Slashdot Mirror
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.""
Nothing like a story involving Microsoft to bring out the haters. Nothing like patents to bring out the righteous indignance. The problem is, most Slashdot readers don't know much of the law behind patents, how they're written, and how they're challenged. Largely, they think if a patent claims something, and the patent is approved, then the claim has force of law.
The fact of the matter is, patents are structured with a series of claims, as you can see in the linked article. Claims are the only thing with meaning in a patent. The rest is provided for reference, clarification, and simple defence. So the only thing of true importance in this document are the claims, near the top.
Secondly, wildly broad claims normally start, and increasingly narrow claims are made as one works down the ordered list. Therefore, the first thing you claim is going to be ridiculously broad. Generally speaking, the first few claims in a patent are not serious attempts to patent something. The last few claims are the ones of importance. And, what do you know, the title of the patent is...the first claim. So before anyone flames Microsoft, have you read claims 11-20? Oh, there's still plenty to complain about, but not as much as the article writer implies.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
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.
They seem to be patenting the "cookie" system. Were cookies first introduced by MS back when? If so, they may have the "originality" claim. I'd even concede that this solution isn't "obvious".
Still, is this an "invention"? is this patentable? How many people here think Leibnitz should have patented integration by parts?
Screw the weather report or stock quotes. The language of the patent describes also offline message retrieval via POP3 protocol.
;)
American patent system is scary stuff...
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Anyone who uses the Wheel group will have to pay me royalties for use of the name.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
This is only because of the idiotic US Patent system that microsoft has to buy a bunch of dumb patents because if they didn't some moronic company would come along sueing them for having a web browser that supports plugins.
As a matter of fact, engineers are encouraged *not* to do a patent search. Having seen the patents that you'll probably infringe on anyway just proves intent, making the penalties worse. It's much better to infringe by accident.
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!
God forbid the patent office would act responsibly and avoid a slew of lawsuits to fight frivolous patent claims. Oh wait, I see now, this is a federal welfare program for lawyers.
Open Windows... Look at weather.
Sorry, but somebody had to say it.
----
#SickNotWeak
it looks like the same patent examiner also granted them a patent on web services yesterday.
patent 6,632,249
who is stephen s. hong?
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.
uniquie
I hope they haven't patented their spell checking software.
You've got it backwards.
According to the US Department of State
"The United States is unique in its approach to the allocation of patent rights. In the United States, patent rights are granted to the 'first to invent' rather than the universally accepted approach of the 'first to file.'"
"...what constitutes prior use or public knowledge -- 'prior art' - differs considerably [in the US] from standards commonly adopted elsewhere. Although subject matter described in a printed publication or patent will constitute prior art, whether or not it is published or patented in the United States, the same is not true of subject matter in public use or known to the public. In these latter cases, only use or knowledge within the United States or its territories constitutes prior art. Many countries determine the applicability of prior art without geographic limitations."
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
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
Let me see here... (scrolling down)... "This HTML or network document customization is capable or providing each user who accesses a network address with an HTML document that is matched to that user's preferences. This customization adds to the strength of linked information provided by HTML documents by providing each user with the information, or links to information, that the user actually wants."
That's from the description, which translates claims 1-20 into real English. It sure looks to me like they're basically patenting My Yahoo! and every other site that ever used a customized home page.
This isn't a complaint about Microsoft; if my sister was issued this patent I'd be equally astonished. This sort of thing has been going on ever since CGI and cookies, when Microsoft was still deciding whether the Internet was worth their while. How it could ever get issued is utterly beyond me.
Lets just take Slashdot. The server has state. It knows who I am and I can leave a cookie on a system so that Slashdot can know that I am the normal user on that system. Slashdot tailors its output depending upon my stored preferences.
I don't know when Slash started all its per user customisations, but there were definitely other web systems that could deliver content based on user preferences seven years ago.
See my journal, I write things there
Actually, patents were invented to promote what today is called "piracy". It began in the early renaissance with glaziers and silkmakers; governments granted them exclusive national rights to the industry in return for their ripping off foreign inventors' processes. It was only later expanded to include genuinely "novel" inventions, but patents' national character still allows the original intent of reducing imports by ripping off foreign ideas.
You seem to be implying that patent schemes are the only way that people can have a prospect of financial reward and benefit from their inventions. This claim is absurd on its face.
Patents are a governmental intrusion into the free market. Like any governmental intrusion, they can be good or bad depending on how they are done. And like any governmental intrusion, "less" is usually better unless a clear case can be made that the particular intrusion in question will be of benefit to the market.
All's true that is mistrusted
I just read the claims in the patent. This is completely outrageous.
In a nutshell, it covers the universal mechanism of delivering user-specific dynamic web content: tag the user with a unique ID (usually by way of a cookie), then use this ID as a lookup key into a database where user-specific settings reside (which the user provided at some earlier point by submitting an HTML form), then deliver HTML pages that are customized based on the stored user information (e.g. "This page was generated by a Barrel of Attack Elephants for cdunworth.")
If this patent is enforceable, nearly every single web application ever written would be subject to it. Your online bank uses this mechanism. Slashdot uses this mechanism. Amazon uses this mechanism.
There must be prior art to invalidate this. Aren't there any software developers that work at the patent office???
I would also like to dispel the myth of the OSS developer as one who sits around and has nothing better to do than code. I am an OSS developer, but I have a wife and kid. They need food, clothes, and all those other not-so-extravagent things. To support that expensive habit of living, I have a full time job, get this, supporting OSS software.
That's right, I'm paid to maintain a bunch of Linux servers. There are some Microsoft servers too, but they pay at least my salary in support fees for the 3 packages they run. Judging by the "on hold" time I spend waiting for Tech support, they aren't employing a whole lot of people.
I do some work on the side. Some volunteer work, some paid. All of it uses OSS software to do something useful on a budget. Those budgets are generally just enough to pay me to write the software, and not a whole lot more for licenses or extravegant hardware. If I didn't have the advantages of OSS, the projects would never have existed because there is no market.
So you see, OSS has created at least 1 job, and a wonderful side income for me. But I don't get paid for the software. I get paid (or when volunteering, recognized) for SUPPORTING the software.
Giving the software the results away avoids a whole raft of sticky intellectual property issues. Since my clients know that everything I write will be published they don't feel like I'm hording property developed for THEM. I don't feel like I'm being and intellectual prostitute.
My software is like the collection of techniques a carpenter developes while making furnature. By itself useless, but in skilled hands it can produce usefull things.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I did, and I noticed the following in Claim 1:
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but when you access the "server computer" using HTTP for the first time, you're typically given a default page. If you click on a "customize this page" link, then you can customize away. However, that is a different page, and hence, a second access, according to HTTP. Claim 1 wouldn't apply, and so none of the other claims would. (I may be wrong because there are keepalives, etc.)
> get tea
No Tea: dropped.
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.