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Interwoven Patents Code Versioning
webengr writes "It seems like the USPO is pretty lenient when it comes to awarding software patents. CVS has been around for a long time, but now Interwoven has been awarded a new patent covering version control of web assets. The claims include, 'The use of a hierarchical file system and an object repository for representing and hosting content and its structure,' and 'The combined concepts of file history, versioning, comparison, and merging as it relates to content, provide an archive of all individual changes as well as collections of changes so they can be versioned and audited.'"
We all know the awarding of patents has gotten out of control. This is just another example...
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Asleep at the wheel, recklessly driving us all over a cliff of patent infringement lawsuits? Yeah, that's fair.
When will the patent office get a clue? Doesn't *anyone* there make even the slightest attempt to search for prior art? A 5 minute google search should have invalidated this patent.
"It seems like the USPO is pretty lenient when it comes to awarding software patents." no kidding. the USPO appears, in some cases, to not only be lenient, but to be completely oblivious to the purpose of having patents, as well as having wild interpretations of patent law. software patents, the way that they are currently handled, is incorrect, with regards to the original means that was set out by even Thomas Jefferson himself. to be able to patent compiled binary code, without regards to the source, or ENTIRE details of the mechanism that the software is implying is insane, and will continue to destroy the legal ability to innovate based on derivative work.
Actually, come to think of it, modding the article itself could yield some interesting info...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What I would like to see is if the patent holder then goes after someone for use of the patent and the defendnat challenges the patent in court, and if the defendant is correct and the patent is invalidated- the patent office itself should be liable for court costs, plus any lost revenue due to any possible injunction during the trial.
Enough of these cases and the patent office may begin to reforem itself in when and where it grants a patent.
- Serge Wroclawski
The problem is that in the time between the dumb patent being granted, and the courts sorting it out, severe damage can be done to people's freedom to innovate.
Recall that over the past 100 years (and beyond), significant advances in technology have almost always been despite IP laws, not because of them*
*Some examples:
According to the US patent office: "Each year the USPTO receives approximately 300,000 patent applications." (from http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/utility/utili ty.htm)
Some of these patents are no doubt software patents. And each patent application costs money to process. Even though there is apparently a fee for submitting an application I doubt the patent office is making profit. And as it is a US government funded organization the US taxpayers are paying for the process.
Investigations related to prior art surely cost a lot additinal money. If an application has already been accepted nullifying it can't be an easy process. Ultimately the whole mess must cost a grand sum... guesses anyone?
I'm rambling, but I can't help feeling that the money could be better spent somewhere else.
.: Max Romantschuk
With all due respect, perhaps you should find out how it's done *now*. You just described, more or less, the process one goes through in the US to get a patent.
The problem is that these web searches and other techniques aren't really very fruitful. Patents are *complicated*.
I should know. I've written two, and read many.
C//
No it is not.
The parent is incorrect.
It's a non-refundable fee -- this fee is actually meant to compensate for the USPTO guys doing a prior art search.
-Tomaj
What if you changed rule 2:
Applicant does a search (web or otherwise) on prior art, filing a paper with proof that existing systems found on the web or otherwhere are not comparable to the patent. The applicant must know of similar systems, so the work can be left for them. There's no expenses in time or efforts for USPO, and the proof can be filed with the patent.
If someone finds the proof is fraudulent, incomplete or otherwise doesn't provide negative proof of prior art, the patent can be revoked. Additionally, the patent holder could then be sued for misleading it's customers and all that sort of thing. There could also be some fines associated with patents for which proper proof was not delivered.
Applying to only *web* objects is a slightly grey area too.
No it's not, I've been using CVS for web pages since about 5 minutes after my first web page, what's that, 94? When did these guys file the patent. Plus if I thought of it, and didn't think anything of it, it certainly fails the "non-obvious" test. Then again is this really news? I'd be surprised to see the headline "patent granted on a real invention in software!!!!" I mean has a really clever algorithm been invented since quicksort that wasn't just ported from mathmatics or physics? (I'm counting theoretical cs and graph theory as mathmatics, since, um it's not "practical" and so hardly ever patented.)
The people who are "true believers" will go to the extent of claiming that this goes to show how important patents are to promote innovation. They will even say, "if it wasn't for patents, we would not have the wonderful ogg-vorbis code that was designed to evade them."
:-)
You see "patents promote innovation" is not a reasoned belief about the contingent world, subject to revision as times and circumstances change. It is an absolute article of faith.
Sort of like the current Bush administration's:
The economy is doing well, hence we need a tax cut.
The economy is doing poorly, hence we need a tax cut.
Any thought-compiler would happily optimize away the implied if statement...
The GPL would be unnecessary if there were no copyright law.
If there is no "copyright", then why would you need a "copyleft"?
GPL is supposed to spit in the face of copyright law. The beauty of it is that it does this by depending upon it.
If there were no copyright, then closed source would still be inviable: because anyone could copy it around. The difference would be that the BSD, LGPL, and GPL licenses would be effectively compatible, and I could finally see goddam SVG enabled in mozilla by default, etc.
The reason the GPL does not need copyright, is that eliminating copyright would eliminate the incentive to violate the GPL. Thats a catch 22.
I am pretty sure that this Marimba product does all the above:
n t/ server/content-distribution.html
http://www.marimba.com/products/change_manageme
Rocket Your humble build servant.
If this keeps happening no patent is going to be enforcable based on the US patent office's recent history of complete incompetance. Taking every case of a bad software patent to the courts is hardly practical. I think people will soon start disregarding patents the same way they've started disregarding copyrights of music and movies.
Um, have you every used Interwoven's products? What they mean by "wherein the staging area is adapted to receive web content changes of files modified in the work areas and is configured to check for conflicts in web content received from two or more work areas" is that when you check stuff in, it shows up in the shared code. Wow! That's basic CVS. I don't know where you got this stuff about "a system to quickly and directly retrieve content for a web site/application" from, but what TeamSite offers is just a way to sync the repository to a remote server. It's basically a very inefficient version of rsync.
The historically interesting aspect of licenses such as the GPL lies in the possibility that some people would forego the monetary profits for the greater good of both the inventor and the community. If you want to make a buck, fine. If you want to share with and among others, fine too.
Unfortunately, the USPTO is becoming less able to function as the arbiter of the rules, and this is what causes the system to degrade. In fairness to those poor schmucks, it is not realistic to expect young, underpaid, undertrained, inexperienced patent examiners (or even not so old or inexperienced) to be able to consistently and without errors or omissions spot all issues relating to obviousness and prior art. The volume of patent submissions also thwarts the system, at least as it pertains to high tech patents.
Let me get your argument straight.
1. CVS does not constitute prior art against this patent.
2. Other products, like Zope, do more or less the same thing as what the patent claims.
3. Therefore, there is no prior art.
???
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
CVS was first released as a set of shell script wrappers for RCS in 1986. It is descended from RCS, which has been around since at leaast the mid 80s. The design of RCS was based loosely on that of SCCS, which was written in about 1972. Man, that patent must have been hanging around for a long time.
120 character sigs suck. Make it 250.
You are incorrect. If you have a *right* to the source code it must be produced upon demand. As in having a right to your medical records. This is precisely the right the GPL provides.
The right to try to obtain it is a different right. You do not have a right to break into your doctor's office to obtain your records, even if there is no legal restriction to your possessing them. This is the situation the GPL is designed to prevent. It gives you a *right* to possession, rather than merely removing legal restrictions to possession.
KFG
I don't think that Interwoven's patent should be dismissed out of hand just because it incorporates the functionality of a traditional SCM system. As someone else remarked, improving on an existing idea CAN be legitimately patented.
Doing large-scale web development poses special problems that are not covered by conventional SCM systems.
For example, it's simple to preview a single web page you are working on in isolation--you just point your browser at the URL for the page. But what if you are replacing an existing part of a complex web application, and are working as a member of a team? Yes, an SCM system will help you keep track of the files and integrate the source changes. What it will NOT do is give you an environment in which you can use a web browser to debug your piece of the project. You have to set up a private development environment manually, and that's a real pain--you have to make sure all the URLs pointing to the various pieces are correct for your test environment in each file. You have to make sure that when you press the "Submit" button, the right CGI program is called (the one you are working on, or the "real" functional one, depending on what you are trying to do), and that the correct page comes up when a link is triggered. You have to make sure all the external references point to files you want to use for testing--i.e., that the correct Java Script files are being included, and so on ad infinitum. And you have to make sure that none of this interferes with the current application that is open to real users, or with your fellow developers. Like I said, a PAIN.
After unit development is done, you want to integrate everybody's work and do beta testing. Again, you can build a conventional application tree using a conventional SCM for this, but the SCM won't do it for interactive testing in a web environment. Once again, you have to change all the references so they point to the right places, and make sure everything works together. More PAIN. My head hurts. OUCH.
Lastly, you have to take the whole ball of wax and drop it in place of the existing application for real use. Again, an SCM will give you the finished code--but it won't fix the URLs in the code and create the web hierarchy in the right place for you. This must be done manually, and you have a good chance of screwing up and breaking the application. Maybe if I drill a hole right HERE in my forehead it will let the evil spirits out and I will stop hurting.
And when you've finally installed the new code and find out that something that worked perfectly well in Beta doesn't work in production because it interacts with something else on the same server that you didn't even know was there all along, you are screwed. If Interwoven's software will help me back out the changes and retrieve the previous working version before half a million people notice, I would be very grateful to them at this point. Really, I can do without my first-born.
Wow, I'm in a heap o shit!!! /. says that someone has a patent on version control?
/.'e early warning alert system on our ever so oppressive patent system?
/. several times that no one could possibly have any inkling of a patent's reach without first reading the patent's file history in order to determine what was argued away during patent prosecution.
/. alarmist headlines.
Uhh boy.
Just like when they said BT had the patent on hyperlinks. Man, I did 20 years for that one.
Just like when someone else last week had the patent on the internet.
Man, SS troopers came in and took my eMachine.
Man, where would I be without
Good golly I'm going to have to shoot bamboo up my fingernails for my SourceSafe discretions.
Even though it is obvious to anyone that can read that the patent only could possibly cover web based concurrent check-ins at most.
And it is also known by any patent attorney and has been stated here on
Man, I think I would rather listen to a six year old kid scream about how his soup spilled on his green beans than see another one of these totally bullshit