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Microsoft Patents Your Local Weather Report
theodp writes "After a seven year wait, Microsoft was granted a patent Tuesday for the Customization of network documents by accessing customization information on a server computer using unique user identifiers, patent lawyer-speak for using preferences stored on a server for such purposes as "displaying stock quotes for the companies in which the user is interested, and displaying the user's local weather report.""
It's Locutus.
/. but please attempt to spell names correctly.
It may just be a throw away comment on
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
I'm afraid you're not very practiced at reading patents. Each separate claim is an individual protected invention, insofar as it does not rely on the others. Thus just because claim (x+1) refers to "claim x implemented using HTML", that doesn't mean that the patent only applies to HTML. It means that it applies to both x implemented any old way, and to x specifically implemented using HTML.
The reason for this is that if someone can defeat claim x (for being too broad), the patentee can still try and fall back on the more limited claim in (x+1).
Furthermore patent claims are read purposively. Thus for example if a patent for invention specifies a vertical support, then you can't evade the patent by using a support 1 degree off vertical, unless you can establish that the invention patented truly requires absolute verticality. In this situation, a judge would probably rule that a patent covering HTML implementation would extend to XHTML and any other mark-up language that can be read by a standard web browser, since obviosuly the purpose of specifying HTML is to cover such documents.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Oh, and what abou this claim
Can you say COOKIE?
Or This one Umm, sounds like a SESSION ID?
MS can take this patent and basically shut down ANY web site out there. You get a cookie from
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
I'm no Microsoft hater - I honestly doubt most Slashdot readers are either.
...So, there you have it. There are no claims that could not be applied to any news site, any weather site, any sports site, any entertainment site, any science site, or any combination that uses cookies and customization. Indeed, all of the claims are much more general than that. If anyone has any ideas on how this could NOT be applied to any of these, I'd definetly be interested in hearing any other interpretations - I can't see any other way of differentiating based on this document.
I've read the 20 claims. None of them contradict the idea that any news site's weather report could meet any and all of these claims.
1 describes a an abstract computer connection with persistant state and cookie setup and use - it is actually the most specific claim
2 describes the storage of the cookie on the user's system
3 clarifies that the cookie can help identify the connecting system
4 states that HTML is used
5 states that the cookie will contain data about user preferences relative to the site
6 states that information in the cookie may relate to one or more of the following: news, sports, financial matters, entertainment, science and technology, life, and weather
7 states that the form to select preferences will be in html
8 says that the internet may be used in this system
9 says that they may database user information
10 URL's may be used to state addresses
11 cookies may be used to send custom data to the user
12 the cookie can be used to identify the user in step 11
13 the cookie may (again) store this identifier used in step 11
14 again, the user may use a form to set preferences
15 again, topical groupings may be used in this form
16 again, this can take place on the internet
17 this process uses a client-server model, with cookies
18 requests may be cached along the way (happens on any network)
19 again - there is code that allows content to be customized based on the cookies
20 different computers may have different cookies, and they can both still access the system
Note: I have intellectual property lawyer relatives I speak with, yet I am not a lawyer myself.
Ryan Fenton
You seem to be ignorant on this aspect either.
... of the description", or "as illustrated in figure ... of the drawings".
Read the complete text. Otherwise you might think I'm tricking you into something. (1)(b) proves you wrong:
(1) The claims shall define the matter for which protection is sought in terms of the technical features of the invention. Wherever appropriate claims shall contain:
(a) a statement indicating the designation of the subject-matter of the invention and those technical features which are necessary for the definition of the claimed subject-matter but which, in combination, are part of the prior art;
(b) a characterising portion - preceded by the expression "characterised in that" or "characterised by" - stating the technical features which, in combination with the features stated in sub-paragraph (a), it is desired to protect.
(2)46 Without prejudice to Article 82, a European patent application may contain more than one independent claim in the same category (product, process, apparatus or use) only if the subject-matter of the application involves one of the following:
(a) a plurality of inter-related products;
(b) different uses of a product or apparatus;
(c) alternative solutions to a particular problem, where it is not appropriate to cover these alternatives by a single claim.
(3) Any claim stating the essential features of an invention may be followed by one or more claims concerning particular embodiments of that invention.
(4) Any claim which includes all the features of any other claim (dependent claim) shall contain, if possible at the beginning, a reference to the other claim and then state the additional features which it is desired to protect. A dependent claim shall also be admissible where the claim it directly refers to is itself a dependent claim. All dependent claims referring back to a single previous claim, and all dependent claims referring back to several previous claims, shall be grouped together to the extent and in the most appropriate way possible.
(5) The number of the claims shall be reasonable in consideration of the nature of the invention claimed. If there are several claims, they shall be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals.
(6) Claims shall not, except where absolutely necessary, rely, in respect of the technical features of the invention, on references to the description or drawings. In particular, they shall not rely on such references as: "as described in part
(7) If the European patent application contains drawings, the technical features mentioned in the claims shall preferably, if the intelligibility of the claim can thereby be increased, be followed by reference signs relating to these features and placed between parentheses. These reference signs shall not be construed as limiting the claim.
Only oddballs like RMS think people will continue to invent things without any prospect of reward and benefit.
I guess we're all sharing a mass hallucination! We can't be reading a website, because Tim Berners-Lee would've never invented the WWW if he wouldn't get a patent on it.
did Edison acquire a monopoly on the idea of the light bulb? No, just a particular implementation.
Well, Edison didn't have the lightbulb patent, it went to Joe Swan.
But even pretending he did, your claim is still incorrect. It presents a false dichotomy between "idea" and "particular implementation", when in actuality "implementations" are a subset of all "ideas". (The rubric "Ideas can never be copyrighted or patented" is false. Not every idea can be, but some can.)
Luckily, the patent office finally stopped one mechanism of severe patent abuse and started the clock ticking on the date of application rather than the date of issue. There were some people who extended their time between application and issue into decades to both get patent-pending and then patent protection.