Microsoft Patenting IM Translation?

theodp writes "The USPTO just published Microsoft's patent application for a Method and system for translating instant messages, in which the software giant demonstrates how an English-speaking sender can type 'Hi' in an IM and it will be translated to 'Hola' for a Spanish-speaking recipient."

Comments

A couple thoughts

[Raindance]

Now, that this is a patent grab exploiting a broken system, is fairly evident. However, two thoughts:

1. This patent is described as setting forth "A method and system translating instant messages between users who communicate in different languages"
Notice that it's only one method being patented; there's nothing stopping me from coming up with my own method. This is not a good patent, but there are worse (one-click shopping comes to mind).

2. This patent, if worded a bit differently, could set forth a way to transparently translate between the native languages of devices, not users, which would perhaps be a more interesting patent considering IPv6, pervasive intercommunication between devices, et cetera; did Microsoft drop the ball on this one?

Re:A couple thoughts

[dki]

The thing I find most interesting about the way the patent is worded:

A content translation module implemented as a computer-executable module (e.g., DLL, exe) utilizes the information contained in the user profile to translate messages from the source language to the destination language. The translated message is then transmitted to the destination device. Because the message is translated prior to delivery, the destination device receives the message according to the destination language.

In other words, the message is translated prior to transmission, not upon reaching the recipient. Does any prior art cover this?

Re:A couple thoughts

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

This was probably a marketing department patent.

They're probably out to launch some kind of "We're so much better than AOL campaign and wanted to make sure that this bullet point on their list of features could be unique to them.

The fact that they did it poorly is unsurprising.

Given the way babel fish treats documents with whole paragraphs worth of context, It's hard to imagine that IM language translation is going to be remotely useful.

Claude: Hi, Ivan, that vaccuum cleaner you left is on the fritz again, it doesn't suck.

Brrrring! You have a new translated message from: buddy_claude "Hello, I use recreational vehicles. The space you left was cleansed by Fritz repeatedly. It is great.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

so, I sent this idea to someone I know who works at microsoft in 2000. It never went anywhere, and I never filed a patent. Do you think I have any legal recourse if I can prove that a Microsoft manager read my idea in that email and subsequently got it patented? or am I SOL?

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah--when my Mexican friend talks to me he thinks in Spanish but translates his thoughts into English so my monolingual ass can understand him.

Re:A couple thoughts

[hesiod]

> he thinks in Spanish but translates his thoughts into English

Sweet, God can claim prior art! Who'da thunkit.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

You just described a protocol gateway, which is not a new idea. Oracle, for instance, has been selling such a gateway for a while now. You can have a client computer speaking IPX talking to a Unix computer that only understands IP. Of course, with someone in the middle. Therefore, it would be unpatentable or easily challenged in court.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

At a prior job a few years back, I helped to implement, and then immediately UN-implement, an automatic translation feature for multinetwork chat rooms. It's not so much that the translations were bad (they were), as the fact that the only users who tolerated the poor translations were the ones with SO LITTLE to say that chat rooms using it were quickly dominated by only the most inane of conversations.

Re:A couple thoughts

[hesiod]

> Do you think I have any legal recourse

Nope, should have patented it yourself.

Re:A couple thoughts

[macdaddy357]

Translation has been around long as language, and the methods for doing it have not really changed. Takeing them online is not new. Prior art! Prior art!

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a good patent, but there are worse (one-click shopping comes to mind).

I patented 1 1/2 click shopping

Re:A couple thoughts

[pyrote]

Ya but except for nasty warts or uglieness, he's un-likely to persue legal matters.
Looking at Gates' visage, I think god already won.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

someone mod the parent up

that has to be a joke...

sure, lets all send our ideas in little notes to M$, they wont steal em, honest!

Re:A couple thoughts

[eliasen]

I did this a long time ago as a learning experience. My Universal Translator applet translates between several languages.

My favorite example was my friend Brian entering "Yo quiero un burrito" and the translation came out "I love a young donkey." Perfectly legitimate translation, too.

This will never work for translating instant messages until people learn to spell correctly, though.

Re:A couple thoughts

[anshil]

Your message circle translated in googles babblefish.
English -> German -> French -> English


This one is now this Patentzupacken which uses a defective system, is rather obvious. However two thoughts:

1. This patent "is described" like fixing "of a method and the system which translates immediate advertisements between users who" communicate "in the different languages", it considers that it is only one method which is patented; there is nothing, me with my own method comes in top stops. This one is not a good patent, but there is badly (Einklickeneinkaufen is come to concern).

2. This patent, if it is written contrary to a top, could fix a manner, between the mother tongues of the devices not to translate not the user which would be perhaps a more interesting patent, IPv6, piercing mutual transport between devices and will cetera considered transparent; Did Microsoft give up the ball on those?

Re:A couple thoughts

[kaltkalt]

No patent describes its claims as "the" widget that does x. All claims are described as "a" widget that does x. It's standard language. If "a" wasn't all-encompassing then patents would be worthless. It's understood that, during the monopoly period, it will be "the" only one. If you make "a" real-time instant messanger translator, they'll sue you.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Mostly a lurker]

the message is translated prior to transmission, not upon reaching the recipient. Does any prior art cover this?

Well, I have worked with database systems where the language of the screen displays is selected based on a user profile: the screens are transmitted already translated to the client (admittedly not on the fly translation). I have also used a little known service called Google that uses preferences to decide which language I normally work with and to offer translations from other languages to this language. This translation is also done prior to delivery to the client.

On the other hand, Microsoft may be the first vendor to translate messages in a specific manner for a particular kind of messenger service.

The situation with software patents is becoming totally bizarre. Actually, I almost wonder if someone in the patent office is trying to help point up the absurdity to a degree where the need for changes in the law will become obvious even to the US Congress.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone remembe reading the /. story a couple of days ago about the international .NET competition. Actually, it may have been a register.co.uk article.
Anyways, the winning team (from the US) developed a system for restaurants, where the waiters key orders in their native language into a PDA. This is then transmitted to the kitchen, and translated into various languages for the chefs. This sounds pretty similar, and was created by a Uni team.
The presentations and awards were held recently. So did MS file the patent before or after hearing the presentation?
Forgive the lack of links, research into patent dates, etc. I'm lazy, it's late this side of the pond and I need my bed. Bye.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice that it's only one method being patented; there's nothing stopping me from coming up with my own method. This is not a good patent, but there are worse (one-click shopping comes to mind).

You forgot about the doctrine of equivalents. This originally was intended to prevent someone from making a device that was the same as a patented invention but only changed some minor detail. More recently, it has been carelessly extended by the courts to the point where if a device merely accomplishes the same thing as a patented device, even if by very different means, then it is considered an infringement.

Re:A couple thoughts

[ambisinistral]

Yea, but will it translate l33t spe4k?

Re:A couple thoughts

[Tony-A]

the only users who tolerated the poor translations were the ones with SO LITTLE to say that chat rooms using it were quickly dominated by only the most inane of conversations.
Hmmmm, sounds right up Microsoft's alley.

Re:A couple thoughts

[fishbot]

AYTTM, the renamed EveryBuddy, can do on the fly translation via BabelFish, and it can do l33t and 3x7r3M3 l33t translation.

It may be that AYTTM could be shown as prior art, as it to is loaded as dynamic module at runtime should the user request it.

Re:A couple thoughts

[HAL9OOO]

As a Unix SysAdmin I used to look after a spanish guy who's english wasn't that good and who requested a little help with translating english type commands into his native language.

As he was using the "csh" environment I suggested to him that he could use a series of aliases in his .cshrc file to provide some crude translation for him. Whilst it's not as classy sounding as the spin good old MS put on it, it did provide instant translation of spanish into english. Could this be construed as "prior art".

The "content" in this case would be the unix command set and the "computer executable module" would be the "C" shell.

Language translation is NOT a new idea.

Yours toungue-in-cheekily

Hal

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

if the translation is done on the server, the machine translation program has access to a much larger data set (to make it more robust). of course, this is going to burn out a lot of CPUs on the MSN servers. IM bloated MSN style... sheesh

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I was discussing ideas for a similar technology with a friend over MSN Messenger (yes, I know my own fault, but I was using GAIM at least) the other day. Then a couple of days later Microsoft files a patent application. Though at least it seems they have not picked up on the two most brilliant aspects of my plans, which will remain secret (for the moment at least).

Just hola, eh?

[haa...jesus christ]

It's gonna be tough if it can't translate any other words...

Re:Just hola, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show you, Microsoft still has the same ideas about content.

Holy cow! A potentially unique patent!

[Anonymous Coward]

75% of the following posts will contain MS bashing.

Re:Holy cow! A potentially unique patent!

[irving47]

I think you're right. I just wonder how much prior art might exist out there. If none, this sounds like something worthy of pursuit.

If they get really ambitious, they could introduce human elements into it that could assist in case of a snafu. Maybe on a subscription basis or something.

Prior art?

[baywulf]

I recall Ultima Online or some other MMPORG having translation capability while chatting.

Re:Prior art?

[Slack0ff]

i think it was phantasy star online on the dream cast that could tranlate from japanese to english and back. But im prone to be wrong.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more obvious prior art: Kopete (kde instant messenger) has a plug-in that already does this.

Re:Prior art?

[I_Want_This_ID]

Prior art doesn't appear to matter any longer. The patent office doesn't have the capacity, capabitlity or the subject matter knowledge to search for, find, and apply prior art. Just approve it and let the courts find the prior art.

Re:Prior art?

[beacher]

as far as UO goes it was Systran, and it slowed your down when you were getting ganked by AZN's..

Kekekeke

They need to have STFU OMG and all the rest in there too....
B

Re:Prior art?

[Citizen of Earth]

Prior art doesn't appear to matter any longer. The patent office doesn't have the capacity, capabitlity or the subject matter knowledge to search for, find, and apply prior art. Just approve it and let the courts find the prior art.

This is why we need to change the system so that patents are published upon submission. The public can submit comments and prior art to the patent office and they can act more as administrators, like they are doing now. If a company doesn't want to risk giving up trade secrets in failed submissions, then they will only submit material that is worthy of a patent.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Phantasy Star Online had a system for translating between English and Japanese, but it only worked when you used the conversation builder (I forget what they called it), in which you constructed sentences by selecting topics and options from a list. As far as I can recall, there was no system to directly translate typed text.

Re:Prior Art?

[hesiod]

> fantastic GPL'd instant messenger Fire

Must be where MS got the idea. 16 day turnaround to write & file a patent request sounds reasonable for a large company.

Re:Prior art?

[natrius]

What the PTO needs is something similar to amicus curiae briefs in the Supreme Court so people who actually know about the technology involved can say something if there is prior art. The only problem with that is that the patents would have to be made public before they are issued, and if the patent is denied, then everyone already knows about the idea and can capitalize on it. I'm sure they could figure out a better system than what they have now.

Re:Prior art?

[lightspawn]

I recall Ultima Online or some other MMPORG having translation capability while chatting.

I think you're thinking of Sega's Phantasy Star Online - but that was an "icon-sentence" to multiple languages, not what we're dealing with here.

Still, there must be prior art - I know I thought of the idea before.

Re:Prior art?

[WEFUNK]

This is why we need to change the system so that patents are published upon submission. The public can submit comments and prior art to the patent office and they can act more as administrators, like they are doing now.

In this case, the application has been published and this patent is likely two to three years away from approval (if ever). Of course this is only a voluntary process right now - and I wonder why MS has chosen this path - perhaps this is really just a "marketing patent" as someone else surmised (a quick Google search suggests that the "inventor" is a software test engineer - I wonder whether how experienced they are?).

As to submitting comments: certainly the USPTO has been posting jobs extensively in various technical magazines and journals targeting members of the slashdot set - I wonder how many of these new patent examiners are reading Slashdot right now? While far from a cure for this broken system, hopefully we'll start to see some savier decision made if these ads lead to hiring more computer literate (and perhaps even skeptical) patent examiners.

Re:Prior art?

[ralatalo]

How about any of the translation programs.... I used a number of them to type in one language and talk to another instantly.....
I even type in one window in one language and presto.... different window a different language....

So where do we send our prior art too so that they can be seen BEFORE the application is approved.

Re:Prior art?

[thetamind_pyros]

Final Fantasy XI sort of has this. When you select from a menu of phrases built into the game (really useful if you are playing on a console without a keyboard) players will see the translated version. Simple system but it works.

Re:Prior art?

[yestertech]

I believe that both everybuddy and it's fork - AYTTM have had this for a long time.

Re:Prior Art?

[odin53]

It doesn't matter that it was filed on Dec. 28, 2001. Patent *protection* runs from the date of filing, sure, but for purposes of prior art, the USPTO is worried about when the subject matter was *invented*. Of course, this is a question that's often argued about. At any rate, for most purposes, the date of invention means "reduction to practice". If MSFT reduced to practice the subject of the patent before Dec. 12, 2001, then obviously no prior art.

Re:Prior art?

[salimfadhley]

Yeah, Ultima Online has had this since version 2. Translation actually causes more confusion than harmony - at first you wonder why these people are talking so odly... :-)

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

They should just post new submissions to slashdot. If there's prior art, some geek will post about it.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Software Test Engineers could be a Software Design Enginer / Test (ie., a developer in the test department for automation and tools etc).

Open youre mind. Fuckwit.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very similar to my first thought - how on Earth can this possibly work when the current state of spelling and grammar displayed on the internet is so deplorable? It will surely be "t3h $uX0r!!1!"

Re:Prior art?

[Jonner]

How is publishing a patent application on their website not making it public? This patent has not been issued yet, only applied for.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use a three phase patent system:

PHASE ONE: Examine the patent application, if all looks good (and would normally be approved under the existing system), it moves on.

PHASE TWO: Public comment period - The patent is essentially granted, but on a trial basis for, say, 2 years, during which anyone can submit potential prior art. At any time the patent office can deny the patent if there is sufficient prior art or other reason due to public comment. While the patent is in this phase, it can't be used to sue for damanges or stop a competitor, but you can inform a competitor that should they NOT ceace and should the patent survie to the next phase, they CAN be sued for damages for NOT ceacing.

PHASE THREE: If after the trial period there is not sufficient reason to deny, the patent becomes fully enforcable.

Not the prettiest of systems, but perhaps a bit better.

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think Microsoft & company would allow this? Billy G. would make 2 phone calls -- one to his banker, and one to Dubya -- and that would be the end of that.

Re:Prior art?

[debrain]

The patent was filed December, 2001. If Kopete didn't have it before then, it's not prior art, unfortunately.

Re:Prior art?

[You're All Wrong]

Quake had it - I "say" 'F10', and it gets translated to 'you bastard' before transmission.

YAW

Re:Prior art?

[assnoodles]

I wrote one two days ago... http://www.jeffpalm.com/im/. --Jeff (jeff@jeffpalm.com)

Re:Prior art?

[SydShamino]

Everquest has it now, and has had it for about a year and a half.

That's IM translation, however, not the specific stuff MS is patenting.

Re:Prior Art?

[Alsee]

The question is whether it saved the users language prefference and automaticlly used that prefference to activate the required translation. Do you know if it did this?

-

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously not.
The patent application was filed December 28, 2001. The translator plugin was added to Kopete September 30, 2002 (Kopete Changelog).

Rob

Re:Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

dMSN (www.dmsn.nl) already does this! it translates between german and english!
It's a java client, using some website for the actual translation, but it works great!

Re:Prior art?

[Naikrovek]

While working at Yahoo! in Sydney, Australia, I wrote an IMVironment for Y!Messenger 5.0 that translated American English to Australian English. "Hello" = "G'day" etc. Many translations were more complicated than that, and I even wrote several phrases in there. I had a grammar checker sketched out in there, to allow it to do translations that I didn't specifically make it aware of, but I got transitioned to desktop support and kitchen cleaner before that stuff was finished.

ahh the joys of working during the .bomb.

Re:Prior art?

[WEFUNK]

Software Test Engineers could be a Software Design Enginer / Test (ie., a developer in the test department for automation and tools etc).

I probably shouldn't feed this, but I'll provide a clarification anyway - that was just an aside, my main point being more that there actually is a technical person listed on the patent - the smoking gun on these sorts of patents tends to be when they are registered by the VP of Marketing. My second point was simply to wonder how experienced the designer might be - a quick search found few results on variations of "Yonas D. Seme" so its doubtful he's very senior, but obviously a Software Test Engineer (even a junior one) could discribe such a system. The indication that this might be a relatively junior person and the fact there is only one "inventor" might also suggest that this whole discussion is a bit of a red herring - there is no indication that this is even under development at MS - maybe just something a junior engineer thought up and convinced their lawyers that there was enough worth to try for a patent.

Bite the wax tadpole

[jkeegan]

This should be interesting.. I wonder how many international incidents will be caused by poor translation once we're used to assuming it works well.

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[MrLint]

Hell id pay for soemtont to write somethign that can autotranslate my bad typing into english.

My irc 'pals' have made me a verb to stand for typos.

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[TheViffer]

All your base are belong to us!!

I am so sad, I could not resist ...

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[56ksucks]

I am so sad, I could not resist ...

That's ok, you posted that 2 seconds before I was going to post the same thing.

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[56ker]

I just use Babelfish if needed. It's ok for IRC - helps to translate what they're saying into English - even if you can write in a different language. Translators don't have much common sense though - and they are very literal....

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody remember Pepsi? And how they "bring your ancestors back from the dead"? I'm sure only good can come from this.

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[delphi125]

This reminds me of two political translation jokes:

The first is a human interpreter in the 60s who translated 'stalk in the rushes' from Russian to 'nigger in the woodpile'. He corrected himself before the (black) US delegate could react, fortunately.

Even better in my AI course a nice example of an EU translation software mistake was given: 'Les bureaucrats vis-a-vis les agriculteurs' (apologies for missing accent and potential other errors in my French). The software omitted the accent - and dashes too - and translated it as 'the bureaucrats live to screw the farmers'. How true.

I won't go in to hydraulic rams and water sheep, such tales are apocriphal, but I will leave you with: time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Well, it would, wouldn't it?

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[FilthPig]

Yeah - 'cause if IMs become the medium of choice for international diplomatic communications, it's not like we're all fucked anyway...

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[Deusy]

More relevantly, I wonder how many international incidents will be avoided by poor translation.

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[Durandal64]

I don't think I could take international politics seriously if that happens. Introducing smileys, "hehe" and "lol" into the international political environment would end the world far more quickly than any nuclear war. :)

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[aelfwyne]

Well... if we put your "all your base" line through babelfish... Imagine this is a rumor spread through a translation infested network.... Here it is translated into several languages, and back into english between each.. then the translation is translated, etc (not including japanese and korean output directly, as I'm not quite sure how well slashdot would handle that).

English: All your base are belong to us!!
Spanish: Toda su base es pertenece a nosotros!!
English: All its base is belongs to us!
French: Toute sa base est appartient à nous!
English: All its base east belongs to us!
Japanese: (Can't display....)
English: Fundamental east everything belongs to us
Korean: (Can't display....)
English: Basic the east all is attached to us

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be interesting.. I wonder how many international incidents will be caused by poor translation once we're used to assuming it works well.

I'm more worried about a poor translation causing an intergalactic incident.

Gort, Klaatu barada nikto, Microsoft!

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[Tim Browse]

Yeah, when you see those delegates at the UN asking questions via human translators, I reckon 85% of the time they're asking "A/S/L?" ;-)

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[lavalyn]

Lint only deals with indentation and some semantics, certainly not lexical correction.

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[dnoyeb]

Heck, I can't even understand the pharases they use on TheRegister, and I'm American...

"pants"???

Re:Bite the wax tadpole

[Ella the Cat]

"pants"???

For example: "several people are posting comments claiming that the patent is pants"

What do you want to say today?

[mao che minh]

I don't know if I want Microsoft in charge of semantics.

User one types: "I use Linux, how about you?"
.....translater.....
User two's screen: "I am a communist with viral ideas towards intellectual property"

User one types: "Have you heard about Microsoft's monopoly and their under-handed business tactics?"
....translater....
User two's screen: "Have you heard about how Microsoft's masterful innovation in information technology has made it the industry leader?"

Or if Stallman coded such a utility/library:

User one types: "I want some pizza"
.....translater.....
User two's screen: "I (as in "self") want (as in "desire") some GNU\Pizza"

Re:What do you want to say today?

[GGardner]

User two's screen: "I (as in "self") want (as in "desire") some GNU\Pizza"

And it better be free!

Re:What do you want to say today?

[nmaeone]

As in beer?

Re:What do you want to say today?

[RLiegh]

If it takes longer than 30 minutes to get there, then it's free (as in "pizza") ;-)

Re:What do you want to say today?

[RenHoek]

That already exists for marketing speak ;) Check here

Re:What do you want to say today?

[frodo from middle ea]

No as in pizza.

Re:What do you want to say today?

[Anonymous Coward]

When was beer free? Last time I can remember... we had to pay to get beer from a store.

Re:What do you want to say today?

[Anonymous Coward]

this post was dumb. eom

Re:What do you want to say today?

[vladkrupin]

No, as in speech. "As in beer" wouldn't work because of the TANSTAAFL principle

Re:What do you want to say today?

[mahdi13]

No it wouldn't work like that...then what would Microsoft need thier PR department for?

Re:What do you want to say today?

[Anonymous Coward]

...with the DNA of the ingredients on floppy disk!

Re:What do you want to say today?

[BillPhillips]

I wonder how they'd translate "All your code are belong to us" ?

Re:What do you want to say today?

[sploxx]

> User two's screen: "I (as in "self") want (as in "desire") some GNU\Pizza"

Emm, the backslash is unix style?

Re:What do you want to say today?

[spitzak]

Aren't getting invited to parties anymore, huh?

Re:What do you want to say today?

[Anonymous Coward]

User two's screen: "I (as in "self") want (as in "desire") some GNU\Pizza"

And it better come with the recipe so I can fix any problems with it!

Re:What do you want to say today?

[Captain Large Face]

And it better be free! (as in "beer")

Re:What do you want to say today?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just have to say that your nick is the worst I have ever seen. And, believe me, there are plenty of pathetic nicks around here.

MS translations

[bobdehnhardt]

But oddly, "Linux" gets translated as "devil-spawn eroder of intellectual property rights"....

OMG!11!!

[thenightfly42]

How does it translate "omg, LOL"? Or perhaps there's a teenager->English option?

Re:OMG!11!!

[Anonymous Coward]

omfg stfu newb kthk bye

Re:OMG!11!!

[Anonymous Coward]

u want 2 cybr?????////

Re:OMG!11!!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but there *is* a "moron" option. There's also a "you poor fucking humans!" option.

Re:OMG!11!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the first thing I thought when I read this. I'd also like a Shift key fixer too. Drives me nuts when a couple of my lazy cowokers type in all lowercase. They even do it for names of people.

Re:OMG!11!!

[Grishnakh]

Hey, it's better than the morons who type in all caps.

Re:OMG!11!!

[Anonymous Coward]

TAHTS TEH FIRST THNG I THOUGHT WH3N I RAAD THIS!1111!1 LOL ID ALSO LIEK A SHIFT K3Y FIEXR 2!1!1! OMG WTF DRIEVS ME NUTS WHEN A COUPLE OF MAH LAZY COWOKERS TYPE IN AL LOWERCAES1111!!! TH3Y 3VEN DO IT FOR NMES OF PEOPLE!1111!!1 OMG WTF

Re:OMG!11!!

[rkz]

I put something CmdrTaco said into the translator and it came back the same. I don't think it wor...oh wait, I get it now!

Re:OMG!11!!

[Anonymous Coward]

no, that would be the lazy-ass-american-idiot -> English option.

Re:OMG!11!!

[Anonymous Coward]

SI THAT YUO!!!! JEFFK
OMG

Re:OMG!11!!

[Kryptoff]

How does it translate "omg, LOL"?

Perhaps by using something like Google Glossary?

Is there prior art?

[Gortbusters.org]

I know we like to challenge all these Amazon patents that come down the pipe citing tons of prior art and how ridiculous the patent sounds...

This patent sounds like a strategic business move though and something that nobody else is doing...

Re:Is there prior art?

[kcm]

Proxide is at least one of the software projects out there that have this explicit, native capability.

Language translation filters were written for it more than a year ago, at least.

Re:Is there prior art?

[micromoog]

patents that come down the pipe

The expression is "down the pike".

Re:Is there prior art?

[JET 666]

With patents like this perhaps he was thinking of sewer pipes.

Re:Is there prior art?

[Makarakalax]

This patent sounds like a strategic business move though and something that nobody else is doing...

How does that justify patetnting it though? Patents should only be granted to encourage innovation, a patent like this only creates a monopoly for one company, and actively prevents any other companies innovating in the field. The only reason Microsoft have secured this patent is so they can attempt to gain more market share in the competitive IM market.

Patents were not created to allow companies the chance for monopoly, they were created to encourage companies to take risks and invest large amounts of money in potentially profitable products and thus progress society. They are an incentive for corporations to improve out lives and our world.

All I see here is more abuse of the patent system by a greedy corporation, proposing a fairly obvious invention which cost them little to research

You can argue that they got to the patent office first and thus deserve to have it granted, but I'd argue that granting the patent has simply stagnated an interesting area of instant messaging software for some years to come. Software doesn't need patents, the products should compete on other factors like usability, interface and integration. If you can't compete without patenting, then maybe your company shouldn't thrive at all?

Anyway, as for prior art, Kopete already does this (IIRC).

Cool!

[Mark_MF-WN]

Now we get to see how badly automatic translation can be butchered. Seriously though -- it's nice to see someone trying to bridge language gaps like this. Maybe this will create a demand for higher quality automatic translation.

Re:Cool!

[gurps_npc]

Translation to spanish and back to english of above post (via google):

Now we were able to see how the seriously automatic translation can be killed. Seriously nevertheless -- he is pleasant to see somebody trying tend a bridge on openings of the language like this. Perhaps this will create a demand for an automatic translation more of high quality. Quicksort robbed my drinks '!

Re:Cool!

[PetWolverine]

That was pretty good until it got to his .sig.

In what language is baby == drinks?

Re:Cool!

[gurps_npc]

Spanish.

Bebe = to drink

1st application of patent:

[Arslan ibn Da'ud]

...and the one most needed:

1337sp34K English!!!

Good idea.

[caluml]

I'd never thought of that. But it's a damn good idea.

That's all, nothing insightful here today. Move along please.

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

My hovercraft is full of eels!

Re:Cool

[hesiod]

> My hovercraft is full of eels!

Hehe, I don't know why this isn't modded up, it fits in perfectly with the discussion. Maybe the mods just don't "get it."

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Score one for the python reference. Def one of their best sketches

Re:Cool

[eliasen]

I've built translation facilities into my programming language, Frink This section of the documentation also shows how to make your own back-and-forth text-corrupting translations, something like this:

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." -> Spanish -> Ingles
The alcohol is arranged but the meat is weak.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you waaaaaaaant to come back to my place - bouncey, bouncey!

Novel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so how is this novel? Is it:

• Instant messaging - nope
• Computer translation - nope
• The combination of the two? Please. Finding two utterly established fields and thinking "wouldn't it be good if..." is not novel.

Re:Novel?

[Gorm the DBA]

I dunno, someone patented:

• Chocolate? - nope
• Peanut Butter? - nope
• Chocolate AND Peanut Butter - OOOOOH, Patent that!

Code!

[zebs]

Heres the code!

char *translate()
{
char *str;
int i;
i = rand() % 5;
switch( i ) {
case 0: str = "What r u wearing?"; break;
case 1: str = "Want 2 cyber?"; break;
case 2: str = "All your base are belong to us"; break;
case 3: str = "I'm a stripper"; break;
case 4: str = "Bill Gates is great :)"; break;
default: str = "lol";
}
return str;
}

Can't see it working to well, babelfish has a hard enough job dealing with... generally.. well written websites. How will it handle, "how u 2 day?"?

(Sorry for the bad code... its been a while...)

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot "A/S/L?" ;)

Re:Code!

[c00lant]

Somehow I doubt it will support Moron-Speak.

Re:Code!

[SEWilco]

Boss, here is that program you needed tonight.

carbón *translate()
{<ecode>
carbón *str;
interno i;
i = rand() % 5;
switch( i ) {
caso 0: str = "What r u wearing?"; rotura;
caso 1: str = "Want 2 cyber?"; rotura;
caso 2: str = "All your base are belong to us"; rotura;
caso 3: str = "I'm a stripper"; rotura;
caso 4: str = "Bill Gates is great :)"; rotura;
defecto: str = "lol";
}

str de vuelta; }

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn!

Re:Code!

[jared_hanson]

You must have taken this directly off your SourceSafe servers at work. This is exactly the code Microsoft wrote to do this, given its tendency towards overwriting memory and other obvious errors.

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that "babelfish" only sucks because it's under such a heavy load. Better translation is definitely possible with today's algorithms, but the CPU time, memory use and database bandwidth requirements would be too great when handling millions of requests from non-paying users every day.

Re:Code!

[Some Dumbass...]

How will it handle, "how u 2 day?"?

Isn't that technically a data (de)compression issue, rather than a translation issue?

Perhaps someone should start writing libunIM about now?

Re:Code!

[lightspawn]

why bother with the string and the break? Why not just return the literal?

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

that would have been funnier if you translated the STRINGS, not the CODE.

Re:Code!

[pherris]

This is exactly the code Microsoft wrote to do this

I thought SCO claimed that it was their code? =)

Re:Code!

[JediTrainer]

Shit, man! You've just copied 15 lines of SCO code from their kernel! They're gonna sue your ass!

Re:Code!

[zebs]

How will it handle, "how u 2 day?"?

Isn't that technically a data (de)compression issue, rather than a translation issue?

What will that become though?
how you to day?

how you two day?

how you too day?

Re:Code!

[jez9999]

Don't you mean i = rand * 4 ? You code == rand MOD 5, which should always return 5. I think.

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear zebs,

This notice is to inform you that you are in violation of SCO intellectual property. Clearly you have stolen critical source code from SCO's Unix IP. We will be sending lawyers by to collect $2.3 trillion for this breach. Please do not ask which parts of our code was stolen, or we'll sue your mother for giving birth to you (which is also a clear violation of our trademarked trade serets and patents). Suffice is to say that there are at least 80 seperate characters that appeared in your code that also appear in ours, speling errors and all. For shame!

Your pal,
Darrrrl "Aye, me matie" MacBryde
Chief Lawsuit Aggrandizer
SCO Corporation

Re:Code!

[HiggsBison]

How will it handle, "how u 2 day?"?

Hoo ere-a yuoo tudey?
Bork! Bork! Bork!

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

The compiler will figure out what's best based on your optimization settings, and should consider your suggestion equivalent. The former would be easier to extend with additional post-processing should the need arise.

If you want to improve the code, worry less about where the parenthesis go and instead make a real change.

const char *strings[] = {
"What r u wearing?",
"Want 2 cyber?",
"All your base are belong to us",
"I'm a stripper",
"Bill Gates is great :)"
};
const int numStrings = sizeof(c_rgsz) / sizeof(char *);

const char *translate()
{
return strings[rand() % numStrings];
}

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

both c and maths expert i presume?

Re:Code!

[Anonymous Coward]

For what values of i will the default statement be run? (Hint: any positive integer % 5 is in [0, 4]).

1337?

[PhoenxHwk]

But the real question is: will it translate English to 1337 so I can talk to my little cousin?

Me: Haha, I just beat you at CS!
Translation: 0w|\|d j00! C$ p053r!

Re:1337?

[katsushiro]

Let me help you out here: Normal to 733t5p34k translator.

Re:1337?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try ayttm.

Re:1337?

[lavalyn]

You call that l33t translation? I'd have thought you'd need a few phonetic rules programmed in too: hacker -> h4x0Rz

Imagine the fun with bad translations..

[rtm1]

I can just see the guy in Japan telling his buddy in the US about his new apartment or something and MS's translation engine kicking out "All your base are belong to us.."

sweet!

[grub]

Linux user sends: Linux rocks!
..
MS' IM translation magic
..
Joe Lunchbucket gets: http://www.goatse.cx

Re:sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my God, there's a hole in my system.

And it looks like it's being exploited......

Re:sweet!

[Tablizer]

MS-Salesman: "Where do you want to go today?"

OSS translation: "http://www.goatse.cx"

It will be a further abuse of the patent system

[RLiegh]

if microsoft is allowed to hold a monopoly on using methods to translate text from one language to another in IMs.

It's definately a sad day for capitalism, that's for sure!

emoticons

[chia_monkey]

I wonder if ;) will get translated as "bite me".

Or what about the one sticking your tongue out? Isn't that VERY offensive in some cultures? Great...we're going to start WWIII because of this.

Re:emoticons

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but WWIII started at approx. 9:00 AM, on September 11th, 2001.

Re:emoticons

[zerOnIne]

in my experience with things like this (helped write a prototype system that did this at MITRE a few years ago), emoticons either get passed straight through or very garbled. Our French->English engine in particular was very picky about things like that and would routinely crash with stuff it didn't quite get.

How will they translate this?

[Martigan80]

Bite me.
Screw you.
F|_|ck Yo|_|.

Better yet brb, lol, kma?

Re:How will they translate this?

[RollingThunder]

I've always been partial to "FYDITM"... 'F*** you, directly in the mouth".

Re:How will they translate this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that almost sounds like Ebonics right there!

Translations

[Ananee]

I have gotten messages sent to me in other languages, and using every wonderful translator that I could find, I still have had no idea what the messages are actually about. If the translating method Microsoft is planning is like all the others I have found then there's really no need to fret in my opinion, because they will not make the messagung any clearer. But if it is more advanced then that's a totally different situation...

Re:Translations

[Alsee]

If the translating method Microsoft is planning is like all the others I have found then there's really no need to fret in my opinion, because they will not make the messagung any clearer. But if it is more advanced then that's a totally different situation...

You totally misunderstood what the patent is. It has absolutely nothing to do with the translation process. The patent uses any old translation program. It doesn't improve the translation, it's just automaticly done during instant messaging.

It is a patent on using any translator program and any instant messenger. Their "invention" is the "method" of simply remembering each person's preffered language and passing that prefference and each message to a translation program before the other person sees it.

I hope I explained it clearly. If you think it sounds like a really really stupid patent and I must have gotten it wrong then I have succeded in describing it clearly. Altering the patent rule to permit software patents was a supremely bad change.

-

Re:Translations

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure that is not more advance. But.. in the future the translator are goig to improve. And then, they will have the licence..
I suppose that this is the idea.
It only can happens by this ridiculous system that you have in the states. And this is the system that is trying to force in Europe and the rest of the world.
Im scared about the future...

Typical MSN IM translation...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hi" -> "Hola"
"My name is Frank" -> "Mi hidrodeslizador está repleto de anguilas."

Yeah!

[NetJunkie]

Your first job is to go sell that idea to a drug company. Just tell them everything will be fine after they spend millions developing that new drug only to have other companies make a copy when they release it!

R&D? Why bother.

Re:Yeah!

[Grax]

Yea. Heaven forbid they ever develop a cheap solution using naturally available products.

It would be a silly waste of money to research whether you can prevent or cure cancer or diabetes with proper diet or some silly easily available herb. Much smarter to look for a patentable cure you can get rich off of.

(I'm not saying that there is a cheap cure. Just that I am not aware of any researchers looking for it.)

Do-it-yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a script that runs incoming messages via Babelfish, by using the domain address as the translation source language/country. Am I now breaking Microsoft's patent?

Re:Do-it-yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't.

Re:Do-it-yourself

[Alsee]

I have a script that runs incoming messages via Babelfish, by using the domain address as the translation source language/country. Am I now breaking Microsoft's patent?

No, because you don't use an individual "profile" to decide the language to use. The instant you allow people to specify and store their actual language rather than just guessing then you'd be in violation.

[sarcasm]
This Microsoft patent is pure genius for the idea of having the instant messaging program store your language prefference!
[/sarcasm]

-

leverage

[frieked]

This might actually be a good thing...If Microsoft gains enough leverage (read patents for stuff that AOL wants to use) AOL might actually have to break down and let other clients contact AIM users.
Who knows though, it'll probably take a lot more than this.

Not again.

[inertia187]

Yet another part of my brain has been patented by big business.

Oh, I can just see it now.

[packethead]

Translating isn't the same as replacing the verbatum text word-for-word. There are idiomatic and grammatical nuances to take into account.

Language1: May I buy you dinner?
Translation: Can I offer you money to eat you?

Re:Oh, I can just see it now.

[RLiegh]

As long as you're IM'ing a cute co-ed student, and not your grizzled old proffessor, it should not be too much of a problem.

Re:Oh, I can just see it now.

[kin_korn_karn]

if you have to pay to eat the bitch then she's ripping you off twice.

Other IM Patents

[mjmalone]

Out of curiosity, are there any other patents on IM technology? Does anyone have any links/patent numbers to more information regarding other IM patents?

Bad Headline

[donutello]

This is below par for Slashdot. I would have expected the headline to read "Microsoft patents IM" or "Microsoft patents translation".

How are we supposed to come up with knee-jerk reactions without reading the article if Slashdot doesn't help us?

Re:Bad Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does every story have to have some kind of anti-slashdot post. If you are too cool to hang out here, leave.

Re:Bad Headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does every Slashdot article have to be anti-Microsoft. If you're too cool to hang out in the real world, fuck off and die.

Prior Art

[bflong]

Kopete has a plugin for this already in CVS. I've been using it for the past few days. Kopete is really comming along nicely.

Re:Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Prior art has to pre-date the patent filing date.

Re:prior art

[cait56]

Yes. Any web site that remembers your preferred edition, language whatever. Indeed the whole point of a session is to remember status rather than redundant including the information in each message.

Re:Prior Art

[MadJo]

Kopete is really comming along nicely

I can see it really works ;)
(J/K)

Patent? Doesn't Star Trek Consitute Prior Art?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering if M$ didn't steal this idea from the United Federation of Planets...

The Universal Tranlator worked much better and that was like in 1967 - they showed it on that space documentary Star Trek...

Honestly, the nerve of some people...

MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my... this whole MS conspiracy is just terrible. It's time for the linux people to get out and come up with really super cool ideas like spelling "microsoft" as M$. HAHAHA! That's funny!

This has been a Microsoft Conspiracy Update.

Obligatory Patent "Translation"

[BandwidthHog]

There are several systems currently available for addressing such language barriers. In one system, a user of an instant messaging tool types a message in their source language, preferred language, or into a text field, then "cuts and pastes" the text into a separate translation program. The user must then activate the translation tool to translate the message into the destination language, and cut and paste the translated text back into the text field of the instant messaging tool. Once this is complete, the user can transmit the message. While this method can be effective, it is obvious that the process of continually cutting, pasting and switching between applications significantly impedes the communication process.

Translates to:

Okay, we finally admit that the point-n-click interface isn't the single most effective means of accomplishing every last task mankind could ever come up with.

So we hereby patent the 'pipe' command.

Even in systems where entries typed into the messaging tool are converted "on-the-fly", such as by activating a "Translate" button that links the instant messaging program to a translation tool; the extra steps required by the user compromise the real-time communication experience.

Translates to:

Screw you Jeff, I just patented the zero-click!

This patent was available?

[ansak]

I'm surprised babelfish hadn't already staked out this ground. Or had they? It would seem a natural corrollary to what they're already doing. Is there a court fight coming here, d'ya think?

IANAL. IAN American. And my employer strongly believes in patent protection for IP of any kind, including software, but this strikes me as being an example of totally the wrong kind of patent ever to be issued anywhere, under any circumstances to any organization. Doubly so to MSFT.

Re:This patent was available?

[frodo from middle ea]

IAN American
Is that N for NOT or for NATIVE

Already been done.. in IRC

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some IRC patches that allow you to do this. It's been done for YEARS.

What about the babblefish Gaim plugin?

[ACK!!]

Is that not prior art?

Language translation is not exactly an innovative idea.

Anyone else care to list babblefish style plugins for their favorite IMs.

Didn't you mean....

[tbase]

"the use of USPTO patent as soon as the Microsoft published for a method and a system to translate the immediate messages, in which the giant of software demonstrates how an English sender of speech can type ' hi ' in a IM and he ' Hello will be translated ' for a Hispanic container of speech."

Come on!

[howardjp]

Years ago, I modifiedy AOL's Tcl/Tk TiK client to run everything through the jive filter. Nothing new here.

How are they going to

[headbulb]

How are they going to translate all those mispelled words, Oh and those annoying shortening of words because people are too lazy to spell out the 4,5,6 letter word.

LOL

[brakk]

How will it translate "ROTFLMFAO"?

Published Prior Art

[yivi]

http://www.atamiri.cc/en/Atamkatiri/
From the site:

Under the auspicies of our sponsors Unión Latina, París, and Neotec, La Paz, our tiny Language Engineering R&D group has updated ATAMIRI to enable this test operation in the Web. The current version covers all 42 translation directions for the Latin languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Rumanian and also for English and German.

We are aware that during this initial operation, some translation directions are better in quality and lexico than others. Please take it with humor and trust we are permanently working to improve translation quality in the implemented languages. The system's potential capabilty has not yet been fully exploited.

"Qopuchawi" means in antique Aymara the site where "qopuchasiña" takes place; i.e. chating in a circle of persons; "qopucha" is the chat itself and "qopu" is the group of persons chating in the circle where each and every one has the same right to be heard. We intend to contribute for the Web to become a global real "qopuchawi", without language primacies which are indeed barriers.

If they can include

[222]

support for 13375p34| and bork, im sold!

Bable what?

[August_zero]

Isn't enough to make a new product?

This trend of patenting everything just to prevent competition is absurd. If you must patent, patent your own code not a concept as elementry as "I patent the idea of making yellow keyboards"

I think to patent, you should need to prove that you came up with the original idea. a "translating IM" is not a unique idea.

UO had/has Translang Translation Server

[Anonymous Coward]

It works somewhat like this:

http://galad.griefgaming.com/Episodes/Evil/ss673 .j pg

Re:UO had/has Translang Translation Server

[Anonymous Coward]

Ack no. It was Systrans (www.systransoft.com), not Translang.

�Recepci�n!

[spoonyfork]

What they type...

a/s/l por favor Hola, cómo va? Qué usted está usando? Desee al cyber? Satisfágame en los Juguetes R Nosotros en la cañería. Traeré un vino de la botella y dos condoms.

What your kids see...

a/s/l please Hi, how goes? What you are using? Wish when cyber? Meet in Toys R We in the pipe. I will bring a wine of bottle and two condoms.

Re:�Recepci�n!

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmm I see you already used the "new" technology... It is quite obvious for a spanish speaker that you translated the text first from english to spanish using a translator... and then made it look like it was the other way around!

I think Ill have to report you to MS... :)

Re:�Recepci�n!

[Phroggy]

mmmm I see you already used the "new" technology... It is quite obvious for a spanish speaker that you translated the text first from english to spanish using a translator... and then made it look like it was the other way around!

hehe, I'm not even fluent and it was pretty damn obvious. The untranslated "a/s/l" and the translated "Toys R Us" are the most obvious problems. Qué usted está usando? in this context is hillarious; that's very formal.

Specific code formats in patent

[Anonymous Coward]

Form the patent:

"...A content translation module implemented as a computer-executable module (e.g., DLL, exe) utilizes the information contained in the user profile to translate messages from the source language to the destination language."

Solution:

Compile it as a standalone ELF binary, not as a module. ;-)

Very true indeed.

[Samir Gupta]

Nintendo, SEGA, et al. have been working on this for quite some time now, and have even started to commercialize it. It's one of the emerging trends in MMORPG game design will create interesting interactions and facilitate global play to a greater extent than is now.

Some early results can be seen in the GameCube/DreamCast title "Phantasy Star Online" where you can select from a menu of sentence patterns, subjects, objects, etc. We're trying to get it to the point where you can translate free text, without the awkward results that stuff like Babelfish, et al. yield, maybe augmented by a player-aided cache of words and phrases, with improved using in-game human feedback and machine learning.

I am really looking forward to the time where international players freely interact -- it will be an interesting sociology experiement to see how national and cultural means, norms and paradigms manifest themselves in a virtual world.

Re:Very true indeed.

[Montag2k]

You are seriously the best troll ever. You get the moderators every time! Everyone should take a look at his posting history for a good social engineering lesson!

Re:Very true indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look! An insightful and interesting troll!

Re:Very true indeed.

[cornjones]

i just went through some of his past posts and them seem to be pretty insightful, especially concerning video games. He may not be top dog at nintendo as he claims but he has good points.

maybe I am missing something. can somebody point me to some really bad posts?

What the hell?...

[thdexter]

Slashdot reported on a patent without crying foul or making any disparaging remarks toward Microsoft? Did I sign into Yahoo! News or something on accident?

More MS Bloat for Users

[BrynM]

20. The system of claim 13 wherein the content translation module resides on the at least one source device.
21. The system of claim 13 wherein the content translation module resides on the at least one destination device.

Do I really want to have a language dictionaries stored on my Handheld or Phone? As it is, just installing spell checking features for only one language takes up an alarming chunk of my Palm Vx's RAM (8MB). Imagine what it would take to hold a few translation dictionaries. On a phone, this gets even worse because now you can install tons of ring tones and other junk that will only be used seldomly. Eventually, our hand held devices will have just as much of a storage mess as the common Windows hard disk all in the name of "features".

MS: Pioneering convoluted filesystems for more than 20 years.

-1 clueless

[mlyle]

And the abstract of the one click patent is:

A method and system for placing an order to purchase an item via the Internet. The order is placed by a purchaser at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received purchaser information.

The important part is the CLAIMS, not the abstract. The first claim from the Microsoft translation patent:

1. A method for translating instant messages exchanged between two or more devices over a network by one or more users that communicate in different languages, the method comprising: establishing a user profile indicating at least one user language and one or more translation preferences of the one or more users; receiving a message as input composed by at least one of the users according to the user language; translating the message from the user language to at least one different language corresponding to the one or more translation preferences; and transmitting the message in translated form to at least one of the two or more devices.

This seems to cover pretty much all practical IM autotranslation schemes, if this claim is granted.

Translation between protocol suites is a very different problem and Microsoft and others already have plenty of IP there, which is why things are worded the way they are. I don't think anyone dropped the ball-- this is a very broad, desirable patent if granted.

Re:-1 clueless

[aelfwyne]

It does, however specify "transmitting the message in translated form". Thus, the translation takes place before the transmission. Which means, that by this text, it does not cover recipient translation, but rather, originator translation.

Re:-1 clueless

[Greyfox]

The "innovation" seems to be in the maintaining the preferences and doing it automatically. The splitfire IRC script has had a macro that lets you request a translation in the language of your choice off babelfish for a very long time now.

Re:-1 clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

It also fails the "obvious" clause. When are we allowed to start armed resistance against the patent office?

I guess I'll have to spend 5 minutes...

[vasqzr]

...and write a Perl Script or VB program that takes my messages, Bablefish's them, and pastes them back in for me.

Re:I guess I'll have to spend 5 minutes...

[azzy]

then you'll have to go back in time to make it prior art

Nice!

[Anonymous Coward]

And how long before Apple copies it and calls it a revolutionary achievement?

Scary...

[inertia187]

I just hope Microsoft doesn't get the idea to patent Method and System For Microsoft For Any Reason.

Um...

[jeremiahstanley]

I thought there were already patents on machine translation?

Now we can talk to people in foreign places and not have the language barrier keep us back. Now our communications are just blocked by the innaccuracies of machine translation and we can't understand each other anyway. Ahh, the sweet smell of progress!

Re:Um...

[iapetus]

Or, as Babelfish would say after a round trip into Japanese:

The patent already as for me thinks of that it is in machine translation and high.

now we speak to the people of the place of the foreign country, makes us maintain it is possible the barrier of word. Now it can obstruct our communications exactly with the ??? of machine translation, as for us it is not possible to understand in any case. The smell progress of the Ahh being sweet!

Re:Um...

[PetWolverine]

The patent already as for me thinks of that it is in machine translation and high.

Who's high? The translation engine? That's what it sounds like--or shrooming.

The smell progress of the Ahh being sweet!

Yeah, "Ahh!!" is right. That, or "Argh!" or other frustrated mumblings.

prior art

[krokodil]

Fire does that.

I have prior art

[Anonymous Coward]

Friends and I published a utility to do IM translations at least 8 months ago. http://www.proxide.net/

-andrew

Dios mio, chingase, Microsoft!

[Sloppy]

Que estupido! Que es siguiente, una patente en patentes?

Prior Art?

[VValdo]

This patent was filed on December 28, 2001. Version 0.29.a of the fantastic GPL'd instant messenger Fire introduced "Automatic, inline foreign language translation" on December 12, 2001.

I would also imagine that the feature was in CVS and publically downloadable before that.

W

Use the whole world to build a translation tool

[SpaceRook]

For example:

Create a website that lists every English word, and users can submit the corresponding French word. Whichever French word is submitted the most for a particular English word becomes the accepted value.

In addition, there would be "associate words." For example, what does "key" mean in English? Is it a house key? A key on a keyboard? In such a case, you could have "key" associated with 2 different groups of words:

key (keyboard, computer, technology, mouse, input)

key (house, car, door, lock)

If the translator found the word "key" near words such as "keyboard", it would know to take that translation. If the word "key" was near the word "house", it would know to take that translation.

Re:Use the whole world to build a translation tool

[Ananee]

With key you would also have to consider it in a musical sense.
For example the key of 'C', or key changes throughout a piece of music. Key would need to fit into three groups.
A worthwhile database that takes into account all of the variables and can spit out a legible translation is going to take a lot of time and energy and storage space.

Re:Use the whole world to build a translation tool

[hesiod]

> lists every English word, and users can submit the corresponding French word

That is (basically) already done. Sytrans (babelfish) knows how to translate the words, the problem lies with the translation of grammer, which is extremely different between languages.

Re:Use the whole world to build a translation tool

[druxton]

For example, what does "key" mean in English? Is it a house key? A key on a keyboard? In such a case, you could have "key" associated with 2 different groups of words:

I think it would be a bit more complicated than 2 different groups for this word anyway. Consider:

key: central or most important, as in "He is the key player on the team"

key: Enter on a keyboard, as in "Please key in the requisition"

key: coastal island, as in "We spent a week on Key West"

key: scratch with a key (act of vandalism), as in "If you have a Canadian license plate and drive to the US these days, someone might key your car"

key: list of explanations or descriptions as in "Use a key to determine the species of this insect"

key: tone or pitch as in "This music is in the key of C minor"

key: mood or intensity as in "Low key presentation"

there are probably others as well

Considering key (among other words) can be a noun, verb, and adjective this would be quite a challenge for translation software.

Re:Use the whole world to build a translation tool

[SpaceRook]

I realize "key" has more than 2 meanings. I was just using it as an example. And the fact that it would be a challenge for translation software is exactly my point. Users all over the world would submit triplets of the form:

[word in language A]
[word in language B]
[associated words from language a]

So, a user would submit:

[key]
[X] // I don't what what "key" is in French
[house, door, lock]

Another user might submit:

[key]
[Y]
[music, notes, sound, sharp, flat, piano...]

A big database is compiled with all that data. Then, if the translator is trying to convert this sentence to French:

"The key was C sharp and he was playing it on the piano"

the translator would convert it to:

"blah blah blah Y blah blah blah".

....because the words "piano" and "sharp" cause the sentence to be weighted toward the musical intepretation of "key".
The main point is that users from all over the world build this big database. I am envisioning a system like "Hot Or Not" (oddly enough), where people just log in for fun and spend a couple minutes adding some words and viewing statistics on the conversions and languages.

Re:Use the whole world to build a translation tool

[aziraphale]

do you speak any language, other than English?

Seriously, your suggestion is deeply naive in its assumptions about how languages work.

The problem of translation is not one of translating nouns - that's pretty easy, provided you can pick the nouns out from all the other stuff that goes into a sentence, and handle the slightly tricky case of plurals. Mind, finding nouns isn't that easy - in that last sentence, the words 'handle', 'can' and 'pick' aren't nouns, but in another they could be. The tough part is when you start to handle the structural elements of sentences - prepositional clauses, adjectival associations, and verb phrases. Bear in mind that in most European languages, nouns have the property of 'gender' (masculine, feminine, sometimes neuter), and that the gender of a noun affects the spelling of adjectives and articles which are used in association with it. So, a translator from English to such a language has to figure out which adjectives relate to which nouns, work out what to translate the noun as in the given context, figure out the noun's gender, translate the adjectives, alter the spelling of the adjectives to match the gender, and that's before it's even worked out what order to put the words in. Throw in verb tenses, and it gets very bad - English is great at these: 'What I would have been doing, had I gone there, was playing tennis', for example, contains three separate verb phrases (and only one simple noun), each of which consists of at least a verb plus an auxiliary verb, and communicates a huge amount of detail about when and whether the activity described took place. Most other languages don't have so many complex tense/mood forms as English, but they have their own complexities.

In other words, translation generally relies on dismantling sentences, figuring out the deep semantic structure, then porting that semantic structure to the foreign language.

That gets you the first level - literal translation. Translation of idiomatic phrases, choice of which word to use to represent a particular concept depending on context, and adjustment of language style for the kind of communication being tanslated are all second level tasks that sometimes build on that first level, and in some ways override it. I was reasonably competent at this level in translation between English and German after studying it for seven years, and spending a fair amount of time in Germany. Computer programs can't do this yet, and it'll take a great deal of AI research to get them to that level. When you realise that many European languages employ different forms of the word for 'you' depending on the relationship between the person saying it ant the person they're referring to, you might realise that it may not be possible to perform this kind translation at all, without true AI on a scale capable of learning enough social context to understand the relationships between parties in the text it's translating.

Above this level is real, literary translation - where you translate poetry, song lyrics, and works of literature, with a sensitivity to cultural translation, communicating the emotions present in the mind of a native reader of the text in one language to a reader of the text in the translated language. That's true translation, and it's pure art - as much a creative act as writing the original work is. It will never be mechanised unless we create an artificial intelligence equal to a human mind.

First level translation can, more or less, be mechanised - it has been by BabelFish, for example. But, as most people who've used the fish know, its translation works best on well structured, formal sentences. Give it informal, slangy text, and it'll stand no chance. It can't even handle my sample sentence above about tennis - it appears nobody's taught it the english subunctive mood - so it's not really even reached that level yet.

The IM context is a terrible one for translation. Obviously there are slang terms aplenty, but it's the structural issues that make me think it's untr

This is /.

[Anonymous Coward]

so we can expect lotsa posts about how IP is
theft, etc. And we can also expect lotsa posts
about how jabber/xml/perl/java/whatever could
just bounce this off a dictionary in India and
get the grammar right by using a parse tree on-line
in Germany and it would all be likedy-doo working
like magic.

Well bullshit. If it was SOOO easy to make a
real-time translator for an IM client then
why in the hell hasn't someone monkey-rigged
a perl client together yet? The truth is that
once you get into the guts of it, this is hard
to do well. And this is was the IP protects:
a good implementation of a real-time translator
for IM clients.

So, if you feel inclined to mod this down as a
troll or follow up with the famous /. "but but
but it was done under a GPL client two decades
ago", then PLEASE by all means cite some prior
art.

The truth is this is novel, new, and creative.
Yes, we could all have done this, had we only
thought of it. But we didn't.

Re:This is /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, as a follow up to those tempted to find
prior art. It doesn't count if you post a
link to some crummy 5k of perl spaghetti code
that didn't work, nobody used, and doesn't
scale to handle even a MaryKay Cosmetic party.
I'm talking about a real tool that WORKED, and
not some noobs hacked up perl learning experience.

Sorry, prior art:

[psxndc]

http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslat or.html

psxndc

Re:Sorry, prior art:

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe, I put the story into that and got...

"THEODP WRIETS DA USP2 JUST PUBLISHED MICROSOFTS PAETNT APLICATION FOR A MATHOD AND SYST3M FOR TRANSLATNG INSTANT M3SAEGS IN WHICH TEH R GIANT D3MONSTRAETS HOW AN ENGLISH-SP3AKNG S3NDER CAN TYP3 HI IN AN IM AND IT WIL B TRANSLAETD 2 HOLA FOR A SPANISH-SP3AKNG R3CIPEINT1!111!11 OMG WTF"

Re:Sorry, prior art:

[JediTrainer]

http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslat or.html

Taco, is that you in there?

Re:Sorry, prior art:

[Jonner]

Unfortunately, as cool as that tool is, it can't reverse the brain damage, which is what the parent poster was looking for.

Translation:

UNFORTUNAETLY AS COL AS TAHT 2L IS IT CANT R3VARSE TEH BRANE DMAEG WHICH IS WT PAERNT POST3R WAS LOKNG FOR!!1! OMG LOL

Re:Sorry, prior art:

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see what I can do with this:

FOURSCOR3 AND SEVEN Y3ARS AGO OUR FATHERS BROUGHT FORTH ON THIS CONTIENNT A NU NATION CONCEIEVD IN LIEBRTY AND D3DICAETD 2 DA PROPOSITION TAHT AL M3N R CR3AETD 3QUAL1!11!!11 OMG WTF LOL NOW WE R 3NGAEGD IN A GREAT CIVIL WAR T3STNG WHETHER TAHT NATION OR ANY NATION SO CONC3IEVD AND SO D3DICAETD CAN LONG 3NDURA111111! OMG WTF LOL W3 R MET ON A GREAT BATL3FEILD OF TAHT WAR1!!!!! OMG WTF W3 HAEV COM3 2 DADICAET A PORTION OF TAHT FEILD AS A FINAL RESTNG-PLAEC FOR THOSA WHO H3RE GAEV THEYRE LIEVS TAHT TAHT NATION MIGHT LIEV!1!!!1 IT IS AL2G3THER FITNG AND PROPER TAHT W3 SHUD DO THIS1!11!1! BUT IN A LARG3R SENS3 WE CANOT DEDICAET WE CANOT CONS3CRAET W3 CANOT HALOW THIS GROUND!1!11!! OMG WTF LOL TEH BRAEV MAN LIVNG AND DEAD WHO STRUGLAD H3RE HAEV CONSECRAETD IT FAR ABOVE OUR POR POWER 2 AD OR D3TRACT!1!1!1!1 OMG WTF LOL TEH WORLD WIL LITLA NOT3 NOR LONG R3MAMBR WUT W3 SAY HARE BUT IT CAN NEVER FORGET WT DID HER31!!!!111 OMG LOL IT IS FOR US DA LIVNG RATHER 2 B D3DICAETD H3R3 2 DA UNFINISHED WORK WHICH THEY WHO FOUGHT H3RE HAEV THUS FAR SO NOBLY ADVANC3D1!!11! IT IS RATHER FOR US 2 B HERE DEDICAETD 2 TEH GR3AT TASK RAMANENG BFORA US-TAHT FROM THES3 HONORAD DAAD W3 TAEK INCREAESD DEVOTION 2 TAHT CAUSA FOR WHICH TH3Y GAEV DA LAST FUL M3ASUR3 OF DEVOTION-TAHT WE HARA HIGHLY RESOLVE TAHT THES3 DEAD SHAL NOT HAEV DEID IN VANE TAHT THIS NATION UND3R GOD SHAL HAEV A NU BIRTH OF FREDOM AND TAHT GOVERNMANT OF TEH PAOPL3 BY TEH PEOPLE FOR TEH P3OPLA SHAL NOT P3RISH FROM TEH 3ARTH1!1! WTF LOL

Re:A simple solution, abolish patents.

[acidtripp101]

I don't know about that.
Don't get me wrong... people that know me, know that I am adamantly against patents and similar 'systems' (ie copyrights). Granted, I'm a bit of a socialist, but still.
Anyway, I can understand why, in this capitalistic society, patents are a GOOD idea. Without them, how hard would it be to completly rip off someone elses idea and market it as their own (taking the profits and recognition of the REAL creator). This has obvious consequences.
Take, for example, an honest philanthropist that discovers a cure for cancer. How hard would it be for a huge company to steal his discovery and market it, with capitalistic goals in mind. All the philanthropist wanted was to be recognised for his discovery, but instead a huge corporation is given the credit.
Is this fair? Not at all.
Would it happen without patents/copyrights? Of course it would.
I'm not a fan of the abuse of the system, but it does have its place. And a flawed system is often better than none at all.

Classic Translation Problem

[jimson]

English : "The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak"

Tranlator - English -> Russian

Russian : "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten"

Automatic translation is a classic AI problem. Shouldn't there have to be a "working" prototype prior to issueing the patent??

Re:Classic Translation Problem

[natrius]

You can patent anything without being able to make it first.

Re:Classic Translation Problem

[st0rmshad0w]

And that is one of the prime problems with the patent situation.

Re:Classic Translation Problem

[CaptainFrito]

Patents are how-to's. If you follow the teachings and it doesnt result in the claimed invention the patent is invalid. Rich companies and savvy inventors know this and will "correct" their patents over time. This is intellectually dishonest but effective since it is all about making it to the patent office first (most do not document inventions well enough to prove true date of invention that can hold up to $1000 an hour cross examinations). So, until the patents issue, which takes years, the patents can be massaged into teaching something that can be built. I think the more correct translation Jesus' words at Matt 26:41 is "The spirit, of course, is eager, but the fleash is weak." Which, again, makes the point again.

Re:Classic Translation Problem

[Alsee]

Shouldn't there have to be a "working" prototype prior to issueing the patent??

The patent has nothing to do with the prosess of preforming the translation. The patent is on an instant messaging program remembering your language and automaticly running all text through any old crummy translator using that prefference.

-

0|-| `/34|-|

[frodo from middle ea]

+r4|\|514+3 +|-||5 B|11`/ B0`/

So... this has been done via IRC and Babelfish...

[Anonymous Coward]

...does that indicate prior work?

Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

At just a quick glance, I'm not sure how this patent would ever hold up, considering I've seen similar technologies previously deployed.

I had a friend who worked for Amikai (http://www.amikai.com/), and at one point I was in a chat room with folks from Japan and Germany all using the SYSTRAN engine to translate our chat text in real time. They used to sell the system to companies interested in doing multinational online technical support without having a multilingual staff....

Just goes to show...

[hesiod]

This just goes to show you that some idiot will always nail two things together that have never been nailed together before and patent it. And then demand money for it. And there will always be a thousand other idiots saying "Yeah that's so original no one would have ever thought of that, duh duhduh duh duh!"

real IM speak

[forgetmenot]

How many regular IM users actually type using proper spelling an rules of grammar? I think it safe to say that most messages contain a lot of shorthand, and I don't mean the run-of-the-mill LOL, BRB, etc.. that everyone knows and uses. I mean just plain ol' not good grammar, bad shrthnd that only another human reader can possibly understand, or massive amounts of typoos, swithced letters, etc. (who "really" knows how to type accurately anymore), etc.

And it would have to be damned fast - otherwise it's going to spending a lot of time translating messages like 'sigh', 'waiting...' for impatient users.

I would think developing a translator than can translate "real world" IM speak would be a monumental task. Hell, look at babelfish, it can't even handle proper grammar.

PatentChallenge.Gov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a site like patentchallenge.gov where an online community can challenge applied patents? It would be nice if when these things come down the SlashPipe, we can always provide a patentchallenge.gov/challenge.php?patent_num=31337 link so the collective brainpower can help the government help ourselves. The USPTO is always whining about being under-manned for all of the patents they receive... couldn't a website help them in the decision process? The site wouldn't *determine* the decision, it would simply aid in it.

Re:Patent? Doesn't Star Trek Consitute Prior Art?

[h00pla]

Yeh, that must have been some translator. Just think - it didn't crash trying to translate William Shatner's way of speaking

The man ...... will cease ..... to exist

We are .... on a ... peace .... ful mission

(God it's hard doing Shatner in a slashdot post!)

Transation...prior ART!

[GweeDo]

I have been using a translation module in Kopete for a while now. How can they think this is new!

Just a stupid patent application

[Schugy]

and of course it sounds like they don't have that patent yet and I doubt that even a patent will be relevant....

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Let's see a model!

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

In the old days, up until 1870, the patent office required models to accompany a patent application.

1836 -- The Patent Act of July 4, 1836 reestablished the examination system of 1790. Models were once again required by the Commissioner. "The model, not more than 12 inches square, should be neatly made, the name of the inventor should be printed or engraved upon, or affixed to it, in a durable manner."

It was left to the commissioner of patents on whether or not he wanted to request a model. This case absolutely screams to the model requirement. In my opinion, for technology patents certainly, a person should not be able to patent something that they have no model for.

Microsoft is probably the least able to produce this product. Translation software? Show us that you have this technology. (Yeah right.) You want to translate on the fly on text filled with abbreviations and slang?

Okay, show us that you can do this. Show us your model (AND make it no more than 12 inches square!). Given their record breaking incompetence, there is no way in God's green acres that Microsoft has this technology workable or will have it in the near future.

Maybe a commissioner of patents write in campaign would fix all of these software problems up?

Re:Let's see a model!

[krb]

Of course they can have it workable...

seems like all but 10% of /.ers forget that patents like this are *methods*. In this case a *method* for *enabling* translation of IM's, not the translation itself.

From what i can discern the patent essentially covers a system wherein the user can set a local language preference in his client and rely on an abstracted translation service to handle conversion. The client resends all incoming messages to some translation service (presumably local _or_ remote) which does the translation (maybe a good job, maybe not) and sends back the translated text. For the purposes of showing this technology is workable, the "translator" could just convert all words into md5 sums of the words... it's the architecture that's being patented, not the concept of translating im's.

MS or not, sounds like a decent idea to me. The downside being, since it's microsoft, the protocol isn't likely to be open, meaning only translator services licencing MS technology will be able to put a translator onto the web.

On the other hand that may be a good thing, if the protocol was open, all the OSS kiddies would do is make 10000 english->l337 servers, because translation is hard, and good translation software costs a lot of money.

Re:Let's see a model!

[aardwolf64]

if($text="Hello" && $planguage="English" && $nlanguage="Spanish")
$output="Hola";

There... I have a working model. I don't have to make it in its final revised version to prove the method.

Re:Let's see a model!

[roman_mir]

You assume that MS wants to translate everything automatically, what about using human translators on the server side? ;)

Re:Let's see a model!

[Anonymous Coward]

Software patents still require either the verbatim source code, pseudocode or detailed charts.

Re:Let's see a model!

[NeoNormal]

>" You assume that MS wants to translate everything automatically, what about using human translators on the server side? ;)"

Yeah, leave it to MS to take the "Instant" out of Instant messaging,eh?

Re:Let's see a model!

[Mostly a lurker]

Microsoft is probably the least able to produce this product. Translation software? Show us that you have this technology. (Yeah right.) You want to translate on the fly on text filled with abbreviations and slang?

Okay, show us that you can do this. Show us your model (AND make it no more than 12 inches square!). Given their record breaking incompetence, there is no way in God's green acres that Microsoft has this technology workable or will have it in the near future.

If Microsoft really want this, they will just rip off someone else's solution. Sure, even then, it probably will not work very well, but that never stopped Microsoft yet.

RE: Let's see a model!

[Anonymous Coward]

Make Microsoft type up the wording of the patent in Japanese and IM it over to the patent office.

That would at least give the Einsteins over at patent office a good chuckle.

Re:Let's see a model!

[Theodore Logan]

Microsoft is probably the least able to produce this product. Translation software? Show us that you have this technology. (Yeah right.)

Microsoft Research actually employs some of the world's foremost experts in natural language processing. I say they're at least as likely as somebody else to come up with a viable product (though that is not to say that it is likely).

I had the idea to instantly translate char and IM three years ago, and even began planning an implementation. I never dreamed of it being patentable.

Here's one

[packethead]

IM_client1: I knit once a day
Translation: init 1

Then suddenly IM_client2 bumps his desk and the system mouse's over an xterm, stealing the focus and he types init 1 ?

IM_client2: Hello. Are you there?

those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[*weasel]

as is the case with most computer patents, you have to -read- them to determine their fitness. the short description can't possibly hold all the pertinent details.

this pending patent covers their particular modular translation service, residing at a user-preference-designated network address (whether it be one device or a plurality of devices).

furthermore - the method states that a message comes from a sender, through the communication server directly to a recipient (no translation whatsoever to this point). the recipient's machine then automatically sends a translation request to the translation server specified in their stored preferences, and the result of that translation request is displayed.

the uniqueness of this system is that someone could set their preferences to point at a 3rd party translation service that perhaps gives better results than the stock german->japanese translation widget that MS might provide. the server passing along the traffic can remain willfully ignorant of any possible translation issues and keeps complexity of its logic down.

you may maintain this is a 'Bad Patent'(tm), and indeed babelfish is curiously close in function and it's use in procedure, to this patent.

in UO/PSO/etc the server handles translation without automatic user request.

therefore, those 'prior art' examples are not relevant.

remember, it's -procedure- and -method- that are patentable. not -functionality-.

you CAN'T patent 'translation' (and this patent isn't trying to). you CAN patent a non-obvious implimentation of it.

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[Kindaian]

Sorry to say... but this is... OBVIOUS!!!

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[jdennett]

The very fact that this is just a minor variant on so many existing systems shows that it is not "inventive" or "non-obvious", but rather "incremental" and "unimportant".

The US patent system should be changed to require an application to justify its claim to being inventive and non-obvious. That would eliminate the vast majority of software-related patents.

Such a shame it seems that the US will succeed in getting EU patent laws changed for the worse too. There's still time to act before the delayed vote in September, so for those who care that we have a system that encourages innovation rather than stifling it, find out what you can do to stop the EU patent system becoming as bad as that in the US.

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[Grax]

Actually this is totally obvious and was featured in hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and star trek for many years.

I can probably dig up a chat log where I describe wanting to do this myself.

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[Grax]

OK. Replying to myself. How silly.

On Sat Apr 17 23:01:04 1999, I said in chat "anyone think an autotranslating chat site would be cool?"

Using modern patent rules where you don't have to actually invent anything, you only need a bright idea, I am as deserving of a patent for this as anybody.

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[podperson]

This is very interesting. So if I were to come up with an essentially identical process whereby the sender submits the message for translation based on the recipient's preferences before sending it (translated) I am free and clear of Microsoft's patent.

This is especially interesting since a scheme whereby my message is translated before being sent and can, presumably, be vetted before being end would be far superior to Microsoft's proposed scheme.

E.g. I might like to see my message translated BACK into my language before sending it, or I might be trying to learn the recipient's language, or I might know the recipient's language well enough to detect howlers. All of this is possible with the scheme I've proposed and not with Microsoft's. No more data need be sent around (except that potentially the sender learns the recipient's preferred language rather than vice versa).

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[zog karndon]

"Incremental" and "unimportant" patents are, in fact, the backbone of the patent system. Look at, for example, the thousands of patents for paperclips, soda cans, etc. Each one describes a simple, non-obvious change that improves some characteristic of the object in question.

(Henry Petroski has amply described this in The Evolution of Useful Things.)

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[Paul 03244]

cool! & 'The Mouse'_can_patent_extending_their_(ahem)_copyright to every creative literary work ever produced; the Mouse will own the past, & M$ will own the future!

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[Alsee]

That would eliminate the vast majority of software-related patents.

I have another idea. How about we go back to the original system of denying all software patents?

-

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[Lectrik]

Hmmm... how about a communication divice where translation occurs on both ends. Translate from the sender's preferred language to some intermediate language (esperanto or yiddish perhaps) and then the intermediate language is sent to the receiver where it is translated into the final language.

wait isn't that how the rosetta stone worked, they used it to translate one language thru another language to a third

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[Anonymous Coward]

Attribute your sig, please.

Re:those examples dont pertain. read the patent

[jdennett]

You're right in a sense: the bulk of the patent system consists of simple, incremental patents. I disagree that they are non-obvious.

If they are "non-obvious" and make a significant improvement, I'm not against patenting them. However -- I stand by my claim that most of the incremental patents are, in fact, sufficiently obvious that they ought not to be protected by patent law.

A phenomenal number of things software developers would think of, independently, thousands of times over, are protected by patents. Which is odd, given how obvious they must be that we reinvent them continuously.

So... if you invent a completely new way to open a soda can, go ahead and patent it. If you merely think of printing advertising on the top of the can, it's obvious, unimportant, and not worthy of protection.

The backbone of the patent system is, sadly, broken. In the world of software, at least, the patent system is more of a force against progress than for it.

Lets STANDARDIZE! :-)

[Dutchmaan]

Perhaps we should just standardize written language into stylisitic hieroglyophs...

Esperantu meets modern Egypt with a refreshing twist of alien sci-fi!... Just add electronic ink.. shake vigorously and *poof* you're in the future!

A More Practical Solution

[istartedi]

Eliminate the application fees.

Now hear me out. Right now, the patent office is a cash cow. Take away the milk, and Congress will start coming up with ways to shrink the office instead of building a massive new complex on very expensive real estate in Alexandria, Virginia.

Also, patent examiners will be more inclined to come up with ways to quickly deny patents instead of quickly granting them, since maintaining the patent is now just "work".

If you're clever, you might even be able to pitch this as pro-patent.

Then, when the inevitable problem of "too many patents" that are costing the government "too much money" arises, you can enact additional reforms such as disqualification from filing for a certain time period after a rejection.

Star Trek

[jakobk]

Star Trek has prior art, i guess.

Re:Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Star Trek has prior art, i guess.

No, Star Trek is fiction, dipshit.

Re:Star Trek

[ratfynk]

Fiction is art!

The MS language translation software patent is the highest art in fiction, written by the greatest fiction writers of today...Lawyers/spin-doctors.

His reference to Star Drek is a hoot!

FBI needs training to learn IM

[angle_slam]

Sort of off-topic, but a lot of joke posts here are saying how difficult it is to translate IM. How difficult is it? The Washington Post had an article describing how FBI agents trying to catch pedophiles are being trained by 13 year old girls to learn how to use IM to act like a teenage girl. Some quotes:

As undercover assignments go, posing as a teenage girl online to catch pedophiles has its share of challenges for the typical FBI agent. Should he ever capitalize words in instant messages? Is it okay to say you buy your clothes at 5-7-9? And what about Justin Timberlake? Is he still hot or is he so two years ago?

[snip]

Most of their classmates did not know about their FBI work until yesterday, when Bald commended them on their achievements. Thanks to the girls, Bald said, the FBI has gathered such valuable information as: never begin a chat with "hello"; never use proper grammar in instant messages; and "pos" stands for "parent over shoulder."

If adult humans need to learn how to speak IM, how can a computer?

Re:FBI needs training to learn IM

[Fear the Clam]

I though pos was "point of sale" or "piece of shit," depending on context.

Re:FBI needs training to learn IM

[Phroggy]

I though pos was "point of sale" or "piece of shit," depending on context.

Since I don't talk to kids who would need to say "parent over shoulder" (and when I was that age IM didn't exist), I guess if this were common usage I wouldn't know it, but I bet it's not universal. Kids have been making up code for that since the telephone became commonplace, and only their friends, and friends of their friends, would know what code they use.

I certainly wouldn't expect kids to be saying "point of sale", though.

Why not? They own everything anyway

[nurb432]

Why fight them, they are absorbing everything in sight.. they want to own/rule the world.. and all of us that live on it.

Give it up its all a matter of time before you re assimilated. Go do something productive like plant a tree..

Resistance is futile.. .

No big deal

[The Bungi]

Wake me up when this shit starts translating like this:

• floxx > holy fucking christ!!! OMFG!!! LOLOL!!!
• floxx > My, how unfortunate. Dear me. [chuckle]

Just don't restrict the free flow of insults and IM will be fine.

Prior art...

[an enormous void]

I having used technology similar for far time now. In fact, using now this!

Tip

[tomstdenis]

Learn some fucking English you half-wits. It be the easiests language yo mo-fo can learns.

I cants understand why the people split and speaks the other languages. Its like they be not trying hards enough.

-- Peace!

Here's question...

[SuperCal]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to ask this question, but here it goes. The patent seems very vague. It says something like check recipient client's language preference, then use a library (DLL) to translate the message before sending. Isn't that a bit like saying "I found a cure for cancer that involves introducing a chemical into the body's systems?" So what if I come up with another method of doing the same thing in a different way is that legal? If I came up with an alternative chemical to cure cancer, would I not be able sell it because the other guy's patent covered caner cures? Can you see what I'm getting at.?.

Re:Splashy Spashy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Vomi sur un enfant en bas âge aujourd'hui!

CmdrTaco:

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever.

Next.

Re:CmdrTaco:

[Anonymous Coward]

or that fat fuck CowboyNeal that everyone loves so much. just goes to show Americans love fat!

Wait... this might actually be good!

[acidtripp101]

Actually, this might provide some interesting innovations. Because holding the English->French, English->Spanish, English->Japanese, etc. modules would be absolutely stupid. Why not create a 'universal' language... so instead of English->50 million languages. You have English->Universal and Universal->English. This seems like the 'easiest' approach to this problem. Is there currently a patent out for THAT? If not, now nobody can have it!!! (previous art by ME!)

Re:Wait... this might actually be good!

[Eccles]

Why not create a 'universal' language...

That's pretty much what Esperanto was designed to be: a universal second language.

Cost to Ensure Patent-Free

[Fuseboy]

As food for thought in considering whether the patent system encourages or discourages innovation, try to estimate what the cost would be of accurately determining whether or not a small commercial application (e.g. ~50k lines of code) violates any patents.

Given that patents grant the patent holder the right to prevent anyone from not only selling infringing goods, but from making or using them as well, what small developer could hope to develop anything without paying patent license fees to someone, particularly when patents are as incremental as this one is!

It seems to me that the only reason the patent system continues in its current form is that patents aren't enforced most of the time. The exclusion rights that patents provide are only worth enforcing when the target is sufficiently wealthy that they have something you want to take, or sufficiently popular that they threaten your business. Nevertheless, I don't like the idea of granting this kind of power - it's a bit like setting low speed limits everywhere so police can stop anyone they need to.

Getting back to my original point, the patent system simply doesn't scale:

• The proportion of human activity that counts as "inventive" under patent law is increasing. In the 1200's, nearly everyone was farming, whereas now a much larger percentage is researching, developing pharmaceuticals, programming, etc. Looked at another way, the value of "uninventive" work to "inventive" work is dropping steadily.
• The cost of determining whether an invention is patent-infringing rises the more patents are granted.
• Through international treaties, the geographic area covered by the US patent system is expanding to more and more of the globe.
• If your idea is novel, and patentable, you can't use it without obtaining the rights to any patents it might be considered derived from.

Looking forward 30 years, this creates a pretty dismal outlook for inventors without significant backing.

Incidentally, didn't Ultima Online have a method for translating in-game player chats to other languages? Would this make the cut as prior art?

Also, this patent doesn't seem to specify 'natural languages' (which would exclude, say, XML dialects), so wouldn't this include any sort of translation, such XSL transformation?

I put my robe and wizard hat on

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the most important one.

case 5: str = "I put my rode and wizard hat on."; break;

I'm surprised...

[SpikyTux]

... they haven't claim patent for BSOD.

Oh fun...

[Jippy_]

Yeah, I can't wait for automatic computer translations....

FrenchGuy01: Hello Jippy how is u?
Jippy: Fine, yourself?
FrenchGuy01: Being 6 oclock
Jippy: Sorry, I don't understand...
FrenchGuy01: Yes is raining too.
Jippy: What?
FrenchGuy01: Qui?

convert

[jeepee]

i cant wait to try to translate english ( target language assembly ) to hack messenger....

So How do you?

[linuxislandsucks]

say Bill Gates is an a**Ho** in Spanish?

Re:So How do you?

[scumdamn]

Bill Gates es un pendejo.

Clairification about software patents...

[smcavoy]

If they succeed in getting a patent on this, it's only valid in the US, correct. I believe Canada does *not* recognize software patents.
Would this then mean someone could develop identical software up here, as well as distribute it from here, and be free from litigation?

Re:Clairification about software patents...

[ajakk]

With a patent, you can sue someone to stop the importation of an infringing device into the US. So the Patent would not stop anyone from making and using the device outside the country, but it could be used to prevent from being downloaded in the US.

People are really getting their panties in a wad over this one for no reason anyway because it has not even bee looked at by the Patent Office yet. Patents, even the "crappier" ones, tend to go through some significant changes when being processed by the Patent Office. If people want to be upset over granted patents, thats fine, but this patent just describes what Microsoft wants, not what they are going to get.

Their idea is stupid anyway.

[scumdamn]

The way they'd do it is to translate before the message is actually sent to the other person. I now need to patent translating AFTER the message has been sent. Besides, if I'm the person at the other end I might want to click a box that says "What was the original message?" and with Microsoft's implementation, you can't do that because the original is stored in the sender's buffer.

I just tried this with the fish...

[FirstNoel]

Hi, Ivan, that vaccuum cleaner you left is on the fritz again, it doesn't suck

English to Spanish....

Hi, Ivan, ese limpiador del vaccuum que usted dejó
está en el fritz otra vez, él no aspira.

Spanish back to English...

Hi, Ivan, that cleaner of the vaccuum that you left you are in the Fritz again, he does not aspire.

Close but not quite...

Microsoft will have it hands full.

Sean D.

Re:I just tried this with the fish...

[niom]

Not to get on the way of a Fish joke, but in all fairness, the translation was hindered by your misspelling of 'vacuum'.

Re:I just tried this with the fish...

[sukottoX]

some people sure are bored! lol

Re:I just tried this with the fish...

[minister of funk]

I prefer the English-German-English translation of: "Hello, is not Ivan, this vacuum cleaner, which you left, on the Fritz again, it sucks"

Re:I just tried this with the fish...

[ATMAvatar]

To be an effective translator for IM's, proper spelling and grammar cann't be a requirement. Honestly, when was the last time you received an IM that had perfect grammar/spelling? I can't say I've ever gotten one like that in the 7 years I've used IM programs.

Re:I just tried this with the fish...

[tcjordan]

Actually the Spanish is pretty good, albeit a bit clunky (or maybe it's just not the way I would have said it.) I'm not sure how they decided to use "he" for it (they are the same word in Spanish, but the pronoun has the accent).

I've never heard the word aspira used for aspire. It's very common, in the regional dialects which I commonly encounter at least, to call a vacuum cleaner an aspiradora.

In other words, I have a bigger problem with the Spanish to English version than I do with the English to Spanish. Of course Spanish has some grammatical constructs that would be hard for a computer to accurately convert from Spanish to English.

Been available for Mac OS X for over an year

[pedroziviani]

I've been using for a few years a fantastic multi-protocol IM client for Mac OS X called Fire.

It has had automatic translation capabilities in several languages for well over an year, and it works very well. Further more, Fire also supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, IRC protocols.

French

[GnuVince]

I hope Microsoft programmer won't just translate everything a french-speaking person says to "I surrender".

IM Translation isn't new -- prior art???

[BanjoBob]

Socrates (Arsenal, Inc), PROMT and others have had IM translation for some time. The Socrates/ARS web site even has one that works with MSN! I've been using another package for over two years. This sounds fishy to me. We use IM translation with AIM, ICQ and MSN all the time. Reading the Patent Application, I don't see anything that isn't prior art here.

Translation thorugh an external service

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you mean much like Kopete's translation plug in appears to operate? I haven't tried it, but it looks to be the same sort of thing and another candidtate for prior art...

So, how long b4 they patent algebra?

[CaptainFrito]

After all algebra is simply a structured approach to manipulate the form of information from one that is not so useful into one that is useful. And it does it with letters to rules of syntax. Hmmm....think of all those high schools that would need a license from me... People have been translating languages and sytax for thousands of years. Coding an existing process is not patentable, since he method is not novel nor is it non-obvious. Moreover, the patent must *teach* something that is not obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art, which in this case would be translators. Since the language rules are well known, the process to go from one to another is also well known and therefore obvious (not novel). But, alas, these matters are decided in the courts, where rulings are bought and paid for. The patent office issues patents to the rich and powerful without question, and individual inventors get swamped with inane, money-wasting "office actions" that run poorer inventors out of money.

Prior Art

[jot445]

Lotus Sametime Chat Server does two way translation of chat. We looked at this two years and more ago...

Lotus Sametime Chat Services

whom would they buy?

[vladkrupin]

If MS were ever to try to actually do something that is covered by this patent, nothing new would come out of it.

For a second, consider a simplier concept - spellchecking. I'd say that spellchecking is a simplier task than translating, won't you agree? Yet, all the years Microsoft has spent on innovating their spellchecking resulted in a product that is inferior to, say, aspell, a one-man project.

Foregn language translation is a lot more complex. Knowing the tendency of Microsoft to innnovate through acquisition, I'd say they will just buy the best company that does translation and is for sale, re-brand whatever they had under their own name, and be done with that.

The only question is who would they buy? Babelfish? Someone else?

Prior Art (old art too!)

[BanjoBob]

Well, Socrates (Arsenal, Inc), PROMT and others have had IM translation for some time. The Socrates/ARS web site even has one that works with MSN! I've been using another package for over two years. This sounds fishy to me. We use IM translation with AIM, ICQ and MSN all the time. Reading the Patent Application, I don't see anything that isn't prior art here.

Prior art: MITRE and TrIM

[zerOnIne]

I worked on a prototype system for MITRE's TrIM (translingual instant messenger) project I believe as early as December 2000. It's been a while now since I started on that project, so it's hard to remember. But I recall it being fairly early on in my time there, so the 2000 date seems about right. TrIM is still in use today and has grown amazingly since we first started it, and as others have mentioned there's a few other projects out there now that do similar things. If they ever try to go after someone, I don't think it'd hold.

If you bother to read this...

[Thinkit3]

Just wondering, how does it feel to be a dinosaur? I mean, is the view nice up there? Is it refreshing not having to think much?

There is still prior art to this.

[PenguiN42]

I recall seeing a demonstration of such a system a year ago by a research group at MITRE Corporation that used exactly this kind of idea -- sending the message off to a translation server.

Hmm.

[Minwee]

I wonder if they could translate "My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we usd 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-@ kds FTF. ILNY, its gr8" into english?

the main problem w/ automatic machine translation

[Anonymous Coward]

It is that these types of software seems to have been conceived as if for two given languages, there was Unique Word X in Language A that was ALWAYS translated as Unique Word Y in Language B.

It's a mistake commonly made by people who know only one language.

Example:

Time flies.

Meanings:
a) time goes by so fast it seems to fly like a plane
b) take a chronometer and mesure the speed of some flies flying from point A to point B

Meaning B is ludicrous of course, but a machine doesn't know that.

Now let's all bite the wax tadpole.

Okay, publishing a translation *method* here

[MickLinux]

This has not been done before, as far as I know. It probably has been published in one form or another, but I'm making sure it gets published.

Here goes:

I claim for public domain [that is, published as of now, at least] the following methods:

1. Translating from the user language into a meta language and transmitting the meta language.

2. Translating from the meta language into the second user language.

3. Said meta language contains all the information in both user languages, including but not limited to: connotation as implied by phrases and surrounding words, parts of speech as implied by word forms and word order, word importance as impliled by word forms and positions, secondary meanings as applicable.

4. Translation to meta language independently operates on each word in the context of surrounding words, in order to indentify phrases meanings, and possible parts of speech.

5. Translation accepts only those meanings which can cause the whole sentence to be valid. If no meaning is completely valid, then it accepts the best meanings.

6. Translation makes use of multiple "specialist" dictionaries, arranged in tree format, to help identify special meanings (such as dining, or whatnot.)

7. Translators can update themselves against a website. They also accept corrections from the user. That is, if a user recieves a message that is not quite correct, he corrects it. Translator program deduces proper meaning of correction (grammar, or wrong meaning), and updates website information.

8. Translation is used on websites, text submission, instant messaging, local computer lookup, or any other electronic means of communication available.

9. Dictionaries use database-style lookup in order to allow faster reference, and save space.

10. Where mobile devices are involved, translations happen in both directions on landlocked machines (such as scalable architecture distributed virtual webservers) in order to save bandwidth, processing power, battery power, and memory.

11. Where mobile devices are not involved, translations happen to and from the meta language at the local sites, in order to reduce bandwidth usage.

There. That about covers it. I've actually written translation programs before [Apple ][+], and they worked fairly well. But I've had a lot more time to think about it. A lot of times, meta languages can be quite useful, because one language has word forms that another does not. Example: Lithuanian has locative (Latin does not), while Latin has ablative (lithuanian does not: Lithuanian uses genitive for its ablative).

Anyone want to start up a project on sourceforge, please do. But copy this post and its date over, as proof of publication. In fact, republish it on paper, if you can, as well.

Prior art

[NanoGator]

I remember reading a couple of years ago that Final Fantsy was working on a massively multiplayer game sorta like Everquest. One of the features they bragged about was translating people's chats in real time so the whole world could play.

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft read this in a magazine, built a demo, and patented it.

Too bad .

[gregw51]

I saw this demo'd by Lotus at Lotusphere, using their Sametime instant messaging product. I don't know what the exact method was, but the end-result was the same.

Looks like MS will have a tough time with this one.

BTW - if any lawyer types are looking for prior art, there is video available of this from Lotus.

Byproduct of transparent translation?

[Cruciform]

IM Spam will increase exponentially for those who don't block the general public.

All Your Base...

[ackthpt]

There's a practice of typing a phrase into the fish, translating from English to Japanese then translating it back to English to see how fractured it could make your words.

i.e.: "All of your bases belong to us", becomes "Everything of your basis belongs to us."

I could just see the following tho, chatting with a friend in Japan...

Me: "How are you doing?"
Friend: "What you say?"
Me: "My truck requires a lot of expensive repairs."
Friend: "Sombody set up you the lemon!"
Me: "I must be going, time to do laundry."
Friend: "Move 'Biz' for great whiteness!"

But I already have a friend, who speaks perfectly good english, who begins letters like so... "Hallo you, parti greetinks! Em selflessly sempling dekedent kepitalist bourgios fud for parti reeserch rekwirements. Iz terrible, meess borsht!", etc... It all started years ago with some reference to Rocky and Bullwinkle...

Microsoft is following industry practice

[73939133]

This is the kind of patent all big computer companies file a lot of: trivial technology and lots of related prior art, but nobody else has patented exactly this thing. Why is Microsoft doing this? To be able to achieve cross-licensing with other companies that have big patent portfolios. The effect is to keep small competitors from being able to enter any of their markets (because they will be stepping on some of Microsoft's patents), and to be able to have leverage against open source projects.

I think this is ultimately only fixable legislatively. It's important that the EU do not pass software patents--by having at least one large market where open source software can be developed without this nonsense, people will keep creating software even for functionality that's patented in the US. But in the long run, we really need to get patent reform in the US.

The effects of these kinds of patents are so hostile to business and competition that sooner or later, legislators must see the light.

Translate this, Bill

[BigBadBri]

Baise mon cul.

Si vous croyez qu'on peut tener un brevet pour traduction des MI, vous etes un plus gros connard que j'ai pensee.

Encoule toi, voleur!

Re:Translate this, Bill

[GnuVince]

Wow, if french translation look like this, I sure want a copy to have a good laugh :)

Better traduction would be:

Vachier criss!

Si tu penses que tu peux avoir un brevet pour la traduction de la messagerie instantanée, t'es encore plus cave que je pensais!

Vachier criss de fourreur!

Re:Translate this, Bill

[BigBadBri]

Yeah - it's a bit wooden, but it was obviously intellegible, since you managed to produce a better translation without ever reading the original Welsh!

I had to get 'connard' in there somewhere ;-)

This is what it will be like

[Anonymous Coward]

The use of USPTO patent as soon as the Microsoft published for a method and a system to translate the immediate messages, in which the giant of software demonstrates how an English sender of speech can type ' hi ' in a IM and he ' Hello will be translated ' for a Hispanic container of speech.

Re:This is a manufactured problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been around for many years..

http://www.multicity.com/servlet/WebsiteServePag e/ webmasters/instantmessaging/index

some more translations

[abhisarda]

Secure computing is our focus-

we are as insecure as hell can be.

automatic windowsupdate-

we don't need anymore embarassments.

US legal system-

we gotta check which pocket it is in.

We are optimistic about china-

Bill will not be alive to see MS china turn a profit.

aids program africa-

You will be given 60 million $. 40 million will come
back to the US in inflated drug profits.

windows eula-

you've handed your ass to us on a gold plate.

xbox-

we gotta blow that 40 billion somewhere ya know.

pocket pc -

Its just happy to see you.

WindowsME-

We got that one done by monkeys. The ones who rivalled
Shakespeare. Our real engineers were trying to figure out
if their muffins were y2k compliant.

Microsoft Test Labs-

Have you rebooted your toaster today?

Hotmail-

We haven't gotten to the bottom yet. But we're getting there

Outlook Express-

Your gateway to the wonderful world of viruses.

Clippy-

The result of years of hard research at our lame labs.

Apple-

Our *real* research labs.

Still just an application. . .

[GlobalMind]

This isn't granted yet, so there's no saying it is a lock for MS to be awarded the patent.

I am sure my friends at IBM will be very interested in reviewing what MS has put down and whether they have already patented technology which does the same type of things through their products (Lotus Instant Messaging [ie. Sametime]).

IM and associated technologies certainly are not a "MS only zone" -- and IBM among others have already done a bunch with this type of thing, especially geared to the corporate space.

Should be interesting to see how it plays out.

TGM.

eh...

[greymond]

After playing with Google and Altavista's Babel Fish, I'm not going to be too impressed until I can type in "Hay I posted the updates to database" and it translates it into the CORRECT Kanji characters on the other end. :)

AHH!!!!

[eyeareque]

This makes me angry!!!! someone, pleasseeee look though the net and find a previous work of this. I was actually just thinking about this last night as I was chatting on Soulseek and some spanish speakers had a convo going.. I was pasting it into "the fish" to read it, and the idea hit me. I really, really hope this patent doesn't go through.. not only will microsoft provide crappy software but they will control how we communicate around the world.

Qu� ridiculo....

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft no van a hacer esto porque es dificil para traducir idiomas perfectamente.
Ellos son boludos grandes que no saben ni mierda.

Pedazos de pelotudos....

I have a tool that lets you automate this...

[s88]

It takes an english sentance, translates it, back and forth a random number of times, between other random languages.

If you have AOL instant messenger. AIM "JavaAIMBot" this message:

babel Hi, Ivan, that vaccuum cleaner you left is on the fritz again, it doesn't suck

Some Sample Runs:
hello, it is not Ivan, this agent of pulizia of the vaccuum, than it still leaves it, in the Fritz, the inala
hello, not Ivan, that it has sucked means of this vaccuum of pulizia, like it is it you, in the Fritz other an hour, it on the left
hello, Ivan, this pulitore that the vaccuum you, to that it has left is not always in Fritz, he aspires

While you're there... type help to see what else it can do.

If you're interested: Its an open source project:

SF Page

Home Page

Source to this babel fish module

Scott

hum

[f97tosc]

you are certainly right that it is the claims that matter. However, one thing should be noted about the claim. A claim that is phrased this way means that ALL the components listed have to be included for the patent to apply.

A method for translating instant messages exchanged between two or more devices over a network by one or more users that communicate in different languages, the method comprising: establishing a user profile indicating at least one user language and one or more translation preferences of the one or more users; receiving a message as input composed by at least one of the users according to the user language; translating the message from the user language to at least one different language corresponding to the one or more translation preferences; and transmitting the message in translated form to at least one of the two or more devices.

Thus if you only change one of these parts you have successfully circumvented the patent. Long claims like these ones may seem powerful, but in fact the opposite is true. Generally it is the short ones that have the biggest coverage.

One thing that comes to mind is that the message must be transmitted in translated form. If you transmit it first with a language tag and have the other user translate it then you are OK. And since that solution has now been discussed in a public forum it can never be patented.

Tor

Re:hum

[You're All Wrong]

Or both the sender and recipient have "profiles", and after a brief negotiation ("I strongly prefer to sound formal" + "I mildly prefer to hear chatty delivery" -> sound formal) the translations begin.

You heard it here first! (Or tenth, this comes under the category of "bleedin' obvious", IMHO, and thus non-patentable.)

YAW.

Re:hum

[LordLucless]

You're right, it cannot be patented. Provided the USPTO browses through all slashdot posts before granting their patents. Assuming they don't, it'll be granted anyway, and it will take a rather expensive lawsuit to invalidate it once it's been given away.

Just cause that's the way the system's supposed to work doesn't mean that's the way the system works.

Re:hum

[gizmonic]

And since that solution has now been discussed in a public forum it can never be patented.

You'd sure like to think so, wouldn't ya? Oh well...

Prior Art

[IceFox]

Kinkatta has had on the fly translations sense it put it in back in I think August 2001. -Benjamin Meyer

Prior Art

[aechols]

I'm pretty sure there is (or was) a Gaim plugin that did translation. If its ever a problem, I'm sure something like that could be made into a case.

IBM was demonstrating this 3 or 4 years ago

[scottme]

They have/had a product, Lotus Translation Services for Sametime, that plugs into their Sametime IM system and does translation by interfacing to some separate tranlsation server, such as their own WebSphere Translation product. They even have a demo of it on the web.

There may be detail differences in the implementation that the Microsoft patent application describes, but in general this is nothing new.

Yes, fear the good translation, not the poor one

[expro]

Exactly, fear the good translation, not the poor one. These are not diplomats using AIM to talk to each other. A well-crafted insult stings far worse than an accidental one.

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultu[r]es, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation. -- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galexy

Re:Patent? Doesn't Star Trek Consitute Prior Art?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah... I can see you "doing" Shatner!

Re:Yes, fear the good translation, not the poor on

[expro]

Sorry, I swear I checked this s/Galexy/Galaxy/.

Wow!

[readpunk]

Translation software! Who would have thought of that!? And a layer which puts it between two people using an IM client! Also revolutionary! Thank you Microsoft what would I do without your constant flood of great new ideas.

and by free..

[paulymath]

...i mean free as in freedom.

prior art potential here

[Sludge]

http://www.oxborrow.net/code/xchat/BabelChat_pl.tx t

Write the Patent Office

[BanjoBob]

Everybody with evidence of prior art, regardless of what country its in, should send the patent office a note pointing to the prior art. Just be nice with your language if you want to make an impact! Commissioner for Patents P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, VA 22313-1450 Reference: U.S. Patent Application 20030125927 At least, it will let them know they're being watched and maybe get them to scratch their heads a bit. Lots of dander there you know :)

Who cares if it's IM text or something else?

[DunbarTheInept]

What is it about this patent that makes it any different from any other kind of text translation??? Okay, let's say you've got a translation technology that can read some ascii and spit it out in a different langauge. This is not a new idea from Microsoft. This already exists from several sources. Now let's say you have a technology that lets people send small ascii lines to each other in realtime. This is also not anything new from Microsoft, it exists from multiple sources already. So how come when you attach the two technologies together in a *very* primitive obvious way - why is it that that becomes a patentable innovation? It's a good idea, but it's one that's obvious how you would go about implementing it, and therefore it's not appropriate for being patented. Just tell J. Random programmer the idea, and he could understand how to implement it without much brainpower, if he already had access to the source for the translator and the source for the IM software.

Despite the fact that I hate Microsoft, I will admit that as a product "wish list" idea, this is really great. It's a wonderful idea. But since patents only cover technical innovations, not marketing or business innovations, I don't see how this qualifies, as it is not a technically difficult thing to implement. Patenting it is like patenting the process of adding one to one to get two.

Hey, I did this almost six years ago!

[__art_medlar__]

There's a reference to the hack here:
http://www.tbtf.com/archive/1998-01-12.html
(search for "babelchat")

The chat room is long gone, but I've still got the source code around.
Seems to be identical to at least claims 1, 13, 26, 32, and 36 in the MS patent.

universal translator?

[MadJo]

Hmmm, could be nice :)
but only if it needs Hoshi to operate it :D

Amikai?

[danielwright]

The patent only covers one method/system for doing the translation, there are others. Also, Amikai had an IRC-style chat client that translated the entire conversation into your preferred language back in 2000.

Chevy's Marketing techniques.

[Penguin2212]

Nova means "No Go" in spanish, SHIT!

This has been a feature of IRC for ages.

[Anonymous Coward]

Automatic translation has been a feature of IRC clients for ages now. It started with people adding in the silly filters to their bots, such as the Swedish Chef and B1FF. Not long after the launch of babelfish.altavista.com people determined that they could send it their own text to be translated and it was also introduced into the clients. The PERL based clients propogated that around most quickly as they could share the web services code for the translations, but it was also implemented by others.

Because translation was not implemented in all of the clients it was done in three places, only one of which appears to be covered by this patent. The first was as a translation service on an IRC bot. This is useful because it requires support from neither the client or server to do the translations. Instead you just use an intermediary as your translator. Whenever you get a message in a language that you do not understand, you just forward it to the translation service which then sends it back to you through the normal chat mechanisms. The other methods are for the client to do the translations both before replies are sent and after they are recieved. This has the advantage that only one of the parties needs to be using the translating service.

Splitfire is an example of such an IRC client.

How useful is this?

[Eminor]

I don't think that this technology is terribly useful. Instant messaging is a casual method for communication (for the most part) and people tend have friends and bussiness associates who speak a language that they can understand.

Language translation is mostly used in oral settings like in government and the UN or for translating documents. I don't think this is useful technology to 99.9% of IM users.

Re:How useful is this?

[cookiepus]

I can see why someone, in the business world, would want to instantly communicate, with translation, to someone who does not speak the same language. Obviously machine translation isn't good enough to translate documents with legal percision, but it's good enough for thing like warning the datacenter manager in Japan that the London centre has lost power and only's got 5 minutes of battery backup. Or any other of the gazilling things one might want to say to a foreign-language speaker in the business world.

It's also decent for customer support. Your firm may not be big enough to have support staff fluent in 10 languages, but with automatically translated IMs, there's some possibility to do this kind of thing.

The fact that Exchange can act as an MS Messenger (or whatever it's called, I forgot) server, suggests to me that MS is thinking of IM as a business tool, and not as a "casual method for communication"

Re:How useful is this?

[BanjoBob]

The question is about money! IF M$ can get the patent, then they can charge everybody who does anything remotely similar a license fee. Kind of like SCO going after everybody. M$ doesn't have a very clean record in this regard.

Fun with Babelfish...

[Temsi]

With the incorrect "vaccuum" spelling, things get a bit messed up:

English-French-English:
Hello, Ivan, this pickling solution of vaccuum that you left is on fritz still, it does not suck.

English-Portugese-English:
Hi, Ivan, this liquid of cleanness that of vaccuum you left is in fritz another time, it does not suck.

However, with the correct spelling og "vacuum", something still gets lost in the translation, especially if you use more than one step:

English-French-German-English:
Good day, Iwan, this vacuum cleaner, which you left, is not still on Fritz, it sucks.

and my personal favorite,
English-German-French-English:
Hallo, is not again of Ivan, this vacuum cleaner which you left, on Fritz, sucks to him.

Re:Fun with Babelfish...

[smcn]

Don't forget the ever-classic English-Japanese-English:

Today, the Ivan the detergent of the vaccuum which you leave to the fritz, that it does not inhale, for the second time it is.

Re:Fun with Babelfish...

[Anonymous Coward]

So THAT is how they translated "All your base"...

Re:Fun with Babelfish...

[fieldmethods]

Yes, these are funny. But the idea of round trip translation is one of my pet peeves, because it's pointless, and *really* lousy way to evaluate machine translation. Consider: if you were to hire a human translator, who specialized in, say, translating English into Spanish, would you want proof of their skill in translating Spanish into English? Those are two different tasks, ask any translator. Now, considering that everyone acknowledges that human translation is better than machine translation (duh), does it make any sense to criticize machine translation for doing something even a qualified human may not do well? I bet that if you somehow strongarmed a human translator into doing a round-trip translation (English->Spanish->English) (without the benefit of the original text for the second step, of course), you'd find significant changes in meaning. Not ungrammatical changes, certainly, but semantic changes. The reason this drives me nuts is that it shows up in the media all the time as though it were a valid way to evaluate MT. And it isn't. Evaluating MT is hard; if you're interested in serious measures, check out this guy's work: http://www.research.ibm.com/people/k/kishore/ The first paper, the one about BLEU, is something of a standard metric.

Re:Fun with Babelfish...

[fieldmethods]

Yes, these are funny.

But the idea of round trip translation is one of my pet peeves, because it's pointless, and *really* lousy way to evaluate machine translation.

Consider: if you were to hire a human translator, who specialized in, say, translating English into Spanish, would you want proof of their skill in translating Spanish into English?

Those are two different tasks, ask any translator.

Now, considering that everyone acknowledges that human translation is better than machine translation (duh), does it make any sense to criticize machine translation for doing something even a qualified human may not do well?

I bet that if you somehow strongarmed a human translator into doing a round-trip translation (English->Spanish->English) (without the benefit of the original text for the second step, of course), you'd find significant changes in meaning. Not ungrammatical changes, certainly, but semantic changes.

The reason this drives me nuts is that it shows up in the media all the time as though it were a valid way to evaluate MT. And it isn't.

Evaluating MT is hard; if you're interested in serious measures, check out this guy's work:

http://www.research.ibm.com/people/k/kishore/

The first paper, the one about BLEU, is something of a standard metric.

I've done this before

[autopr0n]

Back in the ICQ days someone msg'd me from french canada. I translated their speech using babelfish and my own back into french. I can belive this patent was granted, but, christ. It's blindingly obvious how to do it. The only problem is that there is no easily available 'translation libraries' to plug use that actualy work. Hrm, perhaps a good target for open source developers :)

That said, there is some prior art in William Gibson's Iduro where a conversation is translated back and forth between english and japanese. Sure, it was as audio, but really what's the diff?

Reason to be paranoid?

[inkswamp]

They write:

Je deteste Microsoft!

You see:

I love the innovation and security that I get only with fine Microsoft products!

Of course, if you had read the 40-page EULA for this translation software, you'd have known that this was going to happen.

Re:Reason to be paranoid?

[cookiepus]

Slashdot's been doing that for years. One writes a reasonably, well thought out post, only to have the server translate it into some formulaic rant about Microsoft being out to get you in some manner.

Re:Yes, fear the good translation, not the poor on

[Deusy]

Yeah, I can't believe my post didn't get modded up. I guess that shows how many Slashdot readers watch the news on TV. It was quite amazing watching Berlusconi make the comment in Italian, then listening to the translator rather uncomfortably repeat it in English. The German MEP in question even repeated it saying, "if I undestand correctly..." so an accidental insult would have been forgotten.

However, this could split the Europe Union and undo a decade of diplomacy.

Hey, isn't that SCO's code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they'll sue Microsoft.

MITRE's simple instant messaging

[luc_sky]

But it's alredy licensed by the MITRE corp. :-) http://www.mitre.org/news/releases/02/transclick08 _14_02.html, it's called Translingual Instant Messaging (TrIM).

Accenture could do this last autumn

[perky]

OK, I haven't read the application and I probably wouldn't understand the legal nicities, but I saw Accenture demo this last autumn in London. The dem used MSN messenger in a three way conversation in which the third participant was a computer doing auto translation. seemed to work in a half hearted way for french, but you had to get the accents correct which seemed a bit strange.

Business process patent collection link

[Anonymous Coward]

This Slashdot "anger management" is funny. One software patent article per day and a couple of hundreds of exclamations about "broken system", "patent grab" etc.

Wanna get really angry, really fast? Get ready and check this lovely collection of business method patents. Some great business minds have recently invented among others:

• Secure Online Music Distribution System
• Web-Based Entry Of Financial Transaction Information And Subsequent Download Of Such Information
• Investment Fund Management Method And System (love this one - it's generic process for managing any mutual fund, straight from a university book)
• Product demand system and method ("...past product-demand data is used to estimate the product demands in current and future periods")
• Personal Online Banking With Integrated Online Statement And Checkbook User Interface
• System and Method Providing A Computer User Interface Enabling Access To Distributed Workgroup Members (a la Sourceforge)
• Automatic Updating Of Diverse Software Products On Multiple Client Computer Systems By Downloading Scanning Application To Client Computer And Generating Software List On Client Computer
• Dynamic Generation Of Contextual Links In Hypertext Documents (I've seen Geeklog "what's related" module doing this)

... and many more!

Those of you who still think that "the system is broken" should read some articles on this page. They clearly state that software and process patents are OK, and has been OK since the 60s (This link, for example). It's life, folks, and it's roaring ahead.

After venting the anger I suggest some of Slashdot readers get second legal degrees. Apparently, being a software engineer AND a lawyer kicks ass big time...

how can they make a pattent on someone elses work?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that kopete has already implemented these features, and I sure gaim has, so I think this pattent should be declared invalid. It's not unique, and its not theirs.

I want to buy some matches...

[Penguinshit]

My hovercraft is full of eels.
Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait until lunchtime.

One Big Problem

[Guppy06]

Machines tend to only be able to translate properly formed and spelled sentences. Most of the people that send IMs to each other don't even know what the word "sentence" means.

What Crack you smokin?

[ratboy666]

This patent covers translation by program module; the translation occuring at the sender or the receiver, or in between. It contrasts to having to select a button for the translation, or "cutting and pasting". The only thing unique seems to be the lanugage profiles which must be exchanged.

Babelfish does not conflict, because it is not automatic, and no profiles are exchanged. Use Babelfish with language profiles and you are in violation.

And, given that most OSs these days have user language profiles, it does seem obvious (why have the user restate what is already known?).

Ratboy666

Great!

[CausticWindow]

Finally we can talk to all the retards around the world who haven't yet embraced the one and only American English!

Yeah. And if they make a sand nigger to real language translator, maybe we can all get along?

The Definition of Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

From http://www.lawnotes.com/patent/patblty/nonobvio.ht ml
What is the Nonobviousness Requirement?

A: Obvious inventions can't be patented.

Even if the subject matter of a claim is "novel," in that it has not been exactly done before, it may still be unpatentable. Under section 103 of the patent statute, if the claimed subject matter would have been "obvious" to a hypothetical "person of ordinary skill" in the relevant art(s) at the time the inventor invented it, then the claim cannot be patented. [35 USC 103]

Most foreign countries have a similar requirement, often described as the "inventive step" requirement: An invention that lacks "inventive step" is not patentable.

Already been done

[solprovider]

IBM's Lotus SameTime has been able to do this for years. I saw a working demonstration of it in 1999.

Since it is IBM, I am certain that every aspect is already patented. The MS patent may have been missed, because it is the absolutle worst possible method for doing translations. (Yeah, I read the "article"/patent application.)

The differentiating point:
the message is translated prior to delivery

I believe SameTime does the translation in the server. The advantage is that the dictionaries can be updated frequently, and the processing happens on a machine that can handle it. The disadvantage is that you must have a server, so this will not work with true P2P chat clients.

For P2P chat clients, the best scenario is to have the receiver translate the message. Why should the sender's PC do the work? The receiver can translate according to the receiver's dictionary, which can be changed by the receiver. So if you are in IT, "server" is translated to "central computer", and if you are in the food industry, "server" is translated to "waiter/waitress". (I love reading Google-translated technical documentation about installing software on waiters.) The receiver can also set abbreviations, so "computer", "server", and "desktop" all translate to "PC".

If having the receiver do the translation has not been patented, this post is prior art and is released into the public domain. Just to be certain it is legal, here is the abstract:

A method and system translating instant messages between users who communicate in different languages is presented. Two or more users engaged in an instant messaging session compose messages according to a source language or destination language. The source language corresponds to the preferred language of the user of the device that sends messages during the session, while the destination language corresponds to the preferred language of the user of a device that receives sent messages. During the session, devices send source language information with each message. A content translation module implemented as a computer-executable module (e.g., DLL, exe, so) utilizes the information contained in the user profile to translate messages from the source language to the destination language. The received message is translated before the message is displayed. Because the message is translated after delivery, the destination device translates the message according to its local dictionary.

Prior Art?

[devvincy]

Would the little chat feature placed in Pgantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast, make this null and viod?

More translations are needed...

[spike it]

They're missing out on the biggest "language" there is in the online world...online ebonics! It'd be great to have a translator that would easily translate the following sentence into understandable English - Yo dat movie wuz so phat, I kant wayt 2 c da 2nd 1!

Re:More translations are needed...

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Wait...so "online ebonics" != 1337?
7|-|47 15 50 |\|07 1337!!!!!1!!!!!!1!!!!!1!!111!!
7|-|47 5|_|>0|2z!!!

Diplomat

[samx]

An IRC client called Diplomat has done this at least since 1998. Looks like the site is gone now, but can still be found using the way back machine: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.universe.c om

The dawn of a new patent era

[CustomDesigned]

The first era of software patents:

Do something we've done for hundreds of years - but do it on a computer!

The second era of software patents:

Do something we've done on computers for decades - but do it on the web!

The new era of software patents:

Do something we've done on the web for years - but do it on IM!

one word - BLOATWARE

[Anonymous Coward]

mozilla pah... i'm sorry but screw using mozilla for email too. mutt all the way i'm afraid.

If M$ wanted to use this to its advantage...

[Joey Patterson]

Linux user sends: Linux rocks!

..
MS' IM translation magic
..

Joe Lunchbucket gets: All your Next Generation Secure Computing Base are belong to us!

Prior Art: Fire

[EelBait]

There is already an IM client that does this: Fire.app

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I have prior art on this

[hqm]

in 1997 we had a company that had a multiplayer
game with chat, and we could set it to run messages
through babelfish on the server (or whatever AltaVista's translation service was).

We even did translation twice for some games, The idea was to simulate international business negotiation, so to make the communication harder, we'd have messages translated from english to german to english, to simulate a scenario where a merger between an english and german company had taken place.

Why is this a troll?

[roesti]

Who keeps modding this guy as a troll? What he says, at least about Phantasy Star Online, is actually true, and was back in the Dreamcast's time as well. He's not trying to annoy anybody, he's not trying to advertise, and he's contributing to a discussion about patents by including a reference to prior art.

Old News

[chadma]

doesn't anyone remember riding the cart in the Epcot center ball? It's sponsored by AT&T and had an asian boy talking to the caucasian girl on computer screens.

on one screen it was in asian, and the other was in english.

Re:Old News

[bmantz65]

Don't tell Mr. Gates now. Imagine the hilarity of MS suing Disney.

Big Brother!

[eliasen]

Wow! After I posted the above message, an automated spider from Microsoft downloaded the referenced documentation for Frink. I'm sure their motives are noble, too.

131.107.65.111 - - [03/Jul/2003:16:04:33 -0600] "GET /frinkdocs/ HTTP/1.0" 200 176844 "-" "lwp-trivial/1.36"

Does anyone else have automated Microsoft spiders scanning their referenced websites? Or are they just afraid that Frink will 0wn them someday?

Interesting to note:

• According to the timestamp above, I posted the message at 4:03 PM. The spider came through at 4:04 PM!
• Somebody at Microsoft is using Perl's LWP::Simple module to do the grabbing. At least I have some respect for some of their techies now. But I thought .NET did everything better...
• The IP resolves to proton.research.microsoft.com

Anyone heard the Barcelona song "Watching You Watching Us?" :)

Re:Big Brother!

[Anonymous Coward]

proton.research.microsoft.com ?
Oh dear, they must know Dr. Proton! Someone get Duke Nukem on their case.

Obvious+"on a computer"=Patent

[jazman]

This seems to be what people are doing now.

Foreign friend: (something foreign)
Me, to translator: what'd he say?
Translator: (something foreign, in English)

With me so far? Just about everyone who's met anyone foreign will have been through this process.

Now here's the magic. Add the words "on a computer", and there you have a patent!

Time for an "Obvious prior art" site, where we can all submit really obvious ideas, plus "on a computer", then next time someone tries to patent a method to scratch your butt using a computer or something we can LART the USPTO with it.

Here are some more ideas:

Automatic translation of email using a computer.
Automatic translation of ICQ messages using a computer.
Automatic translation of chatroom using a computer.
Farting using a computer.
Driving a fucking car using a computer.
Typing in stupid patent ideas comprising obvious idea plus "on a computer" on a computer.
LARTing the USPTO with a computer.
Using a computer with a computer.
Watching the goggle box with a computer.
Blowing your nose with a computer.
Rewinding a video tape using a computer.
Putting a Trinity poster on the fireplace using a computer.

That's nothing

[bursch-X]

I patented 3,684 click shopping.

Unfortunately Microsoft tried to sue me, because they already have the 3,684 click technology implemented in the Windows setup procedure and most other preference dialogues. (Now I hear Real is trying to prove that they've got prior art on this in their installers).

[OT] Re:Why is this a troll?

[sbszine]

He's a troll because he pretends to work for various videogame companies but actually doesn't. Check this comment for details.

A Patent for Computer Communications

[Anonymous Coward]

A patent is proposed

- said method is to transfer data from one computer to another. The data may travel directly from the first computer (SOURCE) to the target computer (TARGET), or may be passed along by other devices along the way.

I'm rich now!

Didn't Microsoft learn the first time... ???

[Proudrooster]

Step into my time machine... the year is 1996 and MS Word 6.0 is rolled out with it's racist / sexist thesaurus. Letting MS translate from one language to another should be interesting to say the least and I can't wait to put two windows side-by-side and try their translation. Here is a flashback to 1996.

It turns out that Microsoft's Word version 6 dictionary has the following synonyms in their Spanish version dictionary.

Their equivalent for Mexican = Aztec, Charro, Fat, Vulgar, Ridiculous, Loud.

Their equivalent for Indian = Savage, Primitive, Cannibal. (Someone who is black is an indian as well, who in turn is as mentioned above)

Their equivalent for Mestizo = Mixture, Bastard, Blended, Hybrid.

Their equivalent for Oriental = Chinese, Yellow, Asian.

Their equivalent for Occidental is = European, Aryan, White, Civilized and Cultured.

Their equivalent for Lesbian = a Pervert and depraved person.

I wonder if MS will sue the translators at the UN?

Re:Is there prior art? (IBM in 2001)

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at IBM in 2001 and we used a service that sat in as a "Buddy" on a sametime server. The translation buddy would spit out the text in both languages. This sounds slighty different than what this patent is going for, but pretty close.

As another use said, they are going after a specific implementation it sounds like.

Oh no...

[Venner]

I can see it now:
Input: A/S/L?
Output: E/S/L (Edad/Sexo/Localización [or lugar?])

Or better yet:
Input: Hiya! I want 2 meet u 4 lunch. tty l8r
Output: Yo quiero dos reunión u cuatro almuerzo.
tty lochor.

*shudder*

obvious

[Dun Malg]

From the patent:

"A method for translating instant messages exchanged between two or more devices over a network by one or more users that communicate in different languages, the method comprising: establishing a user profile indicating at least one user language and one or more translation preferences of the one or more users; receiving a message as input composed by at least one of the users according to the user language; translating the message from the user language to at least one different language corresponding to the one or more translation preferences; and transmitting the message in translated form to at least one of the two or more devices. "

Shouldn't this patent have been refused under the "non-obvious" rule? Sure, it's a subjective thing, but come on. The "specifics" of the patent are just a laundry list of all the usual features one adds when computerizing anything. User profile with translation prefs? More than obvious. Any software that doesn't save my prefs is lame. Translation by computer? Obvious. People have been making computers translate for decades. IMing? Already exists. The "client-server-client" part is part of most IM systems already, so that's nothing new. Putting the translation system in the middle on the server? Fails the obvious test as well. Really, I fail to see how this is anything more than the usual patenting of "doing commonly known task-- with a computer!" or, the second most popular, patenting two common tasks trivially combined, e.g. "reading a book while riding a unicycle!"
What a load of crap.

Claim #13

[LauraW]

You're right about the claim (#1) you quoted: If someone develops a system that doesn't use user profiles or doesn't transmit the message in translated form, then it won't infringe. But look at claim #13:

13. A system for providing real-time communication over a network between two or more devices to support multiple languages, the system comprising: at least one source device coupled to the network for transmitting a message composed according to a source language; a content translation module having instructions for translating the message into a destination language; and at least one destination device coupled to the network for receiving the message from the content translation module.

This seems to cover any IM system where the translation is done on the server and then re-transmitted to the recipient. It doesn't require that the system have profiles, preferences, etc.

Hopefully this claim will be thrown out as overly broad, but knowing the USPTO it won't be. I know from experience: my name is on a fairly broad patent covering "web-bug" images. Fortunately it's owned by IBM and they're not enforcing it. I got a nice bonus for filing it back in 1996 or so. :-)

Laura

Re:Patent? Doesn't Star Trek Consitute Prior Art?

[I Like Swords!!!]

Ewww, that's one place I did NOT want to boldly go... Thanks for the brain hemorrhage.

Imagine the fun with intentional bad translations

[I Like Swords!!!]

Or confusing those you're talking to by speak with horrible grammar and sentence structure, not to mention using the wrong words that are misspellings but legitimate words in the sender's language.

I can just see a few sadistically minded people doing that.

Ignore all software patents

[presidenteloco]

And publish the source on the distributed,
encrypted, anonymous blacknet. Screw em.

The test of whether a patent is valid or
not ought to have something to do with whether
I could've thought up the idea myself after
removing half my paltry wits by self-inflicted
lobotomy. This one fails that lobotmus test.

No wait, I think I'll patent translation
of rude posts on slashdot.

Merde, Je suis un sale de bain.

(It's an early prototype.)

shenanigans!

[Phybersyk0]

I call prior art!
Ultima Online, you could talk to french or japanese people in english, and the stuff would translate pretty good. unfortunatly if you happened to know Japanese romanization and attempted to communicate that way, the system would try to translate your katakana-english into japanese (double translation).

it started getting crappier though with all the slang being used. "skels=skeletons" (for example) so many Japanese seemed to stay on their own servers...

kinda sad though.
It was cool fighting with a guy named "Mopar" -- "let's go and a kill some shit!".

I'm a little nervous about this

[tkarr]

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2003/j un03/06-30imaginecup.asp The first bullet describes something a bit... similar

WTO to underdeveloped nation

[titaniam]

In order to process your application for assistance, it must be certified as being translated correctly by an approved translation program, such as the easy to use and inexpensive Windoze Triple OT .NUT sucker servant obfuscating cistern with patented translation technology. Unauthorized (pirated) translations will be returned via cruise missle.

would pipelines be coverd too?

[Anonymous Coward]

what about small unix apps using pipes to do the same thing? the idea has been around for ages, would this be covered under this stupid patent too if the first program in the pipeline was an im, and the next a translator etc?

Americans... the capitalists and the enslaved.

I have prior art.

[SHEENmaster]

#!/bin/sh
#This program converts English to a different language
#Pipe shutdown announcements for it to keep the
#slow witted among users from saving their files.
#
#by: Travis Goodspeed, aka SHEENmaster
pig|wall

Prior art

[LoadWB]

I have to call prior are on this one. In the Amiga ICQ client I used an ARexx script which piped stuff through Babelfish. (Like the department header says.) We used similar scripts in IRC.

Is it just me, or does the US Patent System seem to be nothing more than government funded and supported extortion?

Ridiculousness

[whig]

Patents must become increasingly absurd in order to make it clear to people that patenting ideas is not the best way to ensure that inventors receive credit for their innovations.

Perhaps instead we ought to have a public registry which new ideas may be entered into, and all prior art may also be seen and shown when it exists. Those with a truly novel concept would be clearly noted as such and those making use of their invention would voluntarily contribute to encourage the further development of science and progress.

Much like the Free Software movement, but as applied to all inventions.

Repeat after me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Data processing is not a field of technology.

Ayttm gives prior art

[Baloo Ursidae]

Ayttm does this already...does the patent office not know about Google?

Re:Ayttm gives prior art

[colinleroy]

And everybuddy did so even before the fork, since at least one year.

Prior Art

[mausmalone]

If you've got Mac OSX, find a copy of Fire. I haven't tried it yet, but my co-worker has been using it. It's an IM client that (I think) works on the AIM network and does the translation in the client program, not on a server. It seems a little slow, and he says it doesn't handle Russian very well, but it's most definitely prior art.

Babble Fish

[ratfynk]

Wow MS has dicovered that reference file translation can work. Data bases can cross ref. Very innovative.

Is that a masculine reference or? That is one hell of a long way from true language translation.
The differences in inflection between dialects alone is something computer algorytms cannot cope with unless the leg work of cross referencing phrases is done first.

Like their encyclopedia it will suck if they do not spend the time and money to make it work first. Taking care of the huge information data bases needed will cost Bill billions.

A Startrek like universal translator on the PocketPC is not going to cut it. It will make babble fish look good!

Language translation through data base cross referencing software is not something that Microsoft can patent it has already been done.

But who knows they might just manage to weasel a patent on all language phrase translation software. Or something really stupid like that.

With the patents that are being issued for software today as an example, just the name and description might pass for a real product/idea.

IM users sued by Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

One day after ISPs bent under pressure from
Microsoft to release data about American IM
users who send messages in other languages
- the users have received letters demanding
huge royalties to be paid to Microsoft
as users (many of them using dictionaries)
sent instant messages in foreign languages
thus violating MS patent.

In separate letters MS lawyers sued
Miriam-Websterd and Oxford and Cambridge University Presses demanding royalties from
dictionary sales as they are infringing on
MS patent for translating messages from
one language to another.

prior art

[oohp]

There is prior art. I've seen pre-1999 epic scripts that translate stuff using babelfish.

several translation plug-ins for Miranda IM

[Anonymous Coward]

http://miranda-im.org/download/search.php?action =s earch&keyword=spanish

can we say

[Anonymous Coward]

software localization, it has been done for years. We have server side apps in the US that have clients using other languages for their machines. When the clients login for the first time they get their environment setup and the language defaults sets. This little jewel also converts time, currency and was written on a Vax 9000 quite some time ago. I will attempt to locate a source I can use with dates...

dmsn is doing it!

[Anonymous Coward]

www.dmsn.nl has a stranslation feature.. germanenglish

Re:A couple thoughts (with the link)

[Dan-DAFC]

That's a very interesting point you make, certainly deserving of +1 insightful, I had read the article and hadn't made the connection until I saw your post. It was on the register the other day, here's the link.

PRIOR ART!

[Anonymous Coward]

as the original author of worldpad (a program that does EXACTLY THE SAME THING as what microsofts 'patent' claims to do) I can stand up and claim 'prior art' to this system. ic-crypt.com(the download link url to worldpad) is dead because I'm no-longer maintaining that software or services (I've moved onto bigger and better things). But this begs me to ask the question : do these monkey's at the UPTSO actually bother to check AT ALL for prior art? or do they just see a big name like "Microsoft" and take their word for it? (who cares as long as the cash comes in right?) The US Patent and Trademark System is so stupidly broken and corrupted it's unreal.

Kiss my ass, Shku Li Batachat

[pepper_pusher]

MS kann mein arsch kussen

Something original from M$?

[metamatic]

Sorry, no. IBM implemented on-the-fly translation for Lotus Instant Messaging some years ago. I somehow doubt IBM will let Microsoft enforce this patent.

(Disclaimer: I work for IBM, but this is not an official comment of course.)

Re: Criminal "businesses" and industry practice

[Joey Vegetables]

A true free market requires freedom to compete. One big problem with our economy is that some players have learned how to use the "system" to shut out competitors, and without competition, a market is no longer free. This is a pretty good example.

What's the solution? Better antitrust laws/enforcement? Not really. The biggest players clearly have learned how to subvert laws of every kind, and, besides, these laws attack the symptom, not the problem. There is nothing wrong with being successful, but there is something very wrong with being able to "legally" threaten harm to competitors, through the patent system or by any other means.

Perhaps patent "examiners" should be liable for the considerable economic harm caused by failure to perform their lawful duties (such as checking for prior art, etc.)? And certainly those who apply for patents they know to be bogus ought to be liable as well.

Otherwise, criminals (in business and government) continue to get a free ride at the expense of all the rest of us.

Chilling Impact

[cait56]

The discussion has focused solely upon patent implicaions, ignoring the real impact of this technology.

The ability to translate an IM converstation into a foreign language, even one that might be understood by parents such as English, will have a profoundly chilling effect on IM converstaions.

What is the innovation?

[cait56]

If I read the patent correctly, the only claim of innovation is that a non-novel process (translation) is configured based upno session variables.

I believe that Environment variables are clearly prior art. As are web sites that deliver language-specific pages based on user supplied information.

An algorithm that was specifically adapted to an interactive dialogue could be patentable. For example, if you had specific techniques to determine whether the word "present" was referring to a gift or to a point in time based upon prior exchanges in the conversation.

Of course I'd hate to see what a group of punsters would do to the poor software.

Gene Roddenberry (sp?) turns over in grave...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is called a universal translator

Public Domain Idea for you,

[Buzz_Litebeer]

I know no one will read this, but I am now putting this Idea into the public domain so that anyone can use this, including large corporations, with the caveat that it cannot be copyrighted or patented as a business process. If you wish to use this, contact me ;-)

anyway here is the idea, completely but not totally unlike microsofts Idea.

The method would be of translating the message into one language (your target language) and then re-translating it back to english in real time, and presenting the re-translated version in a sub window.

IE in an example messaging system, such as trillian, it would have one "top" window which was the raw english version, then between the two windows it would have the conversion type, in this case ENglish -> Spanish.

THe program assumes that the person writing in english does not know spanish.

When the person types in the top window, the English->spanish->english translation pops up underneath.

the user can look at the English->spanish->english version at the bottom and see if that is "close enough" to what they are trying to say.

If it is, they can then send either the English version, or the Spanish version by hitting send in either the top, or the bottom frame.

this would allow people to have a "small" sanity check to see if its re-translated as something that they intended it to say.

The accuracy of the translation is held up to "some algorithm" which would be implemented by whatever programming is implementing such a system.

It is different than the microsoft system in the fact htat it doesnt send english to be translated, it sends already translated material.

no, technology good

[Thinkit3]

No patents does not mean no technology. Technology, lots of it, is always good. In the short term it'll falter, but in the long term it will grow much faster.

Translator Patenters

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep! And if it is written vague and ambiguous
enough, then no one will be able to even conceive
of much less write or sell ANY translation software. Now how about a patent for specific
interlingual word pairs. That way you could not
say 'hola' in response to 'hi' without going to
jail! FUN HUH?!

Here is Prior Art

[Bluedove]

Prior art describing this from Nov 14, 2002.

Online Chat Translation

I hope it is earlier than Microsoft's filing date, that it applies, or maybe that the patent office decides it is "obvious".