating vertical slats? There is usually text around the border of the billboard so that you can call them and have your advertising put on (referencing the dynamic area).
Guys, guyettes, got news for you
The wording is what screws them. You'll note it says:
"A structured document browser includes a...."
A website is NOT a browser, it's a site. IE, Mozilla, Netscape, yadda yadda, THOSE are browsers. A page VIEWED in that browser is NOT a browser.
Threatening to attempt to invalidate their entire portofolio might get them off your backs, they would need some guts to continue. Of course, you should know what you're talking about, so your threats are not just empty. But a bit of bluffing might do the trick...
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
2003-01-22 17:43:26 SBC claims ownership of Frames (articles,news) (rejected)
2003-01-24 19:49:50 SBC Patents Frames (yro,patents) (rejected)
One day Yog was rolling his log along to the river for some fun when Og, known as Mr Wheel, came by for a visit to his cave. Og of course tried to explain that Yog, by having fun with his log was infringing on Og's IP, a term Log, also known as histories first lawyer, had recently invented. Og further claimed Yog could of course use his log if Yog would simply license the rights to do so, and pay Og part of the gross of Og's new fire business, and use of the wife on alternate Tuesdays. Yog considered this carefully, and was still pondering the fine points of Og's request even after bringing the log down on Og's head for the third time, before happily heading out to have fun in the river...
interesting. i read through all 34 pages that they sent to that site, and all their example figures for their supposed invented document browser looks exactly like windows 3.1.
golly, why didn't they just go sue microsoft first? they chose their test case as one that doesn't even fit the patent?
their patent is for a document browser, not a document. a webpage is a document. so is the navigation bar of a webpage. the closest thing to webpages i can think of that would fit this patent would be the tabbed browsing in mozilla, or bookmarks. bookmarks existed long before this patent.
stupid greedy bastards.
America - Home of the scapegoat, land of the Corporation
Having to pay a royalty to put up a simple website would get enough people ticked off to trigger a discussion about patent reform, and that would be a Good Thing(TM).
The six 'buttons' surrounding the bull logo at the top of the page each link to dynamic content. The logo itself and it's surrounding block, however, form part of a static include file .
Incontrovertible prior art. I actually still have many of these files in their April 30th, 1996 form
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
He goes on to note that SBC is not a villian for doing this - it is after all a valid patent, and that what is needed now is prior art.
If he walks, talks and quacks like a villian, he's a villian. He's acting just like any other IP thug, by mugging some little guy first. He knows exactly what he's doing, he choses to be part of the problem fostered by the monumentally stupid IP regime that increasingly runs the U.S.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Simply unbelievable what the patent office lets through these days...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Excluding those items and the impact of expense stock options, SBC said earnings fell to 62 cents a share from 64 cents a share. The latest results matched analysts' expectations, according to a survey by Thomson First Call. Revenue fell to $11.22 billion from $11.9 billion.
Darn...they lostHMM....
Step 1: Steal Underpants
Step 2: SUE!
Step 3: PROFIT!!
You keep going until you die..."Me".
They learned to file suits on stuff where there most likely is prior art.
The first articles I saw claimed it was frames they'd patented. Netscape 2 had frame support in '95.
They learned to file the first suit against someone without deep pockets
BT filed suit against Prodigy. Prodigy was owned by SBC, who probably had deeper pockets than BT. SBC is filing against Museumtour. Who ever heard of them before this suit?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Apple's ancient hypercard system used a tabbed interface to access dynamic pages. This would seem to be a clear example of widely published prior ART. Hypercard could also be a web interface too, though it was more (and less) than that.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Is this good enough to invalidate the patent?
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Laura Lemay describes how and why to use frames.
Since magazines are published *before* the cover date, this should probably blow the patent out of the water. Note that it is not included in the "prior art".
Yahoo will not be attempting to void SBC's claim any time soon:
http://sbc.yahoo.com/
sbc is pure evil.. i am forced to deal with them on a day to day basis, and my account rep has told me many times that he is amused by the fact that even though they were split up they are becoming more and more powerful. He's also said he can't wait til they buy att... boycott sbc.
http://www.1053.org -=We use big words=-
This is the same company that called me repeatedly the weekend of Jan 17-20. They called me from an area code listed in Phoenix. Every time the phone rang, I answered, heard a beep and then was immediatley hung up on. Everytime I tried to call that number back, I was told the line was "disconnected."
Sometime Tuesday morning while I was at work I received the call again. I answered, as usual, and *FINALLY* somebody answered. Lo and behold it was SBC Ameritech trying to sell me DSL service because DirecTV was shutting down.
Well, you know what? I'm already in the process of signing up with Speakeasy (a quality company that cares about it's customers). Needless to say I tore the guy a new one. I will *NEVER* buy any service from that company again. This is just one of MANY bad experiences I have had with them over the years.
And did I mention all of this took place over my CELL phone?
Ameritech *IS* a bad company. I have years worth of experience behind me as proof. I used to work for an ISP, I've tried to setup homemade DSL at home using an OPX line, and of course I have had my land based phone lines through them in the past. Every single damn experience has been an absolutely *NIGHTMARE* (including getting my stupid land phone installed because the jackass who lived in the apartment before me had a $500 bill he didn't pay and they wanted ME to pay for it!!).
SBC? SBC is no better. Don't let the name change fool you. They're still the same greedy monopolistic assholes they ever were.
They ARE the bad guys.
Here is the real link:
- SamThe secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
I believe the online community (especially Slashdot) performs an important service in letting these companies know that they will indeed be viewed as villains if they enforce something like this.
After all, he invented the internet. And I understand he has some free time on his hands now. Maybe it's an "Al-Gore-Rhythm" he has prior art for.
I think IBM might have something to say about this bogus IP claim.
And include in the communication a refusal to pay and a statement that if the site is not informed immediately of infringement that it will be taken as an admission that the site does not infringe.
While working at the VLW in the Media Lab in 1993 I'd heard about hyperlinking and programmed a way that text or objects on the screen could be clicked and initiate a new page being displayed. The text and (picture) objects could either be static or could be programmed to be moveable. But like I said, I'd already heard about it from someone else in the lab, though I don't know that I saw it demo'd for me. It was a class project in C++, so I must have finished it before summer.
What kind of proof is needed to support this? And where does it get sent?
8-PP
Lotus Notes predated the whole internet craze. Network based. Hyperlinked. Dynamic content. Send these SBC bozos away and tell them to stop sniffing glue.
Consider a television set from the 1950s. It is a visual page (display face of the TV set) which has a static control (channel select dial) that controls the dynamic content (image on screen).
When Netscape 2 came out with frames support, the first thing everyone did was start making sites with a navigation frame and a content frame. Furthermore, it's an obvious extension on the common method of having a static TOC that is appended to every page of a site prior to frames.
Using prior art to invalidate patents is easier than challenging the Patent Office's granting of monopolies on extremely obvious "inventions", but in the long run aren't we just validating the Patent Office? In essence saying, "Yeah, that is patentable, except John Doe did it first."
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
If you search for http://bell.com and click on the first result (Oct. 20, 1996) there is an image map at the bottom of the page that seems to be in violation. Near the top of the page there is a last updated date of 3/1/96. IANAL so I do not know if the proof has to be before 05/1995, but this is at least before the application date.
Also of interest may be http://uu.net from May 12, 1996 which has a last updated date of 5/10/96. At the bottom of nearly every page except the front page there is an image that links to their index page. I know that this one is kinda iffy, but where do we draw the line?
Another thing is that many companies tell their employees not to disclose anything until filing for the patent. So even if Ameritech was part of Bell, could they have accidentally disclosed it before filing?
A couple of weeks old, I believe.
Do you guys use your own Search feature before posting ?--)
Netscape proposed the concept of frames to the W3C in September of 1995.
He goes on to note that SBC is not a villian for doing this - it is after all a valid patent, and that what is needed now is prior art."
OIC. So if something is "legal" then you're not a villain for doing it. So like if it's legal to shove Jews into gas chambers then it's ok to do it and if somebody hauls you in for a trial years later, you can just bleat out. "But I was just doing my job..." and that makes everything ok. Bullshit.
BTW, if you're wondering...I use this example for all cases when people justify their actions by saying "well it's leeeegaaallll so it's ok", not just for patents.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
I worked for a company that was doing this, Presence Information Design. I started in October of '96, but I know they were doing it at least a couple years before I showed up. Problem is, none of those pages we built are going to exist any more, as most sites go through a major redesign pretty frequently. Does one have to actually produce a file with a timestamp of '95 here? A dated and noterized hardcopy of some old Perl CGI script? I somehow doubt simply stating "Neener neener, I thought of it first!" is gonna do the trick.
I know for a FACT that CDNow.Com (now sleeping with Amazon ung..) had dynamic content and menues before 1996.. my first order with them was in 94 I believe... too bad the earliest email I have from them is 98...
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
Right, so everybody is referring to prior art that seemingly invalidates this patent.
What is the procedure for presenting this prior art in order to help this museum site that is being picked on?
Is it the museum site that has to present the prior art in court? Or what?
I've got a TV built back in the 80s. It has a row of buttons across the bottom. When I click one of them by pressing it, the the contents of the screen change to a different channel. And guess what? The buttons stay put!
I give SBC the finger... and get my local phone service from someone else. I don't have to sit here for this Gestapo bullshit.
Here is the text of the e-mail I sent to museumtour.com after uncovering what I think may be prior art, in only a few minutes poking around on the web:
Sir,
I have been appalled by the acceptance of over-broad patents by the USPTO for some time, and was similarly appalled to see the abuse of a patent on Frames-based browsing used to threaten legal action against your site. Although I am not a lawyer, I believe that I may have found some invalidating prior art. [Please insert standard not-a-lawyer disclaimers here.]
As far as I can tell, the patent covers the existence of links in one frame that affect the display of information in another. This technique was described and published in the original documentation on frames, which you can see on the Netscape website here:
http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/frames.h tml
This includes the text:
Point 2 appears to describe the technique patented, and therefore constitutes prior art if published before 17 May 1996.
This documentation does not itself have a date, and has not been archived by the Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org), but appears to have been in existence for some time prior to the patent application date. The evidence for this comes in a reference from a post to the HTML mailing list in January 1996:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1996J an/0110.html
It should be possible to check with Netscape to determine the date of publication of this web page.
I hope that this is of some use.
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
Patent reform is a great idea, but I'd be more interested in hearing how you plan to implement it.
Me too, especially since I plan to patent the patent reform process itself.
The problem isn't the USPTO. The problem is corporations that are misrepresenting what their patent applies to. The only reason people pay up is because it's cheaper to license than to contest the patent. SBC is guilty of extortion and misrepresentation, if not fraud.
...
...
Simply: the parents don't cover what SBC are representing that they cover.
5,933,841 is cited in the letter only as 'this may be relevant' but it clearly isn't relevant to museumtour. eg claim 1:
In a computer, a browser for viewing documents having embedded codes that identify parts of documents according to at least one predefined document structure...
There is no 'predefined document structure' in HTML - this is why we 'need' the semantic web and XML.
The next patent was then filed in 1999 and is an obvious attempt to apply this to the WWW. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't comment on this aspect.
Nonetheless, the later patent is still irrelevant. In claim 1 one of the required elements is:
1 (b) displaying a plurality of selectors in the user interface of the browser and not in the document, the plurality of selectors automatically configured to correspond to a respective plurality of sections of the document regardless of what section of the document is being displayed;
Is museumtour user interface displayed outside of the document? No.
Are the selectors in musemtour 'automatically configured'? No.
Are there a plurality of document sections? No. A website is composed of many linked documents, not related sections.
Does this claim apply? No
Finally, claim 13, the one cited by the lawyers:
A browser for navigating a document comprising a plurality of sections, the browser comprising:
a user interface comprising a plurality of selectors automatically configured to correspond to a respective plurality of sections of the document regardless of what section of the document is being displayed in the display window;
wherein the plurality of selectors are not part of the document displayed in the display window of the browser and continue to be displayed after one of the plurality of selectors is selected.
Are the selectors in musemtour 'automatically configured'? No.
Is museumtour user interface displayed outside of the display window? No. (Note the claim isn't a display window, or one of a plurality of display windows. It's the display window. Frames are irrelevant.)
Are there a plurality of document sections? No.
Does this claim apply? No
It's clear from the descriptions themselves that SBC was talking about an application similar to a browser for XML or SGML documents in a known format. They're now trying to generalise this to any web-browser, but the USPTO didn't allow them to patent that, so their claims don't apply.
How about the entire fuggin' web? Would that be prior art? Pretty sure what they're patenting existed long before 1996.
In the abstract for that page, it says:
This is exactly what frames were designed to do. Besides the prior art, the idea is so obvious it doesn't deserve a patent, even if no one had come up with it.
Frost, Brenda and Harlie
= n&fk=b&f=Harlie&lk=eq&l=Frost&c=Austin&s=T X
3838 River Place Blvd
Austin, TX 78730
512-346-1011
Maybe?
Got this from http://www.whitepages.com/resi_qry_results.pl?fid
-Gandalf23@work
If such a provision were in the licenses for major open source software, then companies like SBC would have to forego open source software if they wanted to assert such ridiculous patents against us.
Last I checked a patent must also be non-obvious. How many people have thought of this stuff on their own without knowing of a prior patent? I'm working on something right now that may very well be patented. So what does it mean if there is a standing patent for something I came up with on my own? I think it means that it's obvious enough to not be patentable.
Here's a different angle.
Museum Tour is a typical web site running ColdFusion (Macromedia) and IIS 5 (Microsoft). They are also, not developing and distributing browsers to their users.
Okay, software, as most software companies would like us to remember, is licensed, not sold.
Museum Tour does not own Coldfusion, Windows, IIS, Internet Explorer or Netscape. They did not create any software that uses hyperlinks or frames, they licensed it all from a third party.
Since they did not create nor do they own any of the software in question, SBC really doesn't have a case against them.
I developed a website that is no longer in use called powershop.com. It was much like pricewatch.com. We went out of business a long time ago, but I developed the navigation system for it. This was in 1995.
Each section of the site (search, update listings etc) could be called up by clicking on an icon at the top of the page. Those icons were static. The content was dynamic.
quod erat demonstrandum, baby
jburnes@vonu.net
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1996J an/0110.html
This email, sent to the html list at w3.org on Jan 12, 1996, describes an existing feature in Netscape identical to SBC's claim.
I remember reading an article about a hypertext browser which supports
connected-frames does something like the following. You open an URL and
select SplitScreen from a menu. Now both frames of the screen is showing
the same URL. Then you do some UI maneuver to connect the ``output port''
of the first frame to the ``input port'' of the second frame. You then
click on the first anchor of the first frame and the second frame changes
accordingly. What FRAMES in Netscape does seems to be a short cut for
these steps.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
They should mod_rewrite their site (or whatever is out there for ColdFusion) and make their site look static.
I can assure that there is prior art, as I have been developing for the VPRO since 1994 and since we put our TV-Guide online since then (we are a public broadcaster). We very quickly made a system which generated the current week page by referencing a url like this: http://vpro.nl/htbin/scan/www/vpromedia/beeld/home /thisweek.src
The url is static on the homepage, but refers to a different page every week. I do have a backuptape from that period, but I don't know if it is still readable.
I should state that you can find more information from Bluestone unde rthe name of Saphire(I beleive) was the orginal sever code bas e name during the 1995-late1990s period..In fact the first installation of Saphire was at NASA if my memory is right..
There also was story write up in a CGI manual about their techniques..
The NSA vendor page menu opened up to display side menu with the main content being dynamic..the same exact process SBC claims to have a patent on..
Damn I wish I could remember the book title..it actually showed screen shots of the site..
Anybody else have a clue of what the book title was?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Isn't there supposed to be a novel, non-obvious criteria.
It seems to me, when a patent clerk fucks up, we should have a fast track system for throwing out obvious patents, where it doesn't cost lots of $$$ in legal fees.
Keep this in mind at all times: The Patent system has been designed to make Patent lawyers rich. It doesn't matter if David or Goliath wins, the lawyers ALWAYS win. You will ALWAYS lose.
Good reform should focus on making it easy to invalidate patents, giving the burdon to the patent holder. That's the price for having a monopoly on an idea.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
OK, so SBC goes after a little player to establish precedent. So why doesn't another Big Player, whose interests are being threatened by SBC, weigh in on the little player's side? With financial support, if nothing else.
Tell SBC to take their patent, fold it til it's all corners, and stuff it up their ass!
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
If SBC is going to argue that a site is infringing on their patent, they have to argue that a site is the PRODUCER, not the CONSUMER, of the patented device.
So if there are thousands of different people on the internet who came up with the same invention, would that not make the patent invalid as it would be a natural conclusion of any competent person?
Conversely, if they argue that it's a device produced by only a small number of entities, but USED by many, wouldn't the sites not be liable since they are only comsumers? It would be like Company X suing *ME* because I bought a product from Company Y that's infringing on X's patent.
IANAL, of course.
paintball
Archive.org goes back to 1996, not sure HOW far back in 1996 but probably far enough to provide archived links of many wesbites containing the type of content/links/navigation as patented.
Have fun!
http://www.archive.org
Excellent site at that!
haha
:)
The first porn site i ever saw:
http://www.smarties.com
Back when Netscape 1.0 was out and i had to use the local community colleges lab to get online! (thank you North Harris Community College)
Who would have thought it would be a "candy" store
If the Yahoo example is prior art, its mere existence is sufficient for anyone (else) with standing to sue to use it as anti-patent Kryptonite. Yahoo's wishes in the matter are irrelevant.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Wouldn't the old "Windows File Manager" fall into this catagory? Menu on the left of directories, content changing on the right containing the contents of the directory.
Also wrote about this 2 weeks ago. The U.S. patent Office has gone wild granting insane Patents like this relating to Computers & the Internet. It is painfully clear the morons in the Patent Office have no clue about what they are making decisions on and granting these Patents. Therefore the staff must all be fired and replaced with Competent people. There has to be accountability to this Office granting these bogus Patents. It is time for the little people that getting affected and screwed by this to revolt against the Patent Office itself, the source of this nonsense.
I posted 2 weeks ago how the Patent Office just granted a Patent to a couple of Individuals for a "Computer cabinet with a plurity of air holes with a fan mounted inside facilitating air flow to expel the heat generated by heat generating devices inside the Cabinet". The idiots just gave a Patent to these guys for every PC computer cabinet in the world. You know what's coming right?
I was developing web-based HR apps with our own home-made scripting language similar to ASP/PHP in 1995, so this can't possibly be right. I should send the white papers, etc. to them to illustrate prior art.
Hmmm... Maybe I'll do that.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
In 1996, there were two huge sites designed in a modern way--the Olympics and Wimbledon. Of course, they had navigation bars and dynamically generated content.
Hmm... if the patent covers:
Static links to dynamic content
Then wouldn't it figure that if your selections changed or were generated dynamically and thus, were not static, then the patent wouldn't apply?
Dynamic links to dynamic content
Dunno, since I've been coding pages since 1995, when I got online through my school, most of the web content I was creating along with my friends were all basically, static links linking to dynamic content. Ie, a link from your page to your page's statistics or logs page; a static link to a dynamic link.
Another example would be people who have their .plan files accessible via the web through a link. Static link to dynamic content.
There is quite a bit of prior art... just need to find it. ^_^;;
Winged Power Photography
Heck. I wrote the Perl "go4gw" program in 1993 that easily let you generate dynamic content for gopher clients. Do a google search on go4gw:
v /g opher/servers/go4gw/
http://ftp.ccs.neu.edu/pub/CPAN/scripts/infoser
roland
...they'll be suing the US patent office for patent infringement! (Hint: the USPTO site index page violates the patent in question.)
I seem to remember programs such as hytelnet and gopher that linked to other pages. Both what I would consider static and dynamic... Now I know those standards were out well before WWW links.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
Sounds like CGI/PERL boilerplating to me...4 .html
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/cgi/ch05_0
It seems that a cornerstone of their patent is that it links to dynamic content. Having not read the patent, do they define dynamic? If so, put it in a philosophy textbook as they just proved free will. Nothing is dynamic, the results of the "click" on their navigation menu is a predetermined quality of the person doing the clicking.
SBC sucks. they were ripping people off in ohio i think. overcharging maybe.. i forget specifics or never actually heard them.
Here's an idea for museumtour.com. They should put up a page like this:
.wav file.
Imagine a jpeg of an old television set filling your browser. In the screen area to the left are still pictures of an old TV show, say from the Honeymooners, or a 1950's B&W I Love Lucy episode. At the same time, a short sound clip from the show being displayed is playing in the background.
On the right are images of a channel selector dial and a volume knob. Clicking on the right or left of the dial would change the show being displayed on the screen, while the dial and surrounding TV would remain unchanged. Likewise, clicking on the volume knob would alter the volume of the
I would love to see SBC go before a judge and try to claim that this page represents a novel or unique invention circa 1996.
"Luuuuuuuceeeeeee!"
I was discussing this particular patent with friends a couple of weeks ago (when the story debuted in The Register).
Would it be possible for some trusted organization (EFF?) to set up a Journal of Prior Art, where you could submit ideas you wanted to give to public domain? Once a month, all the submissions would be bundled and published, with one copy sent to the Library of Congress to establish timeline. Whenever some new technology like frames came out, you could iterate over ideas and submit them. That way, when bonehead patents like these come up, you'd have at least one resource to search through to try to invalidate them. From a legal point of view, you should be safe...worse comes to worse, you get some already patented ideas in the Journal, but that's not illegal, and doesn't really decrease the usefulness of what would be there. About the only legal risk I can see if is someone managed to violate the DMCA with a tech description (decryption or the like).
The questions would be:
A) is this feasible from a resources point of view.
B) Does prior art have to be a full implementation, or can it be a description of an implementation?
And most importantly,
C) Could someone take any of the suggestions, vary one tiny detail (that one's red, this is blue), then patent that? You don't want to create a cookbook for scumsuckers!
This is a great way to use The Way Back Machine The should just rename it to The Prior Art Archive. Oh wait, that name sucks, better stick with way back machine.
Isn't that some sort of conflict of interest? Of course, their online browsing site was probably not available in 1996... Can anyone concur?
Besides, this patent doesn't claim a particular document structure, but rather a computer application for browsing in a particular way. They are probably presenting their patent as a process rather than a software as it is, in my non-expert opinion, clearly claimed.
Form the patent's description:
Why aren't they sueing MS or AOL for their computer application for viewing documents?
I'm pretty sure this will all blow over really quickly. It's a really big pile of bullshit...
// TODO
at SBC and let her know how you feel about this patent.
SBC is a leech, but it is quite logical that in an efficient market economy there will companies taking advantage of a market distortion - in SBCs case making a profit off the broken patent system.
How 'bout the VRML 2.0 specification and the first VRML chat room (which I believe is still up and running) which is linked from a static page to a dynamic page - since the avatars have been joining and leaving the room since it was created - I'd sya that qualifies as dynamic
Would be computer programming books from that era that cover cgi, perl, html and web programming. They're bound to have examples that describe this process.
So this is a good time to go through your library and send museumtour computer books that have prior art in them.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I sent this email to museumtour.com 2 days ago. Hopefully, this helps them out.
I have seen the ridiculous claims by SBC concerning your website and their patents. So, I thought i might attempt to be a little help in this situation and do a little online searching for previous art. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1995S ep/0034.html As you can see, that email is from September of 1995, almost a full YEAR before that patent was filed. It appears that the patent SBC filed was on the very reason for the invention of frames in the first place!
In particular I would like to refer to the following in that September 1995 email: NAME="window_name" The NAME attribute is used to assign a name to a frame so it can be targeted by links in other documents (These are usually from other frames in the same document.) The NAME attribute is optional; by default all windows are unnamed. Therefore, a frame could remain static while referencing other frames with each click in the original frame.
Also, you might check out this url: http://www.focazio.com/web95/images/cnn.gif
This is a screenshot of cnn.com in 1995. I'm sure you'll notice the navigation icons at the top.
Also, there is this link: http://www.ac603.dial.pipex.com/webinov.htm#Intro
As you see, it's from December 1995 and SPECIFICALLY talks about using frames for navigation.
Fred Sotherland of C|Net gave an overview of how the C|Net television network is using the web to integrate TV with the Internet. He also gave some rules which they apply to make sure that pages are usable.
* *No page with more than 20k graphics * *All pages have 256 colour graphics * *Making use of Netscape 2.0 frames to put content and navigation side by side. * *Your only limitation is your Imagination (an the available bandwidth)
Again, this link is from November 1995: http://www.i-m.com/November-1-7-1995/0018.html
If you read that, you see the following: - If you have an image (a button bar for example) that is 80 pixels high and 400 pixels wide, DON'T make a Frame 80 x 400. As with everything else, allow a buffer. The scroll bars (or the blank space that makes them up) runs 20-25 pixels. In addition to that Netscape does appear to add a little more in the gutter area. An 80 x 400 image should be in a 110-120 x 430 frame at the least. - More of a good thing, isn't better. Having a fixed portion of the interface for the navigation bar is a good thing. However, having 4 frames isn't.
As you can see from that, not only does it mention a navigation bar, but it also mentions a BUTTON BAR..like what you have on your webpage. That is from the year BEFORE SBC's patent.
If there is any doubt to that, check this link: http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/1.1/guide.html The pictures are from Spring 1996 when the patent was filed, but they're using the features from Netscape 2.0.
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/web_archit ect/frames.html This is a PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT example of prior art. It is published 2 months before the patent application and describes websites with the EXACT features the patent was filed on.
One more, from netscape itself discussing netscape 2.0: http://wp.netscape.com/navigator/v2.0/frames.html
Netscape 2.0 was released in February of 1996, as you can see from this link: http://scout.wisc.edu/addserv/NH/96-02/96-02-05/00 31.html
That is all I have time for right now, I hope you fight this and don't give in. There is clearly prior art and it seems SBC just filed a patent on something that was already in heavy use at the time of the filing. Now, they want to harass small companies almost 7 years later. They don't go after the big companies because they know their claims are fraudulent. But, I think if you can show them YOU know beyond the shadow of a doubt that their claims are ridiculous, they might look elsewhere for a sitting duck.
Hare Krishna!
Check out Netscape 2.02's Navigator Handbook, which was created in 1995! (look at the bottom of the page)
AOL was doing this shit back in the 1980's FOR GOD'S SAKE! Everything they had was dynamic content accessed via static buttons, including documents.
How about every single HyperCard stack ever made? A stack is a document. Did these idiots ever try clicking on any of the buttons in a stack?
FROM WHERE THE FUCK DO WE GET THESE GODDAMNED RETARDS?!?!?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Didn't BT try this a while ago? I'm sure their patent was from the mid-80s too (applied to BBSs apparently)
I have absolute prior art on this from 1986.
541 344 7990
Found using:- 19960517 235959*ir_sr_31nr_30/http://microsoft.com*
w ww.micr osoft.com/DEVONLY/dd-home.htm
w ww.micr osoft.com/MSPOWERPOINT/
w w.micr osoft.com/VBASIC/
http://web.archive.org/web/19960101000000
How about
http://web.archive.org/web/19960512204557/
or better yet (dated May 12, 1996)
http://web.archive.org/web/19960512184543/
The row of buttons along the top should count as prior art.
Another one:
http://web.archive.org/web/19960510230645/w
The tip of the week link looks good to me
Also the list of links on the left seems fairly static - yet linked to a dynamic changing URL
There's probably more there, but these should do for a start.
cthread. cthread_fork(). Fork, thread, fork!
most of the replies here have been complaints against the patent office and sbc. is there any action being taken? if you think this is unfair, what are you doing to do about it?
Executing DIR *.* or CATALOG or /bin/ls or similar command in a terminal type browser will provide you with a set of links to various pieces of content available in the filesystem of a machine. If this happens from a terminal station, then the traffic takes place over a network (the terminal server network). Some of these links may generate dynamic content by running a binary image which outputs text and or graphics to the terminal. This has been done since computers were around!
that this "technology" is nothing more than a common -sense application of the language that enabled it (HTML.) Since the HTML standard allows this type of design, it seems obvious that the designers of HTML contemplated this type of use. Why, then, is someone able to patent the use of a technology in a manner that was specifically contemplated by the designers?
Of all the ridiculous patent stories that appear on Slashdot, the ones that burn me (and scare me) most are those that involve common-sense use of a programming technique. If a programmer (including an HTML/javascript designer) comes up with a nifty way to make things work, within the confines of his chosen language, then there is no way that he or she should be able to patent it. I call bullshit, and it's got to stop.
Evil is the money of root.
Now, I'd be impressed if they said, out of the goodness of their collective hearts (hah!) to give the patent to the public.
Yes, patent reform is necessary. But it hurts the cause when dimwits don't even pay attention to the actual facts, and simply shout, "Patent reform! Patent reform!"
the patent claims as Ameritech's original idea the concept of having elements on a web page that don't change, yet apply directly to other parts of the page that do change.
Prior art? Now here's a button that doesn't do anything! (and I believe this came out around late 94/95)
In January 1996, I set up a site to keep track of social events happening in Sydney Australia. The site consisted of a dynamic database of events, accessed by a perl CGI script. The front page to the site contained a number of static links pointing to dynamic pages, generated by the CGI script.
The static parts of the site are in the Internet Archive.
The dynamic content is missing from the archive (I still have the perl script and database on my local hard disk), but it is obvious from the form of the hypertext references that they point to dynamic pages, as they contain prefix expressions.
The Internet archive entry is dated January 17th 1999. The site was in existence well before this date. The archived page contains a message from me, dated 23rd May 1997, the date the site ceased operation. On 13th January 1997, I sent a message to aus.culture.ultimo in which I stated that the site had been running for twelve months. This message is archived at google:
So there it is. A dynamic/static web site whose history can be verified back to January 1996 by independent sources.
Both of those had buttons that changed the content area of the window while leaving the button area unchanged, and both of those predate this patent.
I used an application called Gopher on HP-UX a long time before 1996. Also I am certain that CGI pre-dates 1996.
This is nothing new.
In order to save bandwidth and speed
response, screen addressable terminals
have used this for ages.If anyone owns
this IP, it's IBM or DEC...
Which brings up an interesting question
regarding patents. If I change the names
of the processes in a patent can I make
a new patent covering the same function
in a different context?
It seems like the patent is really covering only the "browser". A website only produces tags between funny little characters, and the human at the other side uses a browser which formats it nicely, presumably violating the patent. It seems like SBC has a nice case against Netscape and Microsoft, not content providers.
Static link to dynamic content? Surely someone had figured out how to send a query to a search engine.
Also, there are the "What's New" pages, which were very popular before 1996. Here's a FAQ from 1995 that mentions several "What's New" sites. Surely this isn't the earliest. GNN had a "What's New" page in April 1995 at the latest, and the WWWW (World Wide Web Worm) at Colorado was also around by April 1994 at the latest.
So I'll step forward, Bob. I implemented the layout for the individual document format for the CELT project (formerly CURIA) web site in 1995. We generated (and still do) some 500 documents from SGML masters in Old Irish, Latin, and Old French using TEI into HTML via an Omnimark script. Click on the link labeled "HTML" next to any document listed in http://celt.ucc.ie/publishd.html to see it.
(It's simplistic to the point of being crude, but we specifically wanted to keep the Table of Contents on view all the time, but let the user change the document panel display when needed, which is pretty much the point of the patent, if I've understood you. Despite my dislike of the navigational problems of frames, that was how we did it.)
Any of the hundreds of scholars who have visited the site since then will be able to attest this, and I presented papers about what we were planning to do as long before as 1992 and 1993. The site has been extensively publicized in the academic field (it was originally the 9th Web server in the world) although we never specifically shouted about the technique of what we did, as it seemed too simple and obvious :-)
But it's easy to go back further. I think this method was used in one of the original SGML offline browsers, perhaps the first: the IETM (ebook) system called DynaBook, at that time (late 1980s) from EBT (Providence, RI), later Inso Corp; it was still until recently being marketed by Enigma.
Mod Parent up
Plus before/when you do this, if there is anything (at all) that you were unhappy about their service, or their cancellation process, be sure to complain about these issues to Better Business Bureau etc. And if there are multiple things, make sure each issue is a separate complaint.
I am not sure but does prior art have to be in the same medium. More precisely, does an example of a tv guide listing to a tv show not serve as an example of this same concept.
I know that videotext was doing this years before 1996...
The weather channel is another example of linking to a dynamic content page from a static link (local weather by zip code)...
just some thoughts.
Which politician will SBC pay to change the patent system in our favor? After all, government is the problem.
Couldn't Navigator's bookmarks.htm be considered static links to dynamic pages, hence prior art? Didn't Mosaic have a similar bookmarking feature?
Or am I completely misreading/misunderstanding the article?
I think it would be totally inappropriate for me to even contemplate what I am thinking about. - Don Mazankowski
... after they asserted their claims to the LZH compression used in .gif files after years of widespread usage? Are they even still around? Are they declining or even still relevant? Maybe that's what's in store for SBC, too?
I was working on a research project at RPI in the early 1990's (1992-1994) that used links to dynamic content. It was a program called HyperGlyphs and it was originally implemented with the Asymetrix ToolBook program. It linked to multimedia content as well -- images, movies, text. I had no idea that someone got a patent on this -- I don't claim I was the first, as I know there was many other projects going on before me in this field.
I used to read the alt.hypertext newsgroup (an old posting of mine from 1992) when it only got a few postings a day... I remember in 1993 when it first started picking up with this Mosaic stuff (first post about Mosaic?)....
The USPTO's job is only to determine if there isn't an equivalent already in existence. The rest is left up to the courts.
ANNOYING popups that trick sites and porn sites use? Maybe I can sue their ass out of business.
only other patent that made me mad so much was Amazon's one-click
Bidet.
Yep - any Automated Teller Machine. With-or-without a touch screen. You use menus to navigate to different options (and maybe some cash).
Like 1980's or earlier?!!
A search of the usenet archive on Google results a large number of posts which prove that static navigation bars were thought of long before this patent was filed. This is a feature which emulates real world physical interfaces such as electonic control panels, and was the OBVIOUS natural evolution of the Web interface once the technical capabilities were incorporated in the browser.
wow, <A href="$A" target="$B"><img src="$C">, that's original
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
they should simply pay all the losses, they induce by issuing wrong patents
Software was the property of the people no matter who wrote it...
All the proceeds get sent the government and the programmer got paid the same... I remember the tetris story about how Tetris sold millions yet the money all went to the government, but otherwise it might have went to a capitalist corporation and the programmer still would get screwed...
Breaking that down even more....
...
1. a browser for navigating a document
-> is a website a document or a browser?
From what I know about the web - a web site site is nothing more than a document... (http://www.tekmom.com/buzzwords/zdwww.html)
1.1. comprising a plurality of sections
-> any document
2. The browser comprising
2.1. a display window
-> A web site has a display window? The BROWSER has a display window that displays the website...
So bringing it all together - it looks to me that simply put, there aptent is not on a web site its on the browser (mozilla,netscape,IE,opera,etc..)
Another thing... Even if this was a legit claim on the website being the browser and violating there so called patent - why go after the innocent business who had no idea about this who just used the technology that the world has indorsed (w3.org) instead of the organization that made it possible for there patented technology availiable for the world to use "with out" there consent? I would almost think that a suit could be brought againt SBC for this because, they essentially have let a 3rd party publish there technology with out there consent - and they siliently wait for a few years while it has become a standard and then start pouncing on eveyone. It sounds to me like they have broken some kind of law about setting people up - they must have known that the world adopted this technology and they did nothing about it to stop it or to even claim that this idea was "there" invention, they instead waited around untill the time was apropriate to pounce, and they arent "pouncing" on who violated the patent in the first place - w3.org...
The claim categories are aimed at a browser and a method of browsing.
Museumtours does not provide a browser, nor performs a method of browsing.
When you look e.g. at claim 20, one of the steps is 'viewing parts of the document'. This goes for independent claim 24 as well. Well, I do not expect museumtours to watch every time their page is accessed (will be quite a few times after all these articles at /.). As a European patent attorney trainee, I would have written the claims differently, claiming only steps a computer would perform, under control of the browser programme.
So, in my opinion, it would not be possible to defend that museumtour infringes independent claims 20 and 24, let alone claims dependent on those two.
Claim 1 is aimed at a browser. When reading the text + examining the drawings, Netscape is actually prior art in my opinion. AFAIK, frames were already there in 1996 (filing date of the document), yielding claim 1 invalid.
Besides that, the browser does not comprise input devices in the scope of the application; in claim 3 e.g. they are specified as a keyboard.
Well, I do not have the time right now to continue for all claims, but with a proper knowledgable attorney, Museumtours should manage.
BTW: I am not a US patent attorney!
Museumtour.com DOES NOT USE FRAMES. It uses an html TABLE. It could use layers and absolute positioning. It could use an entirely separate WINDOW. Please get this clear - this patent has nothing to do with "frames." It's ANY manner of persistent navigation. The ENTIRE WORLD WIDE WEB is in violation of this alleged "patent," and it's a dire threat to the entire web INDUSTRY.
GET IT?!
So, what's going to be done about it? Who's the go-to for situations like this? The EFF? Why isn't a consortium of every other company with a web presence already being formed and ready to pour money into the legal defense of museumtour.com? Whom does one call?
"Oh, well I'm sorry if you don't appreciate my random murders!" - Crow T. Robot,
Looks to me like the Patent Office site might be in violation itself! Check out their navigation.
Just get any CGI with a patent that dates prior to 1996.
This patent is ridiculous bully-boy tactics.
Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
From: Don Hopkins <don@brillig.umd.edu>
To: weiland@bensun.cs.umd.edu, plaisant@bensun.cs.umd.edu
Cc: don@brillig.umd.edu
Subject: NeWS front end
I've implemented a window with space for a control panel at the bottom and appropriate methods for handling it (no scroll bars), taught the formatter about .startcontrols and .endcontrols, and made classes of
control buttons, so now you can describe the control panel as a
storyboard file. (This seems to me to be a good idea.) I've also given
the formatter a good working over, and it's a lot nicer now. It will
not run off the bottom of the page any more. It makes sure there's
room before putting anything down. It handles the line height
correctly now. (i.e. before, if you were in a tall font, then did a
newline, then switch to a short font, the new line would be as tall as
the font you were in at the start of the line, even though there are
no words in that font on the line. Now the line will only be as tall
as the tallest text or displayable actually drawn on it. It will put a
piece of text or graphics onto the next line if it won't fit on the
current line, unless the cursor is at the beginning of the line (so no
unnecessary blank lines). It will put it on the next page if it won't
fit on the current page, unless the cursor is at the top of the page
(so no unnecessary blank pages). While it's laying out the stuff and
building the display list, it draws rectangles on the page to show
where it's at. (i.e. the bounding box of the last line it completed)
When it finishes each page, it erase the rectangles and draws the
stuff it just layed down. It handles damage to the pages correctly
now, by repainting them, so it's not necessary to retain the images of
obscured canvases. (They will be repainted from their display list
when exposed.) So it should run OK in color, but that still needs to
be tested. When you format a multi-page document, you see the first
page being layed out (rectangles), and when it's done, it's painted
and the touchables become active. At the same time, the rest of the
pages are being formatted underneath the first page on top. You can
flip through the pages and touch the touchables while the formatting
is going on. (No callbacks to the client can happen till it's done
formatting, though.)
Do you want me to write a real storyboard parser? I'm still using Forth right now.
Some more things I still need to do: Magic back and next buttons that dissappear when they're not applicable. Title and page number in the frame label. The formatter should aggregate adjacent strings on a line into one.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
1. File broad patent covering a concept rather than a technology.
2.........
3. Profit!
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Keep me informed on the behaviour of this kernel.. As the "BugFree(tm)"
series didn't turn out too well, I'm starting a new series called the
"ItWorksForMe(tm)" series, of which this new kernel is yet another
shining example.
-- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.29
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