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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."
I spent a year working for patent attourneys. What did I learn? If I ever go rogue and start taking out government buildings, the patent office is first on my list.
HO
HO
Whoops, here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/10/08/HNimpate nt_1.html
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Free your mind.
A link to the actual patent might have been nice.
if you look at the patent, it looks like december 2002.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
It should be noted that UNIX talk is specifically talked about in the patent and the advantages of this system over it are mentioned. This does not get around the apparant prior art of POWWOW. Remember that it is the claims of a patent that are important, not the abstract. It appears from quickly looking at the claims, that the broadest requirements are for client A to send a message to client B that client A is typing. Then client B must indicate that client A is typing. Finally, that message is turned off when client A sends another message that it is done typing. The initial typing message must be based upon typing within a predefined period of time.
Any prior art asserted against this patent would need to have been in use on or before July 21, 1998.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
That's the first I remember seeing it on a chat BBS, anyway. Lambda Switchboard software. At least two of the original systems are still online - I'm sure a few slashdotters know what I'm talking about. LOIS, TREX I, TREX II, and.. LOLA and LANE, I think?
The DOS-based Lambda software was replaced years ago with the Unix-based Mu clone, but it's still got the idle indicator in the 'F'ull who listing.
In short, this goes back to at least 1967. I'm sure there is no way our esteemed patent office could possibly have found prior art back that far, let alone what happened last week. Someone should alert them to the existence of google.
RTFP. From this week's "great innovation for customers":
As far as I can see from a quick reading, the idea is not that you see what people are typing, but that you have an indicator which lets you know that they are typing.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
Wow, I wish I knew as much about Patent law as you did. Perhaps then I could realize that this patent was a continuation application that gets the priority date of its parent application (July 21, 1999).
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Check here for info on contesting patents.
The pow-wow website is still up and dated 1997 so you can still download it and check the features.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
About 10 years ago, thousands of free and non-free Minitel (french bbs-like) servers did it.
Including real-time chat that let you see every key stroke of other users.
{{.sig}}
So the claimed innovation here is simplifying real-time, continuous updates by just sending activity updates. Hmm. I'm not sure that really passes the tests for either "obvious" or actually "innovative", but at least they address talk.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
It is ralely used however, unless the patent office takes signiciant notice of the problem, the patent is likely to be asserted, lawsuits to determine the patents validity are unlikely, and the patent is blatantly invalid. In short, the PTO would rather the courts and affected parties handle the issue, and keep their own hands clean.
It didn't appear in BSD until 4.2, but it appeared as early as 1962 on Dartmouth BASIC (GE 635).
If you read the patent, you will see that TALK and other prior chat systems are mentioned in the references and body of the patent. The specific "innovation" here is that the system polls for activity on a timer, and turns on and off the "user typing" message based on activity during the timer period.
/. as prior art. Even Yahoo's "user is typing" simply toggles on and never turns off if you abandon typing. Is polling periodically obvious? Surely. Remember, the USPO is a profit center, and granting obvious patents brings profit to both them and patent attorneys, so there is no motivation not to allow such simple changes to be patented.
While I think that it is absurd that this was granted, it is not any of the things being thrown around on
Sig under construction since 1998.
With those blue 'bubbles' that appear over the player's head when he starts typing, and disappear when complete.
Do not forget Ddial - 1978!
An Apple II loaded with AppleCat 300 Baud modems.
I spent much of my afterschool time "chatting" online with friends (yes Slahsdotters - I had friends back then!)
More info:
www.ddial.com
Technically it is the priority date that matters, not the filing date. The filing date for this patent is December of 2002, while the patent has priority going back to July of 1999.
This is the date to beat for prior art.
Nevertheless, prior art for such an indicator DOES exist. I have used Lotus Sametime for at least two years. Sametime's chat window has a status bar that says "so-and-so is responding" as soon as that person begins typing. The chat window does NOT show WHAT they are typing until the person at the other end presses ENTER. This type of function (Sametime's "so-and-so is responding" status message) sounds exactly like the functionality for which MS just received its patent.
The Big News Page
an excerpt from here
A request for reexamination is commenced by filing a reexamination request along with a modest filing fee. In the request, the requestor cites the patents and other printed publications which purport to establish that the patented inven- tion is not new or unobvious as of the date of its invention. The Patent Office will then decide if the requestor has made out a prima facie case of invalidity. If so, the patent will be subjected to reexamination. Reexamination is between the patentee and the Patent Office. The requestor has no involvement after filing the request for reexamination.
if you have any interest at all on the workings of the us patent system, go here, read up.
The fee for "requesting an reexamination was 2520.00 in 1999.
Perhaps we should start a fund to have this patent reexamined?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This exact feature was in wide use at MIT in '89 if not earlier - the zephyr instant messaging system used by nearly all students at MIT when I was there ('89 to '94) had this feature, along with essentially every other feature currently use in IM clients. This is BS. I'm not sure if zephyr is still in use at MIT, but this is certainly NOT something new.
The filing date on the patent is December 20, 2002.
has this feature NOW! It is used by companies for internal chat. Sametime, which is part of the Notes suite, is owned by IBM, which I imagine has barrels of lawyers to throw around. I can't imagine IBM tucking tail and removing this feature.
-Steve
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
this is a continuation of a previous application with a 1999 filing date. the effective date of the application, the begining of its patent protection, and the date of which prior art must be earlier than is July 21,1999.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.