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.""

Comments

Re:Hype

[SirSlud]

Even if the claims held any wieght, the patent term (20 years) is rediculously inappropriate for software patents, as by the time the patent expires, any claims made within it are of little use to the public.

Computer technology changes far too quickly. 20 years protection on a software patent allows far too much protection for the 'inventor' (who decreasingly *is* the inventor, and usually just the first to file) and not enough benifit for the public.

Re:Hype

[grendel's mom]

The "increasing narrow" claims are as absurd (and as nearly as broad) as the first.

From the last claim: "A method of providing customized documents to multiple users on client computers; the method comprising the steps of:

obtaining customization information from a first client computer;

..."

This isn't broad? That's huge.

And patents effectively give the holder a monopoly on the idea. "The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling" the invention in the United States or "importing" the invention into the United States."

Re:Hype

[harriet nyborg]

"have you read claims 11-20?"

The fact of the matter is, OldMiner, that each claim of a patent can be considered as an individual patent. Each claim serves the purpose of notifying the public the scope of the monopoly rights granted to the patentee.

As a member of the public I am compelled by law to assume each and every claim is valid... not just claims 11-20.

Claim 1 - whether it is valid or not - requires the public to take action (design around, take a license, etc.) and exposes the public to risk if they ignore it. Even if MS chooses to not enforce the claim, the act of granting it causes economic harm.

The patent office should not grant patents containing "widly broad" claims. Period.