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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."
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.
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
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
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
However, looking at the letter sent to museumtour, it looks like they patented frames in which one frame has navigational information. So no one had frames before 1996?
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.
It's more like seventeen years, not seven.
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
You're right. Some of the links still even work.
post with links to dynamic content
Errrm, static content linking to dynamic content? Has no-one ever heard of icons? I was writing RPGs back in the 80s where, for example, an inventory icon would link to (you guessed it) a character's inventory. The icon was a static part of the player's HUD and the inventory was dynamic in that it reflected the current state of items carried by the character. Games have used this "technology" for years. I think this qualifies as "prior art".
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
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.
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."
Check out this page for prior use -
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.
Cringely is not being nice to them, his column is basically a call to arms to innundate SBC with prior art and blow their patent to hell.
He's just speaking softly and asking everyone out there to find the big sticks necessary to beat this patent down.
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.
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
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.
http://web.archive.org/web/19961030020512/www.berk eley.edu/about/
No sig, sorry.
IBM's smit(sp?) application that came with AIX 3.2 had graphics that linked to dynamic content/output in 1991. This X application was the only practical way to administrate the RISC 6000 servers and I almost always used it over a TCP/IP network to my X station.
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!).
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)
Forgent claims various things on some of the basic algorithm of DCT jpeg. I believe, from various talks with head jpeg members, that they actualy HAVE got what they wanted.
They claim some japanese digital camera manufacturers HAVE paid a lot (~10 millions $).
You can get the current status here : http://www.jpeg.org/
Geez... is it really that hard to find dynamically-updated pages back then, or am I missing something.
Having formerly been a undercapitalized ISP back then (1993-1996), I remember several customer projects that had links to dynamic content, including:
Omaha Steaks, who was an early merchandiser on the net
and
the Applied Information Management Institute, who had written their own code to front-end an Oracle database complete with company and job listing information. (I remember the Sparc servers rather well sitting in the equipment room and listening to their IT people talk about how the code and project worked). Click on CareerLink button and it would take you to a page of career areas, and click on the career area and it'd pull up dynamic pages of content all driven by the back-end database.
This was all pre-May 1996, since my involvement with the company began winding down over summer 1996.
*scoove*
From the article:
This column is about U.S. patent 5,933,841, which was granted to the old Ameritech phone company in 1999, and is now owned by Ameritech's acquirer,SBC Communications...patent exists and was applied for on May 17, 1996.
I forgot to add:
The other day on NPR they had a story about immigrant businesses in California being extorted by "consumer rights" groups citing "health violations". The threat was that if they didn't pay $1000 they would be taken to court over these "health violations". These legal threats would be mailed out en masse to 200-300 businesses. Being small businesses they could not afford the thousands of dollars it would take to defend such threats so the obvious choice is to give in. $1000 x 300 = $300,000 for little more than sending out a letter.
SBC's move is the same. They put the hook out in the water and see if they get a bite and if they do the letters start going out in bulk. Think about how many small businesses on the web us SBC's supposed IP? The main difference between this situation and the one in CA is that SBC is a large established company with a stable of lawyers. In CA the extortionists are unheard of consumer rights groups with no addresses and maybe one or two lawyers. The CA groups have found a lucrative enterprise - how much more so lucrative will it be for SBC?
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
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.
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.
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.
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.
Curses!!
Read the letter. How does this differ from programs
written for old DEC and IBM terminals which rewrite
a portion of the screen with dynamic content based
on selection of a 'button' displayed on the screen.
Addressable screens is NOT a new concept and I can
see no difference in what the letter refers to and
stuff that has been running since KIM-1 days. Maybe
they sat on it hoping all the geezers would forget
about terminals.
-Will
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.