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Charlie Northrup's One-Man Patent Grab Continues
FirstEdition writes "Will this never end! Linux Business & Technology writes that Charlie Northrup, the guy in New Jersey whose prior art on what looks to be Web services dates back to 1994 and appears to trump anybody else's IP, has gotten another patent. Of course, he has transferred the IP to a spin off company populated mostly by lawyers. More details here."
Looks like Amazon has competition... I thought there was a law though that you have to patent something within one year of public exhibition?
I'm sure that he'll manage to get royalties from the two or three million geeks running Apache at home.
Maybe we'll get lucky, and he'll pull a SCO, and try to sue IBM. I'm rather certain that IBM will find something that they have prior art on, or something that his patent depends on, that IBM can pull out and have fun with...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It seems to be describing IRC, a message board, and/or basic client-server architecture, all of which provably existed before '94.
It's quite likely I'm not understanding this correctly. What, in actually legible text, has he just patented?
And what laws are there that would permit him to retroactively sue anybody who was already using something like that?
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
I've heard a lot of "off with his head!" comments around these parts in regards to Mr. Northrup, but can we look at his point of view with a shred of objectivity for a moment? Let me introduce a hypothetical situation. You, a programmer, create some wonderful technology. It's so wonderful, in fact, that it spreads all over the world and is used by nearly everyone on a daily basis. Would you not want some measure of control on this technology that you labored over for so many hours? Would you not like some shred of claim to its origin? Though it's easy to tie this man to a cross for his pursuits in I.P., I think the honest answer most of us would give is "Yes, I would." Perspective is a difficult thing to deal with; however, I think Mr. Northrup is on the "good side" in this fight.
+ Donald Gunth
+ Email: dgunth@quicktek.net
"Caffeine is the greatest lubricant ever created." -ESR
which has lawyers as its main labor force, should be destroyed!
Yes, we all know it's ridiculous, none of you reading this have to point that out in excruciating detail. The worst part about these kinds of stories is the avalanche of posts making bad jokes ("I'm going to patent air! I'm going to patent the alphabet!"), constructing elaborate metaphors, or making snide comments about MS, Amazon, or what have you. Don't preach to the converted. We all know.
Ya know, this stuff discribed really reminds me of the old BBS days. Almost every service in this "patent" could have been applied to almost any BBS package as far back as '86, maybe even farther. Isn't that prior art? Somone need to trump this guy before he makes it impossible for anyone to run services.
i wonder if bruce schneier's recent cryptogram about dos'ing someone via postal mail would be useful in this situation. this guy's address is listed on the patent.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Sounds like our boy Charlie read a book on communications or network theory, understood about half of it, and threw all the words he remembered into a few densely worded and confusing paragraphs.
And then he patented it.
It's kind of fun to watch Chuck's patent exploits, since he has no chance of ever winning one of his pesky lawsuits. Of course, it can be kind of annoying for the other parties involved.
It seems like the USPTO will let you patent just about anything.
Sooner or later, someone's going to point out that all this excess patenting is going to stifle rather than encourage invention and innovation. I mean, why bother developing an idea from first thought to reality if some suit somewhere who's never spent more than a few minutes on a distantly- (if at all) related product or service can shut you down before you get off the ground and/or demand crippling royalties from you for the fruits of your labour?
In the case of the USPTO, the lunatics truly are running the asylum.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If you read the patent, it reads like a description of CORBA. The OMG started working on CORBA in 1989. That's all the prior art that should be needed.
Charlie doesn't like to talk in terms of suing people, but says it may be advantageous to Web services players such as IBM, Microsoft, BEA, Sun and the service providers to have a license
Woo hoo! Lawyer fight! I can't wait to watch this on court TV. I wonder which side will get Johnny Cochran
"Maybe we'll get lucky, and he'll pull a SCO, and try to sue IBM. I'm rather certain that IBM will find something that they have prior art on, or something that his patent depends on, that IBM can pull out and have fun with... "
But see that kind of thing is what makes the whole system worse. Defensive patents ( which in themselves maybe shouldn't have been granted ) also bog down the system, as well as the original one. The whole system needs change so that people don't have to take out such defensive measures.
As someone who's recently started operating his own company I'm astounded by how many ways the legal profession has of taking your money without actually providing any benefits. I'm starting to believe that we have a large parasite feeding off of (American) businesses. This is not to say that the entire legal prof is a leech... only that legislation is abused for the sake of acquiring money that isn't legitimately earned. I seems that a lot of patent suits fall into this category. I hope I'm wrong, but my experience makes me believe this is one of the more serious and unnecessary threats to progress here.
OK, this guy got the patent, and yes, someone probably has prior art, and the courts will probably throw it out as long as the President doesn't interfere with the judicial system to help this guy. But there's still a problem: Who want's to be the first poor SOB to have to defend himself in a lawsuit? I'm sure this guy isn't stupid enough to make his "liscensing fee" more expensive than defending one's self in a courtroom, which means he can use those firms who choose the cheaper option of paying the liscense, to legitimize his claims against those who do fight.
Me? I say to hell with Iraq, we need a regime change at the USPTO!
Lagito ergo expectabo
I look at it this way...
IBM did significant development of computer theory. They've probably contributed more than any other company combined. Granted, they have screwed up at times, and screwed up royally, but they don't appear to be running around smashing others with only lawyer-based divisions, a'la Rambus. They're also contributing back into something that I use on a daily basis as my primary computer platform, even when they didn't invent UNIX. Right now, IBM is a community player, and while that could change in theory at any moment, they're more my friend than this freak who is trying to demonstrate a patent on hypertext transfer protocol...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Is to make patents NON TRANSFERABLE...
so he would have defend that stuff by himself
Well your position is understandable. It however isn't a solution. Even if he does something crippling, the faulty system is still in place waiting for the next Charlie to come along, and I can assure you there are plenty more out there. Also depending on a white knight to save people is nice, but not really realistic. This is everyone's problem, and the solution will need to be likewise.
Unless he is congenitally stupid, he's not going to take on IBM (or any other patent ruch company for that matter) because their portfolio will be bigger than his portfolio. In fact, all this snatch and grab for small change might even be a useful way for large companies to keep markets open until they have the inclination to own them.
Whoever ends up with the largest patent portfolios is going to win, anyone else is going to need to pay these winners to use the patented infrastructure.
So I would not be waiting for large companies to push for patent reforms. They don't need them.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
We don't need to rehash the stupidity of these patents. Let's assume for now that is an accepted point.
We do need to rehash prior art. The companies populated by lawyers are fully aware that their patents likely have prior. Give them some credit.
The first folks they will chase down are mom and pop shops. If they've been keeping up with their industry best practices they won't send out too many notices at once as they will realize they will risk having the group band together, at which point they may be able to defend themselves.
What small org has the $100,000 - $200,000 to see this kind of thing all the way through to conclusion against a group of aggressive lawyers. Who has the time to manage the lawsuit?
They could charge $250 and I promise you, despite all the raving of prior art on slashdot, the VAST majority of folks, myself probably included will pay, even if we KNOW it is totally bogus.
Our only hope is they go after a small company that is actually owned by a big bad company who has enough lawyers of their own to bludgen them into submission.
Or that we get the IP laws changed so that folks like this stand a much smaller chance of success.
Or that a rich benefactor be willing to put $1 million or so into a fund designed to have a "chilling effect" on their operations. I would volunteer to run such a fund.
A patent on the "Use of Common Sense to Solve Real-World Problems" was recently granted.
MOD PARENT UP. ...Not that I agree with you. While I would understand someone wanting to patent something he/she actually did, doing it nine years after the fact? Seven years after the limitations expire?
And it's not always clear what the patent is actually for. It sounds like IRC, Apache, SlashDot, or all of the above; anybody have any guesses? It's such a basic, fundamental thing (as far as I can tell, reading through that 100-page-ish pile of gibberish) that it's a root part of the Internet- and if it is IRC or basic message board protocol, it's very provable that it existed long, long before '94.
I'm pretty sure he only pushed the patent through with either a few well-placed bribes, or more likely well-placed obfuscation so nobody can figure out what the hell he just patented.
Hopefully, if it's the latter, that trend will continue so he can't defend it either.
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
... someone just shoot the bastard.
Interprocess: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) RFC 793 September 1981.
Intraprocess: main memory ENIAC 1946.
..and so on. This is plain nonsense and any competent lawyer will win the case against this atent. Not even OJ Simpson's pals can play this practical joke on a federal court.
"This is not to say that the entire legal prof is a leech... only that legislation is abused for the sake of acquiring money that isn't legitimately earned. "
Well as the saying goes. "Behind every greedy lawyer, is a greedy client." Another variant is "Behind every greedy lobbyist, is a greedy organization." If our legal system is a Frankenstein, then who's the mad doctor?
Perhaps a few years too late, but IP is a network protocol that can communicate with other editions of itself independent of the underlying physical network technology (802.3, 802.4, 802.5, 802.11, ppp, fddi, atm etc.)
Of course this could be said of SDLC, HDLC, X.25, but all of these tended to specify what hardware infrastructure would be used at some point or another. Once the OSI model was created, as well as people implementing IP on various platforms, the cat was out of the bag. All of this was happening prior to 1990, so dating it at 1994, or 2003 (as appears to be the case with the article in question) means that there is sufficient prior art to eliminate the effectiveness of this pattent.
-Rusty
You never know...
just got it,it's the Charlie Northrup action figure.
It flouts the constitutional spirit of patents,its head spins round and round,spits up pea soup and cries f**k me!f**k me!f**k me!
realistic skin and two openings(somewhat indistinguishable from each other)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the USPTO site:
For over 200 years, the basic role of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has remained the same: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to inventors the exclusive right to their respective discoveries.
As much as I agree that this is a laudable goal, I think it's obvious from this case and others that in today's high-paced climate, patents often serve to do exactly the opposite.
The truth of the matter is that after 20 years, modern technology is most likely so far behind the curve that it's useless or, at best, so developed that no right-minded business is willing to spend anything on it's continued development. Thus, patents such as these no longer serve to give a small advantage to inventors and protect fledgling technology. Rather, they tend to provide a means for the Chucks of the world to significantly inhibit development for the entire useful life of the technology. This isn't the industrial age anymore; to think that 20 years still represents a "limited time" is both ignorant and counterproductive.There is so much more to say but I know I'm preaching to the choir here. So I'll ignore the obvious statements and just ask my questions.
I don't quite get it. I thought defending a patent was an expensive process. If everyone here seems to agree there is a load of prior art and most can't even agree on WHAT the patent is actually for - how can it cost that much to defend against? Isn't the accused company innocent until proven guilty? How are patents revoked or invalidated once granted? If someone patents a string of human DNA - am I not Prior Art??
Forget designing email from the ground up - start with IP Patents.
IANAL - Amen.
Note how things seem to change abruptly when things get bad enough.
Remember when the Standard Oil Company had a stranglehold on anything to do with petroleum? Then one day, BAM!
The Bell System had just about monopoly on anththing telephonic? You could not even put an extention phone in, despite fully agreeing to pay for any use of the line?
I get the idea we just sit back and let the USA paralyze themselves. While we spend our resources having all sorts of petty arguments, the rest of the world will go on.
Its all about economics.
Its what did USSR in. It can do the USA in too.
Once our government realizes we are seriously losing our capability of supporting ourselves, they will start paying attention. Once another world power ( probably China ) becomes strong enough that they could take control, where we could not do anything about it if they did, we will see action. Of course, by then, it will be too late. Especially if that new power sees no logic in recognizing the lifestyles or property of those here who don't produce anything. Kinda like we don't recognize any power or property of the Iraqi ex-powers-that-was. They may have been billionaires, now they are just bobbling heads hocking up words. While the new powers-that-be not only ignore them, but may even consider them a pest that needs to be exterminated. I mean, who do you think will be needed in the country, a wealthy landowner, or someone who can make the water pump work?
Remember how our Government actually encouraged youth to go into the sciences during the cold war? I think when the time comes where we really need to get our nose back to the wheel and start doing something, legislation will be passed to "clear the clutter" so things can happen.
Until then, its gonna be the same ol, same ol. The big kids get to the playground, call dibs on everything that can be played with, then rest on their big butts collecting extortion from anyone who tries to play with anything.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I've always thought that Web Services is just a rip-off of ONC-RPC (the basis behind NFS, NIS, NIS+):
.x file, WS uses wsdl.
RPC uses XDR to marshal data, Web Services uses XML.
RPC uses TLI as the transport mechanism, WS uses HTTP.
RPC uses
RPC uses portmapper to advertise services, WS uses UDDI.
It's not very much different, and as long as this guy didn't explicitly define XML, I don't see how his patent is valid.
So it needs to be conditional. Technology patents get three years and can be renewed to five, max; all other patents at their current levels.
The difficulties would be in defining the categories- and then making heads or tails of the patent to figure out where it is.
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
I just finished reading Practical Cryptographyby Niels Ferguson and Bruce Schneier, and in the back there is a brief chapter about software patents. These comments are in a crypto book, but are addressed to software patents in general.
Among the choice comments are:
- Our current patent system is completely out of control. At best, patents are a necessary evil. At worst, they are an entirely legal form of fraud and blackmail.
- We think that the IT industry would be better off without patents than with patents.
- [t]he current system is simply not working.
- The patent system won't be fixed, because there is simply no political gain to be made in this aread.
All this is, as most people agree, true, but Schneier and Ferguson seem to think that it's something that we have to live with. Money talks, they say, and "There is, of course, onne group of people that consistently benefits from the patent system: the lawyers. No prizes for guessing which professional group claims that the current system is workable, or even good."Sad, but there you go.
BTW, the book is truly outstanding, and fills a huge gap in the literature of crypto: watch this space...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
It is an exercise in futility to continually castigate the guy about prior art this and prior art that. As everyone should know, the patent office is slow as snot in mid-winter while technology just now shifted into third gear with 4 more to go.
Technology is advancing so fast that any patent filed today would be nearly obsolete by the time it is finally awarded. Also, according to the story, the PTO went through this patent with a fine toothed comb. That added even more time. All the while, technology is speeding forward.
Wether you like it or not, his patents *appear* to be valid and no amount of whining will change that. This is something that is going to have to be decided in court. Yes, IBM patents everything under the sun as well but no one seems to bitch about them. "Hey, it's IBM. It's what they do." Get over it. Even IBM might not be able to get around this one.
One guy had the fore-thought and insight to think of web services before web services was even a solid concept. So what. Making fun of him with idiotic theories will not change matters. Get over it.
What I am saying, is that every now and again individuals, with out the help from multi-billion dollar conglomerates, can sometimes come up with multi-billion dollar ideas. Get over it. Move on. Nothing to see here.
Your actions in life will determine your children's future.
IBM did significant development of computer theory. They've probably contributed more than any other company combined. Granted, they have screwed up at times, and screwed up royally, but they don't appear to be running around smashing others with only lawyer-based divisions, a'la Rambus. They're also contributing back into something that I use on a daily basis as my primary computer platform, even when they didn't invent UNIX. Right now, IBM is a community player, and while that could change in theory at any moment, they're more my friend than this freak who is trying to demonstrate a patent on hypertext transfer protocol...
I have always said that its ok to be the 800 pound gorilla, as long as you don't go around smashing things. We need 800 pound gorillas to do big things. I'm a fan of IBM personally, in spite of their past anti-trust position that they have left behind them. I still have several IBM 325 pcservers from 1997 that refuse to die. Microsoft could do well to note that the fans don't happen until you quit acting like a jerk.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
It's cheaper in the short-term to just give in to these assholes, but if everyone always fought every garbage patent, it would put them out of business.
And that would be cheaper in the long run.
His patent describes the application layer of the OSI network model (presentation layer, too, in the old 7-layer version)...
Doesn't the OSI model predate all of his patents?
Simply ignore the patent. When he sends you a letter demanding money, ignore that too.
The "Costs more money to sue than settle" strategy works both ways. If no one settles, he won't have any money to sue anyone. If he does sue you, up the ante and tell him to go away or you're going to sue him back for the costs of defending the lawsuit he's about to lose.
paintball
He's invented IP!
As in TCP/IP!
What an amazing individual!
And look, he did it decades after the fact!
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Yes, the "circular transportation facilitation device" patent has been awarded to John Keogh.
Patents are becoming very difficult to validate because of the extreme number of patents and the extreme levels of knowlege to validate patents. However, this situation plays directly into the hands of the big corporations and rich lawyers squeezing out the very people that patents were set out to protect in the first place.
Large corporations love this scenario, they love to pay for patents to squeeze out the smaller players. I have yet to find a large corporation that does not play this game. Do a google search on "abuse frivolous patent" and you will find scores of well documented patent abuse cases.
The only way to fix this is to come up with another system and legislate out of the current abuse. Start screaming to your nearest congresscritter/minister.
I'm convinced now more than ever that the political systems need to be better controlled by people with a clue and a genuine interest in helping the whole and not the wealthy campaign donating individual.
Posting yet another case of patent abuse is just plain boring, doing somthing about it would pick my interest.
You make a "company populated by lawyers" sound like a bad thing.
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." -George Bernard Shaw
What makes you so sure this would blow up in his face? Pan-IP has taught us weasels of this sort go after small fish until they have sufficient war-chest, not to mention a slew of precedent, to throw in IBM's face. I case you haven't been paying attention, our favorite whipping boy Rambus has been making some headway, thanks to some judges overlooking their devious behaviour while a member of JEDEC.
The damn shame in all this, and I'd love nothing better at this date than for someone to dig something like this up, is that the founders of the internet didn't make some blanket statement such as, "Whomsoever shall conduct business using these tools shall forgo any claim to intellectual property of methods or procedures pursuant to conducting commerce." Perhaps back in the DARPA roots there may be such a thing as, all your base are belong to public domain in the interest of furthering research. Sadly the lack of reason appears to hold sway.
"Ah ha, sent one packet, have it processed, get one packet back! A novel idea, I shall patent it and all subsequent technology!"
Given the chance, some bastard would attempt to patent breathing air and the way things are going they'd be awarded the patent.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
sure, but if it gets out before I patent it, then tough for me.
and yes, I have been there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Let me propose to you another hypothetical situation.
You, a programmer, create a wonderful technology. Realizing its potential, you obtain a US patent on it. But then once the patent comes through, you file it in a drawer and forget about it. You go back to your day job. In the mean time, smart and more motivated people have recreated something like what you made, and are busy taking over the world with it. After they have succeeded, you come out of your hole and say "Hey! I came up with that first! I want money!"
You would have every right to expect people to desire your slow and untimely demise for such moronic behavior.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
It sounds like something lifted off USENET.
Meanwhile, Charlie, who's got a little tiny company called Global Technologies Ltd, is productizing the IP under the code name DASCOA, short for Discovery and Connectivity Oriented Architecture, which is basically what it does using XML.
So, the IP does architecture? And that's not a "code name", it's an acronym.
The US Office of Patents and Trademarks pored over his application simply forever, comparing it to other like-minded patents.
Patents have minds? Perhaps she means applications submitted by like-minded applicants. One last then I'm done. Can you say "run on sentence"? I knew you could.
It's all about the automated discovery and connection of Web services though the word "Web" was never used in the filing since the Web didn't exist back then outside of research circles but 518 describes how to connect to a service using TCP/IP so it doesn't matter, it anticipates Web services.
Doesn't this rag have editors? I wrote a product review for Java Developer's Journal, also put out by Sys-Con Media, and the editor there came back with changes, then they shipped me a pdf proof to review. Apparently LB&T isn't so rigorous.
Based on the claims, I don't think it's very general, either. To the extent that it is general in ways that would lead to modern-day infringement, it is clearly going to be vulerable to prior art. Network-based bindery formalisms haven't changed since the 80s.
Let's see.
"Whacking competitors is a business tool" and "Life isn't fair. Deal with it."
That was fun.
"Industrial espionage is a business tool" and "Life isn't fair. Deal with it."
Better, better.
"Insurance fraud is a business tool" and "Life isn't fair. Deal with it."
Nice.
"Defrauding investors and employees is a business tool" and "Life isn't fair. Deal with it.".
Whoo Hoo.
"Dumping toxic waste illegally is a business tool" and "Life isn't fair. Deal with it."
Yum.
You know? Life is so much easier when one doesn't have a conscious. Thanks dude.
"Not to nitpick, but shouldn't we expect a little common sense from the people that we pay with our tax dollars? I mean come on, the whole "ignorance is bliss/we are overworked" excuse is really beginning to wear a little thin."
I repeat again, patent examiners are NOT paid by your tax dollars, the USPTO is one of 2 fully fee funded organizations in the government (the other is part of the FAA), so patent examiners are paid by the applicants in effect, in fact currently 500 million of the USPTO's revenue is siphoned away to pay for other agencies's budgets(about 25% of their total revenue). If this money was restored, the PTO could hire more examiners, spend more money for training, etc.
From your comments, it doesn't sound like you are an educated patent professional. If you want to read things from an examiners perspective, read the USPTO patent examiner union's website, www.popa.org. This website should really be featured on slashdot so that posters can understand the patent process from the examiner's side.
Additionally, there is a backlog of over 500,000 applications, that is there are cases filed 4 years ago which haven't even had a first examination on them and the PTO processes less than 500,000 applications a year so pendency will increase even more.
In particular, this case has a priority date of 1994, that is, any references, publicatons, etc after 1994 can't be applied. Try understanding more about the patent office, the massive number of forgein application filins and PCT (patent cooperation treaty filings which are supposed to help applications) before you post.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
After my eyes crossed reading the patent (and maybe not understanding all of it) all I could think of was "gee, we did that at the University of Illinois in the late 80s." Connecting to a mainframe computer from a specialized client that used TCP/IP as a communications medium. There were directory services, local and remote executing, fees for computing royalties, directories to be searched to find applicable content.
Oh well.The world would be a different place if Universities had been into patenting cool ideas instead of just writing papers about them and then having the commercial sector use the technology.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
Mmm, no. No patent would have to be filed, just prior art proven. (Although a previous patent that this one infringes on would be a good proof of prior art.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
you can think of an invention, show it to no one, and file for a patent seveal years after you thought of it as long as you didn't tell anyone else, publish information on it, sell it etc. You will recieve a filling date based on when you filed an application, but you can file a sworn affidavit to estabish a new earlier filing date, during the patent process. it works like this
examiner produces prior art A, which was filed before applicants invention. the applicant replies with a sworn affidavit saying we made our invention before that date, the affidavit includes documentation proving that they had indeed invented before that date. the new filing date is the same date as the reference a's filing date.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
So what happened to the theory that only megacorps could use patents? Seems like one guy named Charley can do it.
With all this talk about IBM, i'm suprised i haven't heard of other companies who would be forced to "roll over." Specifically, those who do not particularly like to roll over to anyone.
Now this could be a good or bad thing, but chances are if MS had to start leasing some of their Network stuff, they would unleash their horde of lawyers.
For that matter, i don't think Apple would be too happy with this either.
I don't think this guy has a chance. While he possibly could be in the right legally (IANAL), he will get rolled over if he goes after some of these companies.
Granted, some will just pay, but i doubt MS would pay when they could vary well keep him in court untill he is broke, and then buy the patents from him as a way to bail him out.
Just a possibility...
DAMN STRAIGHT, it is about time someone had the balls to stand up for what they truly believe in. MOD THIS COMMENT STRAIGHT UP MY GOOD FRIENDS!
The more you know, the less you understand.
Do my eyes deceive me, or does it look like this guy is patenting clustering and/or grid computing?
I feel like I am getting old when someone patents something that was already done in the good old days of yore. But I don't feel old!
1) Netbios/SMB in the mid 1980's covers most of his protocol discovery network claims (OSI).It also refutes any of his service provider claims if you think of the central fileserver as the provider of services (which I think qualifies).
2) Purchasing items was done through compuserve over dialup long before this patent. I still have my 1985 (5.25 floppies) Compuserve kit to prove so.
I didn't read the whole patent. I didn't see what, if any, physical medium was claimed (the damn double speak gives me a headache). If someone wants to give me an itemized claim, I can probably refute most the rest. There is no physical difference from a LAN/MAN/WAN from the internet. Only the protocol has changed.
Bob Metcalf should be consulted to refute more than I can.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
What have you "created"? If I see someone wearing an interesting color combination and think "that looks cool!" and buy or make clothes with that color combination, do you have the right to sue me? Or if I see that you ordered a pizza with an unusual combination of toppings that I hadn't seen before -- do I have to pay you to have my neighborhood pizzeria make me one with that combination? What if I hadn't seen your pizza and independently came up with that topping combination after you did?
There is no such thing as intellectual "property" -- property and ownership are not time-limited, as copyrights and patents are. Copyrights and patents are just copyrights and patents, not property.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
This sounds like Lemelson. You know, the foundation of which gives piles of money to MIT. While individuals and corporations in the world research and develop technology at great expense, others mine patent law. Lemelson was a miner.
But this has such a buzz in the corporate world, I have to belive that he could get better leverage on corporate IT managers than mom and pop shops -- assuming that he wants to be a racketeer and shake people down with his patent lawyers.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You, a programmer, create some wonderful technology using lots and lots of existing technology in an obvious "here is the next logical step" sort of way. There is very little total originality in programming.
We take existing technology and make it work in a way that satisfies the needs of ourselves and our clients. We should get paid for this but we should not get paid for everyone that uses an idea that we had "first".
Do you find it unfair that a ditch digger doesn't get residual income every time there is a big rainstorm?
I don't have any problem saying, honestly, that I don't desire control over every program and/or technology I come up with. I expect to be paid for my time and effort and recognized for my achievements but I certainly don't want a team of attorneys harassing people for their own implementations of an obvious idea I might have had once.
Coding Blog
I also worked on the short documentary that was filmed during the course of the project and which was shown ultimately to a Congressional committee, IIRC.
Maybe someone somewhere will find the existence of this old research and its public publications of use...
if you dont want the "funny" posts, set you comment modifiers to -5 funny posts... i do.
Sorry, I meant CORBA, not SOAP.
Table-ized A.I.
Capitalism didn't worry about long run.
Money for ya!
Hey Charlie, It has been a long time since we were mere code monkies for Dun & Bradstreet.
You should reconsider your whole position on patents dude; you are just stifling inovation. The days for the need for patents has long gone.
Jamey
Jamey Kirby
It is a joke. All software patents are joke. The reward should be for the best implementation. So what if you have an idea. If you suck at implementing,the you make no money. If someone else does a great job at implementing it, well the, you can refer back to the old saying: "10% inspiration and 90% perspiration."
He will go away.
Jamey
Jamey Kirby
Nice try, Mr. Northrup!
:-)
"beee" my foot...
> You, a programmer, create some wonderful technology.
Imagine the following situation: You recognize a problem, a tough one! You spend months, or years, and a great deal of your own capital finding a solution. At last, you've got it! It's brilliant!
Next day, I hear about your solution from your secretary. Hah, I say. The schmuck - now I'll implement his solution and make a fortune!
That, it seems to me, is what patents are supposed to prevent. It is not what happened here. Rather, this guy saw a technology, immediately - with no effort or cost to himself - saw where it was headed, which was apparently so obvious that 5 years later most of the world ran on the idea (how many people did internet banking and shopping before 99? 96? Of course you did!) and decided to file a patent.
Life isn't fair. Deal with it. While much of your post was informative, last thing anyone needs is yet more cynicism.
no, no, no....
s /2 003/20030404/default.htm
IT is just an idea. IT is about ideas and realizing them, like realizing a story. IT has no reasonable limitations, etc. Hence IT should be protected by copyright, but not patents.
Patents suck and Greenspan says almost the same. Consider the following quote:
Indeed, the nature of intellectual property is importantly different from physical property. In particular, one individual's use of an idea does not make that idea unavailable to others for their own, simultaneous use. Furthermore, new ideas almost invariably build on old ideas in ways that are difficult or impossible to delineate. From an economic perspective, this provides a rationale for making the calculus, developed initially by Leibnitz and Newton, freely available, despite the fact that those insights have immeasurably increased wealth over the generations. Should we have protected their claim in the same way that we do for owners of land? Or should the law make their insights more freely available to those who would build on them, with the aim of maximizing the wealth of the society as a whole? Are all property rights inalienable, or must they conform to a reality that conditions them?
http://www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs/speeche
He asks questions, but he understands wealth should be a society NOT an individual. And that is why the IT industry did so well. A community proposered.... Remember the difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple wanted to control, not Microsoft. Who is the more dominate player? I rest my case....
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
If he takes on IBM he will wind up like Major H. Edwin Armstrong (remember him? He patented The Super Regenitive circuit in 1916, The Superhetrodyne circuit in 1924 and FM radio in the 30's
RCA took himto the cleaners)
In Soviet Russia, Charlie patents YOU!
You, a programmer, create some wonderful technology. It's so wonderful, in fact, that it spreads all over the world and is used by nearly everyone on a daily basis. Would you not want some measure of control on this technology that you labored over for so many hours?
You may want to exercise 'control' (read: gain some measure of profit, as well as power over others) but whether or not you deserve it is another kettle of fish altogether.
And that's the basic premise that no one seems to question: what universal right exists that says that anyone has any business at all patenting this sort of intellectual endeavor? By what reasoning can one logically conclude that a person can assert control over a method of communication, or worse, over something they didn't even invent in the first place - like a gene in a specific plant or animal?
There is no rational basis for allowing intellectual 'property' of this nature to be patented. It is simply a method for a single person, or some small group of people, to exert control and dominance over others - sometimes for the profit, sometimes for the power, sometimes for both. In all situations a tiny minority (sometimes a minority of one) benefits, and everyone else loses.
There's a huge difference between inventing a specific physical object with exact specifications, and being able to limit production of that object for a very short and well-defined period of time, and being able to patent something like a method or a protocol or a naturally-occurring or naturally-invented object. The first may or may not spur invention - we don't really know if this is true or not - the second stifles technological advancement.
The argument used in favor of patents by lawyers and the clueless is that without such 'protections' no one would 'invent' anything. History has taught us that this line of reasoning is complete and utter bullshit, but people will buy the worst smelling load of sewage if you package it properly. And clearly, the lawyers and those people heavily invested in the status quo have mastered the art of screwing folks over and making them like it so well that these folks are off to the races defending the rapists and passing laws to allow them to rape on any pretext they desire....
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I can see lots of problems with this.
However, it's almost a perfect analogy to the RIAA music police.
So Charlie Northrup is going to start charging the labels for providing content. I love it. How much is this going to cost MusicNet, Pressplay and Rhapsody?
And what about CNN? AOL? Google, Yahoo?
Hell, what about slashdot? They're providing us a service.
Patent or not, it's too late to turn off the Internet.
The ironic thing is that the Web was invented in 1993. This shows one of two things:
1) He patented something that he knew was already invented.
2) The web was so easy to invent two times in one year by two people, it was an obvious invention and couldn't be patented.
I'm so glad we don't have those kinds of patent policies over in Europe. Our businesses would just roll over and die before you could say "lawsuit".
She'll put on a school uniform and take it up the ass.
Interesting point, even if I suspect you are trying to troll.
Please, please, please. Someone who thinks like Mr Anonymous tell me
a) What exactly they see as the problem with the gov't
b) How they would change things if they had their way.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
I started college in 1993.
One of the first things that had you do was set up a 'services' account (aka Email account replete with shell access as well as other fun things like Gopher, FTP, Telnet, etc).
I started MUDing before 1994.
Mmmmm prior art. By 1994, just about everyone at the university had a webpage (or at least a placeholder for one).
Also, doesn't all the work on ARPANET, MILNET, etc count as prior art? It was up and running before Chuckie came along with his idea. Didn't BBN produce tons of prior art regarding this prior to '94?
If he dies, who gets the patents?
The problem here is that there are no penalties for abuse of the patent system. Claiming to have invented something you obviously did not should be treated as fraud.
Basically, the current U.S. patent system has descended into a registry system. Filing and having a patent accepted is having put on file "I invented X on date Y" It's just not possible for them to check applications thuroughly enough. They would have to employ someone "skilled" in every art.
If you combine this with the ability to loose by default in the US legal system, you get some very nasty effects. Take this example:
Step one:
I try to patent the mouse. I have odds that this patent will slip through and be accepted. If it does not I just try some other technology.
Step two:
I use my new patent to file lawsuits against small companies for small amounts of money. It would cost them more to get my patent thrown out that to settle.
Currently, the practice above isn't even illegal. It's a blatant abuse of the system but there is no provision to punish anyone for abusing it. People who pull the kind of shit should go to laid. Their patent application was a lie.
If I pretended to own a piece of property I had no real rights to, and charged people money to park there, I would be guilty of fraud. The same should be true for IP.
Life is too short to proofread.
You, a programmer, create some wonderful technology. It's so wonderful, in fact, that it spreads all over the world and is used by nearly everyone on a daily basis.
Then you say
Would you not want some measure of control on this technology that you labored over for so many hours?
and
Would you not like some shred of claim to its origin?
The two are completely different. Control implies IP whereas claim to it's origin requires no property whatsoever, and the remedies for a wrong against authorship are quite well established. So, no I do not want control, but yes I require "acknowledgement" of authorship. So no Mr Northrup is NOT on the good side in this fight.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
The WIPO changes are detailed here (PDF).
So is there a mechanism for us to challenging the USPTO concerning patents like this? What would happen if 100's of Slashdotters contacted the USPTO armed with all of this prior art.
"Would you not want some measure of control on this technology that you labored over for so many hours?"
In the computer science arena? I think not. I base this on several ideas:
1) Software algorithms are essentially expressions of mathematical formula (in a broad sense). This is inherently not patentable. Its the equivalent of copyrighting a prime number because it took you a long time to calculate that is was prime.
2) Based on 20+ years of software development, I've not seen any new algorithm. Every program is cribbed from some other program. As far as I can tell (and I'm not being facetious), nobody starts a program from a blank editor. Each program, or generation of programs, is in improvement. Allow minor improvements to an algorithm to be the basis of a family of patents is likeChevy patenting the automobile because the new Corvette goes faster than the last Corvette.
Lets look at some practical implications of patents:
1) If you consider my previous point to be true, then a small inventor can't benefit from Software patents because large corporations can always show prior art to virtually any software algorithm. You, as "Joe Inventor" don't have the resources to do this type of research so as a practical matter, software patents aren't useful to the mythical lone inventor.
2) In practice, software patents have been used exlusively by large corporations as leverage with other large corporations in arguments over control of markets.
I think the software industry was more vibrant and innovative prior to the "invention" of software patents. So if the intent of software patents has been to foster innovation, it has failed miserably at that goal and on the basis of that alone should be scrapped.
Finally to address your main point about hard work justifying a reward, consider the case of the man who makes a model of NYC entirely out of toothpicks and spends his entire life doing it. Impressive? Hell yea. Is he entitled to some sort of compensation? I don't think so. Hard work and effort is not equal to money.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Or does DARPA have him beat with prior art?
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
In the book, one of the villains made his money by patent blocking. His company would look at emerging technologies and try to patent what would be key pieces for them. They wouldn't do any development, just patent the ideas of the key pieces. You have to imagine he would have killed to be able to retroactively extend his patents to cover things after they had been developed.
Mr. Northrup and the lawyers who are supporting his efforts are in my opinion just one more example of the truly vile human beings our society is turning out. Yes something needs to be done, I would suggest trying to vote for people that arent lawyers.
Apple wanted to control [hardware], not Microsoft.
Synergy is your friend
The ftp client integral with almost all Un*xes since the early '80s.
F U NE X N M? Son: "Dad... How do you spell 'hourly'?" Dad: "0 * * * *"
And as of 04-22-2008, the owner has yet to collect any royalties whatsoever.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The paradyme for successful business in the new millenium:
1. Sue the pants off everybody else.
2. Collect settlements and payments from rullings.
3. Profit!
No ??? about it.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
You make a reasonable post. ...Then you lose all credibility with that asshole .sig.
I donft get it...
-- My Weblog.
So you spouting about cryptography experts who are now self-proclaimed experts in patent/innovation policy?
Do you also go to your tax advisor to get your prostate exam?
"10% inspiration and 90% perspiration."
Well I guess that's why Microsoft is so successful -> Their competition just did not try hard enough.
Horseshit if Greenspan says almost the same.
He was merely pointing out the significance of IP in our modern economy and raises issues concerning the difficulty in enforcing any sort of equitable system of protecting IP.
He is asking basic questions on both sides of the IP fence.
He is nowhere stating that patents do not encourage motivation or that innovators should not be rewarded with temporary monopolies on their innovation.
Once another world power ( probably China ) becomes strong enough that they could take control, where we could not do anything about it if they did, we will see action. Of course, by then, it will be too late.
Umm.. excuse me,... but, we have already seen action.
China is in the process of strengthrning their IP laws/enforcement in order to allow for their world power emergence.
Simplr.
Prolly too simple for you to see it.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
would that not trump any number of previous out-of-court settlements
Yes, it would.
You will not find any court opinions based upon previous settlements.
The only thing that previous settlements can do in a legal since is to throw out a previous opinion related to the settlement.
For example:
2 sides might agree to settle a patent case with the stipulation that the court's ruling on claim meaning be abandoned and thus could not be binding on successive lawsuits.
The judge would, in most cases agree to this stipulation in order to get the case off of the docket.
Is it any coincidence that this guy hails from New Jersey and makes the following statement?
Charlie suggests that a license might also be helpful in mitigating the liabilities of companies being sued by other companies for some sort of Web services infringement.
Sounds like Mob extortion to me. Pay up the protection money so we can protect you from what we'll do to you if you don't pay up. burnin1965
I don't think the patent office is technical.
This is a typical client / server deployment.
Seriously. From reading the claims in this patent, he appears to be describing SMTP, with its use of human-readable text in handshaking, & the messages exchanged when transfering the body of the mail or a uuencoded attachment. (Note: this protocol -- including the handshaking & confirmation message codes -- is the basis for almost every other network protocol out there, such as FTP & HTTP.)
Then again, he lists a number of claims such as the ISO 7-layer networking model, & the ability of a daemon or service on one computer to assign a port for the daemon or service on another computer to send data to. In other words, running SMTP on a multitasking system like UNIX.
(More reading.)
Sheesh! It looks like he's attempting to patent the concept of interacting with a multitasking computer over a network above the transport layer.
If that's the case, he's going to need a lot of luck to enforce that patent. RFC 821, which described one part of what he's claiming, has been around since 1982. And it was implimented on multitasking computers like UNIX & VMS almost immediately.
Unless he's thinking of one specific application of all of this technology that does not infringe on existing art. Claim 3 might explain it:
``The method of claim 1, wherein said registration information includes general user information, said general user information including one or more of a user name, address, telephone number, beeper number, pager number, fax number, cellular number, email ID."
In other words, his invention is certified email -- which will put an end to this address spoofing that spammers indulge in!
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Personally, I think any individual that has applied for spurious broad patents on prior art let's say 3 times should be barred from applying for any more patents for a period of about 17 years.
A period of probation would do some good.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Not to trod on the amazing career of a consumate Troll, but can some mod this asshat down for a truly offensive Sig line? (Parent Comment #5777137)
What were you expecting?
yeah, how dare anybody want to profit from their labor, that's not fair.
The only poeple who would benefit from no software copyrights would be the multinationals that would take your 10 years worth of effort, pass it to their ten-cents-an-hour code shop in East BFE, then turn around and sell the product for 10000$ per site license, of which you would see nothing. You on the other hand have no offshore code sweatshop or distribution channel so you will never compete.
Yes, the system can and is abused; however, that is not a sufficient reason to scrap it.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
substitute "patent" for "software patent" and you are dead on.
The inherent problem with granting government entitlements to twenty year monopolies (or, really, monopolies of any length of time) are most obvious with software, because software develops at such a rapid pace, and because software blurrs the line between the written word (expression) and engineering: indeed it is a hybrid of both, with characteristics of both.
However, if you look at the pharamceutical industry (AIDS and brast cancer research stifled with cease and desist letters alleging patent violations by the researchers), the aviation industry (the US government seized the original airplane patent), or any other industry founded upon previous and ongoing invention, you will find the same problems, and the same truths.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
no, imagine this situation: you've created some wonderful technology. it's so wonderful that you want to sell software based on it and make a fortune, or maybe you want to give it away, use it in an open source project and become famous, or whatever. only you can't, because somebody else has had the same idea some years earlier, has patented it and now makes *your* idea illegal. even though you had it yourself. independently of him. that's the problem with patents.
Invading foreign countries to rape their natural resour...oh wait. Scratch that. I didn't say anything. Honestly.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Correct! Nothing worse than watching Netscape cry like a baby.
Jamey Kirby
Let's start with the fact that if you don't give the government a significant portion of your hard-earned money, you go to jail.
You can go to jail engaging in unpopular activities in the privacy of your own home, like smoking pot or (in some states), having gay sex.
Anybody with enough money and pull can buy a law that will eventually violate your rights.
Any questions?
As for how I'd change it? I'd rather eradicate it. Read this page, even though it's posted on an AOL server.
Ummm, we were talking about 'patents' not 'copyright.' I think the clear implication in claiming that patents should not cover software is the idea that copyright should. IMHO the exact opposite should be the case.
Yes, the system can and is abusedWhich system? The patents system or the copyright system?
Just to further lionize IBM we might note that they also do some incredible engineering research.
"And ole Charlie is doin "real good" down at the corner drugstore where the red light is. He can spot them out of state plates up to three blocks away. And when they get right on top of that green light, he just pushes that "secret button" underneath the corner drugstore counter. That 'yella' light only last for a tenth of a second."
(Ripped 'poorly' From Hoyt Axton)
Just to further lionize IBM we might note that they also do some incredible engineering research.
:D Who wouldn't?
All hail IBM!
But seriously, their contributions to Linux alone are pretty damn significant, a billion dollars, and the time of some of their best software engineers. Plus they laid the ground for copper on silicon as well. Also, laying out their own logo with atoms was a neat trick, too. Like I said, you NEED big corporations to do big things, and IBM has been acting pretty responsibly lately. (knocking on wood) Makes it easier to pay a little more for their products, since you feel like you are getting more than a cpu in a box, you are investing in Linux itself.
Now if they could only get the G4 chip up to speeds closer to the P4 as well, I would love to run Linux on a dual G4/2.5ghz on the desktop
Now, just imagine a beowolf of....*SMACK!*
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
meant patents, typed copyrights
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
The same sense in which a novel is an expression of the font used to typeset it...
Crap analogy. Thanks for playing though.
'Software algorithms are essentially expressions of mathematical formula[s]' is not itself an analogy, either. The original reply said '(in a broad sense)', but that isn't correct unless 'broad' is taken to mean 'universal'; it's true in a very specific and demonstrable sense.
Algorithms are mathematics. Software is algorithms, and roughly 0.00001% of algorithms are written 'from scratch'. In general, most of programming is a matter of applying concepts and patterns which are all well-tread areas of research in the field. Most algorithms are decades (or centuries) old before they have any practical (and thus potentially profitable) application outside of research settings. The probability that a working programmer has produced something entirely new and original (ie that hasn't already been discussed in 'the literature', or isn't an otherwise inevitable progression from it) without having been exposed to that collective body of work is pretty damned low. And if he was party to the public science of what he is working on, then what right does he have to halt that research, and hijack its 'marketing rights', simply because he manages to improve upon it? No fuzzy arguments about his god-given right to profit off his hard work, nor fanciful notions that science suddenly stops progressing if you take away the artificial legal rights that enable this sort of nonsense, are rational excuses. When you consider that his research is itself an improvement on an improvement on an improvement ad infinitum, it's totally insane.
Much as engineers may like to romanticize what they do as being an intangible and ingenious black art, in the end its all comes down to drawing upon the work of thousands who came before you to do what you do. It's the nature of any applied science, but particularly so CS.
It is absurd that there are still legal abstractions which allow a single heir to that long intellectual lineage to abruptly interrupt progress for a 'limited term', simply so that he can suck on the teat for awhile. Everything he has done is built on what has come before, yet he shirks his responsibility to those upon whose shoulders he stands. He hoards the knowledge, and is granted bizarre powers by the state to crush and demand tribute of anyone whose work is found to be similar - even if they happened to come upon it by travelling the same (often fairly obvious) path he took.
That path was dug out by generations of others who had to do the real heavy lifting - and, thankfully for us, most of them preferred to write open papers about it and share the knowledge.
Anyone who cannot see the basic injustice of a band of lawyers and bureaucrats coming along and setting up a toll booth on their boy's branch of the path has lost their good sense to their business sense. And yet governments enable this; corporations with enough money to play 'the game' would love to globalize the whole mess. Countries everywhere are now pressured to rework their laws into 'parity', to further extend the reach of this madness. IP/patent law is one of the ugliest features of modern capitalism. The right to profit off one's labours is not guaranteed, and it most certainly would not extend to taking public science hostage, for the sole purpose of turning it into a kind of legal armament on the market, if it did.
A sane society does not use laws to artificially stifle scientific progress, so that a few might live high on the hog for a while. A society whose lawmakers have become hopelessly short-sighted and corrupted, does.
If our fearless leader, "Oh one of great digital bits, Praise Windows", decides, that to actually take over the net, one needs its patent. Then Charlie could sell the patent to MS$ and become another American living off the work of others.
The greatest aim of todays entreprenuers.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!