MS Patents IM Feature Used Since At Least 1996

splorp! writes "Once again, a company is patenting a feature that another company implemented years before. C|Net's News.com reports that patent no. 6,631,412 grants Microsoft the rights to 'an instant messaging feature that notifies users when the person they are communicating with is typing a message.' Excuse me? Does anyone remember Powwow (now defunct)? I remember using that one back in '96 and it alerted the other people to whom you were chatting that you were typing. Or, alternately, it allowed you to SEE the other people typing in real time. Yeah, Powwow is gone, now, but that doesn't mean those features never existed."

Comments

Even older prior art

[Gzip Christ]

What about the UNIX "talk" command? That command allows you to see what the other person is typing in real time and it's been around forever. I wouldn't be surprised if there were cave paintings showing our ancestors using "talk" to tell their buddies how the wooly mammoth hunt was going.

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The fake Gzip Christ isn't not user number ~0xA6CA7

Re:Even older prior art

[TheFairElf]

..to tell their buddies how the wooly mammoth hunt was going

That is no way of referring to RMS

Re:Even older prior art

[ashitaka]

That is, each time individual types of a single character on the computer keyboard, that character is transmitted to all other participants in the instant messaging session.

Oh! You mean like:

W..a..k..e..,....u..p....N..e..o.

T..h..e....M..a..t..r..i..x....h..a..s....y..o.. u.

K..n..o..c..k..,....k..n..o..c..k..,....N..e..o.

Re:Even older prior art

[NickFitz]

The OSS community needs a forum for debunking these patent applications. One where the USPTO trusts it for prior art inspections.

Now that's a good idea. Have you thought of patenting it? ;-)

Re:Even older prior art

[NickFitz]

A clock, perhaps?

More text than code

[javatips]

What I find amusing is that it probably took a lot more time filling for this patent than implement the feature.

One must be very creative to describe such a simple feature in so many pages of text!

Re:More text than code

[Nucleon500]

Perhaps, as a Slashdot user, and in point of fact, not a lawyer, you are not so acutely aware, as people in the legal field are, of the importance, necessesity, and advantages of making a document, filing, or other communication of any kind as bloated, wordy, verbose, stuffed with verbiage, and otherwise unwieldy as humanly, or even inhumanly, possible. Sometimes one mere person, or even a lawyer, acting by himself in a non-collaberative manner, such as typing in front of a computer, is not sufficient to produce such a convoluted and long-winded document. In these commonplace instances, it is seldom not imprudent to deny the expansion of the document commitee. The commitee should include, but not be limited to, every lawyer in the company, and at least fifty percent, or whoever doesn't want to participate, whichever is more at the time of choosing, of the people in the company, organization, or group. They should all be brought into a meeting room, they should brainstorm random ideas, adjectives, phrases, writs, legal principles, and bodily noises, and they should be forced to put their ramblings down on paper for no less than 6 hours. This example, which I hope has been informative to all, has now taken five precious minutes of my irreplacable time, so I must bring it to a long and drawn out close, in the hope that you will be thusly enlightened, and therefore more able to understand the legal system which increasingly dominates our industry, as well it should, because of the many benefits it brings, including creating demand for larger computer storage devices such as hard drives and backup media.

Re:Don't forget

[JohnHegarty]

...AOL and Yahoo were not available for comment.

but they were typing a responce...

But the Microsoft feature is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Powwow never had Clippy tell you the other person was typing.

Re:Don't forget (actually)

[vasqzr]

I remember it distinctly because my girlfriend's Yahoo wasn't working

Don't worry, it happens to everyone.

Excuse me

[mabu]

There's a problem here. I have a patent on hypocrisy. It's obvious that no. 6,631,412 is a derivative work and therefore infringing upon my IP.

In latest news...

[skebe]

Microsoft patents living, breathing, and dying. Trillions expected in back revenue.

It's the weight game.

[supun]

Very simple, Microsoft gets patents on existing functionality or technology. If you use them, they go after you. Even if there is prior art, Microsoft can tie it up in court. Since Microsoft has a huge advantage in the money department, they can last longer, causing the victim to surrender or agree to some crazy license from Microsoft. It's basically being a bully.

It's smart business, however if we depended on "smart business" we'd probable be still living in caves after someone patented "shelters."

I have patented modding down of /. comments

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

I have just been awarded US Patent 6,234,234, "Method of suppressing off-topic, inflammatory, or uninteresting comments in a Slashdot discussion by using moderator points to reduce the score of the comment."

Mod me down and I will sue you. I can subpoena /. for your user info under the DMCA.

GNAA and Goatse posts may be modded down royalty-free. I don't want to see that picture either.

more patents

[picardsb]

Pending patents from MS:

(10) numerals on keyboard 0...9, letters q...m
(9) a = a+1; (does not mean 1 = 1+1)
(8) mouse has more than one button
(7) when you type 'a', the 'a' shows up on screen
(6) pressing 'enter' crashes the program, there are new advanced keys too 'crtl'+'alt'+'del'
(5) pc speaker sings RIP along with blue screen event
(4) only one website can do it all 'i can't believe it's not butterfly.com'
(3) you send an email, and it goes to the addressee - dodging the mail filter
(2) right to pick up the outlook icon on the screen - and safely save in the recycle bin
(1) computer needs to run a program - not just the os (and bios)

Re:Don't forget (actually)

[SirGeek]

I remember it distinctly because my girlfriend's Yahoo wasn't working

Don't worry, it happens to everyone.

He said Yahoo.. Not her HooHa