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Microsoft Patenting IM Translation?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the pipe-through-babelfish-equals-patent dept.

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."

4 of 446 comments (clear)

  1. Prior art? by baywulf · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

  2. Is there prior art? by Gortbusters.org · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

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    Free your mind.
  3. Classic Translation Problem by jimson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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??

  4. I have prior art on this by hqm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.