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TVI to Sue Over MS Autoplay Feature
scubacuda links to this Infoworld article, which reads in part "TVI charges Microsoft's autoplay feature infringes on four of its U.S. patents. TV Interactive Data Corp. (TVI) of Los Gatos, California, claims that Microsoft infringes on four of its U.S. patents, three entitled 'host device equipped with means for starting a process in response to detecting insertion of a storage media' and one entitled 'method for starting up a process automatically on insertion of a storage media into a host device.", writing "I hope no one has a patent on the shift key, because that's what I hit when I insert a CD. (That is, when I haven't already edited the registry)" Wouldn't automount / autofs fall under the same shadow?
The Mac has a 'detect on auto insert' for as long as it's had a floppy drive! (IIRC, the Amiga did too.)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
I had 4DOS batch files do things when the floppy drive was accessed.
Bootable floppies.
Take that!
wouldn't the Mac be considered prior art since it has been auto responding for quite a while
Patents are supposed to be "novel" and unique. I don't see anything special about auto playing or mounting media when it is inserted.
Don't forget to sue those pesky Apple guys too, they always annoyed me with their messages that came up whenever I put in a CD... "No, not that CD, you idiot, the other CD!" And again, and again, with the endless CD swapping. I wonder if they had a patent on *that*...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
How about your car CD player, home console, digital camera, DVD player, etc etc etc? What's next, someone claiming a patent on reading magnetic or optical storage?
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
The patent numbers are 5,597,307; 5,795,156; 6,249,863 and 6,418,532.
Is it plausible that towards the end of this lawsuit flinging, people will eventually realize that by Occom's (sp incorect, sorry) razor, code will trend towards the most logical and efficient, and that for two people working on the same thing, the code will maybe, possibally, be identical?
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
My Amiga would detect when a floppy was inserted and start automaticaly and this was back in 1988.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
slashdot needs an asinine tag, like fark.
this is ridiculous.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
I really would love to see a Slashdot interview with someone in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office that can explain the process and how things like this happen. They probably cannot comment on a specific case like this, but typically we get two of these ridiculous patent claims a week mentioned on slashdot.
Are they overworked and understaffed and forced to just rubberstamp things?
Are they untrained in technology to recognize things like this?
Are they in need of being hit over the head with a clue by four?
Something is seriously wrong at the USPTO (now more then ever seemingly).
The Commodore Amiga had this from atleast the Amiga 500, possibly earlier and that was in 1986.
This rediculous patent system seriously needs some major reform.... This sueing is getting downright laughable...
Well, as soon as someone hands me a newspaper, or a book, i start reading it, without thinking about it.
then im sometimes attracted to a particular thing, typically on the frontpage, and it draws my attention to the point where my consciousness reads it too.
prior art, i guess cave paintings would be about the same.
Xiph
tarting a process in response to detecting insertion of a storage media
/cdrom" in windows, or even DOS, do you?), it's about checking for the presence of and running a dumb little "autorun" file after the disc has been inserted.
Hell, your average CD player does this... it starts a play process when a disc is inserted. Ditto for various media player all the way back to 8-track-tapes and earlier.
And that's besides the fact. Autoplay isn't really about detecting media insertion is it... since that's been around forever (you don't have to "mount
8 track tapes.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
IIRC, Autoplay has been shipped in MS operating systems since 1996. TVI has been sitting on this for eight years. Which means, of course, that if the statute of limitations hasn't expired, they will be severely limited in the remedies they are allowed to seek. It's not like this escaped their attention for 8 years.
Of course, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that even if TVI wins the case, they won't be able to collect damages for past infringement because they clearly did not demonstrate "due diligence" in protecting their patent. They might end up with a compulsory license agreement; or to avoid infringement, Microsoft OS's may end up simply popping up a dialog box ("Would you like to play this CD?") when a disk is inserted.
Yeah, I'd put TVI at net loss on this one. Their lawyers are going to make more money than they will.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
is that it's growing among companies. Companies litigating the little guy out of business over patents is relatively straightforward.
Hopefully when enough 800, 1200 and 1600 pound gorillas start beating up on each other then there will be some reform. (Hopefully)
(Okay, they just output analog stuff from tape, but they do have microcontrollers, and some can even digitize the signal eg. for better pause and slow motion image quality.)
Automount and autofs trigger filesystem mounts on directory traversals, not on media insertion.
Maybe you were thinking about vold or some other similar project.
A method of applying for vague patents on simple concepts (rather than inventions) and using those patents to hinder a business competitor or extort money from patent violators.
...about these recent patent cases is I find myself on the side of Microsoft.. yuck! I need to shower!
-- Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin
Evidently the new idea is that even the product your suing shouldn't be considered prior art. The first patent, 5,597,307, was filed in May 1995. The last Beta of Windows 95 was in March 1995 and the Microsoft DRG people were talking about it in 1994 (Auto-play was evangelized to ISVs - "Mr ISV you need to make sure that your application uses Auto-play"). What it looks like here is that the current patent strategy is to wait until someone releases a product then patent the features that aren't covered. Hopefully this is yet another nail in the stuipidity of patent issuing.
Is this some sort of Apple/Linux combo you're talking about?
"...detecting insertion of a storage media..."
I suspect it's only a matter of time until someone draws up a patent claim of the nature:
Patent 3,012,238,021...(ad infinitum) --- A method of inserting and pumping a large tubular or cylindrical item into a foes rectum, with the assistance of well studied lawyers...
Just watch, man, I'm telling the day is well nigh!
d00d, that's "l337". Get it right, 5ux0r.
Wouldn't automount / autofs fall under the same shadow?
No, autofs/ automount automatically mount media (be that an NFS share or whatever) when they detect it is needed (so the process is demand driven rather than media driven).
Perhaps you're thinking of supermount
"Linux is a serious competitor"
- Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Microsoft Corp.
I used to have a toaster that would automatically start cooking when bread was dropped-in. =-=-=-=- Tag lines are a waste of space -=-=-=-=
Tag line, copyright 2004 RadioActiveLamb
I inserted my toll punch card (aka "media") and the device automatically read (aka "played") the encoding to figure out on which exit I entered. It then displayed a number for me sothat I knew how much change to hand the toll collector. I didn't need to press any extra buttons to get my media to play. All I needed to do was insert it.
I inserted my 8-track cassette (aka "media") into the player in my [dad's] car, and it magically started playing. I didn't need to press any extra buttons.
Ever tried picking up a newspaper, well if you understand the language, you start reading it as soon as you see it. There even is order to how the brain will scan the frontpage, thus a standard of where to begin. You don't have to pinch your arm, or pull your nose (which can have nasty sideeffects). If you give it to a parent or grandparent you will often hear autoplay kicking in, especially if you're a kid. Heck, even stone age cave paintings; i bet that if you saw someones painting while it was still wet, and the creator was nearby. It wouldn't take any action on your part to get him to tell the tale of how he slew the mammoth. Xiph
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
My 8-Track player would automatically start playing music upon insertion of the audio storage media. I guess that either qualifies as prior art, or 70's electronic manufacturers better start ponying up their licensing fees.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
I did a quick search on the patent numbers in the Patent Office database. The earliest patents was filed in November 1995, and others were filed in 1999 and 2001. Strangely, the wording on all of them seemed to be very similar. (5,597,307; 5,795,156; 6,249,863 and 6,418,532)
November 1995 was around the time Windows 95 was released IIRC. It almost seems opportunistic. Maybe the patent holder quickly came up with a patent after seeing Win95, and filed it hoping that with a long enough gap he would be able to sue for patent infringement.
Cheers
Hollywood: The place good stories go to die.
prior art...
a man and a women have intercourse. data is transfered from the man to the woman. womans host process upon recieving data begins the process of creating life. details left out for as excercise for the student
yada yada.
However, in compensation for your cooperation, you will be allowed to keep 19 trinkets.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That particular feature was one of the first things I disabled in my A2000... The OS polled the floppy, causing an annoying periodic "grunk" sound. Most of the folks I knew who had Amigas (Those who would hang out at "The Memory Location" in Wellesley, MA. When they closed, we knew the platform was doomed) killed that feature with prejudice.
So, there's a question... Does the patent cover polling to see if something has been inserted, or the device interrupting to announce its new state, or both?
I thought that the way Autorun works is that the OS looks for a file called autorun.inf in the root directory on the disc/removable device and then further launches whatever executable/splashscreen/icon etc...
Doesn't seem like any special whiz bang stuff going on.
current Windows uptime: 11 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes
what sig?
By suing M$, we will get a huge company's resources (M$) fighting this; surely this will add case law against rediculous software patents!
With any luck, this will be a step in the right direction.
Seems every lawyer I meet these days is into IP law and living in downtown SF, I meet quite a few every week. Most of these lawyers also tells me with a very satisfied smile on their face what a complete and utter scam it all is. None of them want to see it changed. Hell, I can't blame them, it's like one big swollen tit from which to feed.
And no, it's not cases like this that will cause anything to change. For that will need to be done by tax paying citizens taking up torches and pitchforks and decending upon Washington in an orgy of blood lust. Then maybe we might see Congress decide to "review" the patent application process.
Isn't this "auto-detect" on insertion what has happened with USB storage devices for as long as they existed? Hell, people nowadays just want an easy way to cash some money. Maybe they are attending the same course our friends at SCO attended: "How to be a litigious bastard"
What about when I stick my media(bank card) into an ATM(host device)?
That starts a process:
"Enter your PIN."
My parent's old-school VCR would automatically play tapes when inserted..
S
Overrated, sure, but Troll? Never... Macs actually did this, guys, I was there. Well, ok, maybe the message wasn't the same, but it was quite frustrating!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Why is it that it has taken X Company 15-20 years for people to think about suing over what is now considered accepted practices?
SCO and a handful of questionable Linux, every little thing in MS-DOS/Windows, 1-Click shopping.
I need to duct my head to together so that when it finally does explode all the little bits will be there.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Uh, that wasn't Timothy talking, though. See, the quote marks?
I'd say good riddance. I fucking hate autoplay. It's a security liability and an annoyance.
Not like Microsoft has any chance of losing though. This is a really old technology with dozens of examples of prior art(s).
-Turkey
Sex
So does my first (1982?) VCR. If the record tab is removed, then the VCR goes to play. This is a standard feature with almost all VCRs today....
After all, the nooks and crannies in my english
muffins will eventually store delicious jam and
butter.
While I am aware that Macs and Amigas have had this for a while, Solaris has had this same feature ever since vold was invluded with it. (anyone with dates for that?)
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
Most shredders accept storage media and begin processing automatically upon insertion. Vague patents sure do fire people up with 'prior art' brainstorming.
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform
Well does my Sony DVD player fall under the same category? When i put in a DVD it starts playing the DVD. If i put in a picture CD it starts a slideshow...
As a child I remember my parent's record player had a pin on the turntable. As soon as you dropped a record on. The arm would swing out and start to play the record.
MS settles with this company out of court making it look like this patent is valid. MS has a lot of shipped product so they pay this company a large amount of money. They then use that money to come after OSS and the auto-mount features and such. Kind of like how MS payed a license fee to SCO ...
OK so I don't really think this is true, but hey you never know.
man
No manual entry for
Is it that hard to use "Tend" instead of "Trend"?
This patent covers the idea of a computer doing something when you insert a CD (or floppy too?) into it.
Yet, drives have signalled a media change since the original IBM PCs. What possible use does that have, if not to let the OS do something when it detects that change? In this case, the very fact that they can detect a media change and do something, provides its own prior art.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. What next, a patent on "Use of the CPUs Address lines to let memory know what bits to serve up? Using a DAC to convert a stream of bits into sound? I doubt anyone thought to patent those yet, since they seem glaringly obvious...
We don't need patent reform, we need the USPTO abolished and replaced with ypewriter-wielding monkeys, who would do a marginally better job.
Let's not wait for almost TEN frick'n years before getting all lawyer-like.
In other news, Playschool is suing MS for copying their playschool colors, which they use on all of their large plastic slides, and building blocks...
CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!
I am thrilled by all of these patent suits. It's wonderful.
As a former [jobless] programmer I am about to move on to law school in the Fall.
This is wonderful! Keep it coming U.S. Legal System! Come ta papa!
Mmm. Yes. America. Lawyer. Greedy populace. Lifetime employment. Perfect. Happiness at last...
Wouldn't automount / autofs fall under the same shadow?
:-(
No... those two respond to filesystem accesses, not to "media insertions". However, the 'supermount' patch probably would fall.
"LinuX - Dropping the c u r t a i n on Windoze." -- Vee Schade, vschade at mindless dot com
Patents, patents, patents. By now it's surprising someone hasn't patented the warts on my ass. What's the next patent war? Will Dell and Compaq fight it out over building Pez Dispensers into their boxes?
I've used toasters (fancy ones not in my house) that'll automatically start toastin when you insert stuff into em, this whole patenting stuff that's been happening for years thing is silly.
Even sticking my hoohoo nilly into my wifes cha cha causes a reaction. Two boys so far to prove it.
The quicker the absurd piles up, the closer is the chance the patents system crumble.
I propose that we each individually and collectively file lawsuits against each other.
This will have the important effect of causing all known patent issues to come to light immediately and be able to be dealt with in a frank and swift manner. Delaying this action only allows for precious time to waste, awaiting the inevitable day when I will sue you. Let's get this over off with, I say.
One thing you must understand of course, is that everything that you have thought up, which you attributed as being novel or inventive, in fact was previously thought up by me. In the occasional instances in which your novel thought predated my own, I have considered the matter further and have come up with further insights which you missed.
Therefore, let's cut to the chase, and if you would be so civil, simply send all of your money to me.
Thank You Very Much.
Sincerely,
<insert your name here>
...of improper grammer. Media is plural damn it!
Anonymous Grammar Nazi
I'm in my second semester of college (Georgian College, Barrie ON and we have to pay for parking at the college. They issued me a proximity card that is used when leaving the parking lot (so the gate goes up), so one might be inclined to think that proximity card technology may be hindered by this patent. Think about it... I hold the card near the reader on the gate (similar to 'inserting the media') and the reader detects it, beeps, and raises the gate so I can leave the college.
There's no place like localhost
5,795,156 is a 1995 filed patent claiming to have invented using a hardware based "output lead" on a peripheral in a computer to detect media. I a, confused here. Assuming they were not developing a computer from scratch(and had never seen a removable media before 1995). I am not sure how they can patent a feature of components they did not develop themselves.
6,249,863 is a claim modified from the above patent of checking for a specific file (ie. like reading a VCD or IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM as in old MSDOS) to make sure the correct or specific media is inserted.
6,418,532 filed in 2001, claims to have invented the play button.
The USPTO is not mandated to verify the novelty of patents. However, patent law must be changed so that the burden of prior art falls on plaintiff in these cases(ie. pay for third party patent researchers).
I would be ashamed to consider myself the inventor of these. They are obviously wanting a small payoff from MS. IANAL
I am elite. I use windows, and I have kept an installation running without crashing for over a year!
Now that I think about it, i should probably contact the Guiness book people about that...
Additionally, TVI charges that Microsoft patent 6,366,966, entitled "method and system for automatically running a program" interferes with the TVI patents as it covers a TVI invention.
Funny, that patent was filed on December 13, 1994.
The earliest of the TVI patents was filed on May 11, 1995. Now maybe their "invention" was developed prior to MS's patent application.
I just find it funny that, on one hand, they'll be trying to use their products as prior art, while at the same time hoping nobody else's products are used against them...
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
Actually, Windows does detect open/closure of the CD or DVD drive, at least since Windows 95. Not the floppy, but with bootable CDs and DVDs who the hell cares?
The patents and dates are:
LaserDiscs were the first optical disc storage media, invented in the late 1960's by Philips. The compact disc was developed from this technology in 1980. The LD players were first available on the market in 1978, and first demonstrated in 1972. These players automatically played the video on the storage media, so this has been around for at least 30 years. It's also in CD players mentioned in earlier posts, which came just a little later. I often wonder if the employees of the US Patent Office came here, very recently, from another planet. That might explain why they have no clue about prior inventions.
method for starting up a process automatically on insertion of a storage media into a host device
Before disk based home PCs, I was shoving my VHS tape in the VCP (player not recorder) and it started right up and played my movie. I didn't even have to press play.
Post: Sigged, for your pleasure.
1)Is a CD Rom "Storage Media" if it is read only?
2)What about a toilet that 'knows' to flush automatically when I insert 'media'?
3)My trash compactor will start up when I close the door, but only if there is a bag in it. Isn't this miracle of modern science 'prior art', thus invalidating that patent?
People keep saying that it is too much work for the patent office to check every patent for prior art, so why not just put it up on a website somewhere saying so-and-so is claiming such-and-such and then if anyone has already done that they say so, and the patent is thrown out. They have similar things for planing permission on new buildings and suchlike, and it works fine. Of course, it does rely on people checking this website regularly, but I expect big companies would be able to pay someone to check the relevent subjects once a week or so.
current Windows uptime: 11 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes
You forgot to mention that 11 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes of that time is time "sitting untouched and idle".
"LinuX - Dropping the c u r t a i n on Windoze." -- Vee Schade, vschade at mindless dot com
You don't always have to edit the registry. Sometimes its a simple point and click job. Details are here.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
My SGI Indy from 1995 had a floptical drive that would auto-recognize. Surely this thing was around before 1995? SGI has been around since 1982, when did they first make computers with drives that had autodetection?
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Heck, wouldn't starting to play the pre-recorded tape when I insert it into my old VHS VCR also fit the discription? I've had VCRs that do that for 20 years.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
"Smithers, use the amnesia ray.
You mean the revolver, sir?
Yes, and don't forget to wipe your own memory clean when you're done."
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
Method in which DNA data is accessed by means of a read head attached to an arm moving back and forth along the data interface. Storage buffer following receptacle socket holds said data until consumed or rejected.
Stupid patents.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There was an earlier article that talked about how things were done, and the need for reform.
At least, I assume that's the one. I don't read NYT articles when I have to register, so I haven't read any since the tricks I knew about stopped working.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The big gorillas have long ago figured out it is not smart to sue each other over patents which aren't vital to their core business. So instead, they just cross-license each other's patent pools. When this is prohibited by anti-trust type laws, then it still occurs, but just on a wink-wink nod-nod basis. So that's why most patent lawsuits are of the David v. Goliath variety. Either tiny David wants a piece of Goliaths very large pie, or Goliath wants to crush any would-be upstart competitors.
You know, I was thinking just the same thing? I didn't have a Lisa, but I did have a 128k Mac, and it did auto-insertion-and-open very neatly. As you say, in '84. That's a mere thirteen years before this was filed.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
for that wonderful image...swollen tits.
I don't know when this patent was awarded, but I would think that an 8-Track tape player would be prior art.
The Mousetrap. Storage media is the mouse.
Those b@stards ripped me off!
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
The DEC Pro/350 running P/OS (a bastardized RSX) had automount of inserted disks and could run things when they were inserted, way back in the mid 80s. How old is this "invention"?
I am more l33t :P
my current windows uptime is 5 weeks, 3 days, 1 hour, 3 minutes
Various mainframe computer systems I have worked with had disk controllers that would generate an interrupt when the user inserted the removable disk packs. This interrupt would start a 'process' that would mount the disk volume.....
Most VCRs automatically start a process (playback) when their media is inserted. Another case of adding "internet" to an existing method to achieve a dumb patent.
Autoplay has been in Windows since the original Windows 95, and it was in betas for a while before that. It has to predate this patent.
When I insert a CD into my CD player (a host device), its firmware starts a process of reading the RedBook audio stored on the CD's sectors.
When I insert a CD into my PlayStation, its onboard operating system reads the ISO filesystem and prepares to run the executable image(s) stored there.
Because TVI used overly-broad wording on their patent, they're opening themselves up to prior art that extends as far back as the first CD player. Their patent is most likely unenforcable.
TVi does indeed have to prove that Microsoft is indeed using the "invention" described by their patent, but the burden of proof is now on Microsoft to prove that the patent is invalid, such as by producing convincing prior art.
Now if indeed the law was changed such that any claim of patent infringement required that the patent be proven valid, rather than the current reversed situation, then you might have a point. But in that case, why not just ban software patents entirely?
Oh yeah, IANAL, IDEPOOTV but IDRG
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
The first patent (the '307 patent) does not appear to be applicable directly, since it requires an O/S to be booted upon insertion of said medium. This also does not affect booting from a floppy (for instance), since it is the act of turning on the power, not the insertion of the removable media, that causes the system to be booted.
The second patent (the '156 patent) appears to require a remote control as part of its process. This would only be applicable to a multimedia PC with a remote control, not to a regular PC (would it be applicable to a DVD player?)
The third patent (the '863 patent) is the first one that possibly may apply (IMO), although it continues to refer to a remote control in almost all of the discussion. In fact, the "Field of the Invention" for both this patent and the '532 patent is "This invention relates to an apparatus and method for wireless remote control and use of interactive media and in particular to a remote control including a printed publication and/or a storage media and/or a data button." This does not look like anything that MS has to worry about to me.
However, DVD manufacturers should be concerned...
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
My soda fountain turns on when I insert the storage vessel (akak a cup) the tape player in my car turns on and reads the tape and generates amplified music when you insert it. my paper shredder and paper-port scanner turn on when I insert the storage media (paper). my toaster turns on when I insert the bread-storage media.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Does my toaster qualify as prior art? It's from the 70s, but it's smart enough to "start a process" (I.E. toasting) whenever I insert bread. My toaster is a fancy one (well, by 1970s standards), where I don't have to press down a lever to start it toasting.
I suppose the question is, does bread qualify as a storage media?
Fortunately my toaster toasts floppies and CDs equally well (although they are not nearly as tasty).
this is madness... don't invent something to sell it... invent it , patent it, then SUE... i must hurry to go patent office to register the breathing technology (you know taking air into the lungs ... then blow it off. exchanging O2 for CO2), then sue every one on the planet.
autoplay... doesn't cdplayer autoplay a inserted cd? they pay royalties too?, the car stereos, autoplay a cassette when is inserted, don't they?
automount and autofs works in a slightly diferent way.... when you try to access the directory where media is supposed to be mounted, just then the the autofs daemon check if the media is present in the drive to mount... in this case the mount is "on demand", but without typing "mount ..."
Putting a windows cd backwards, plays evil messages, but it gets worse, putting it right, installs windows.
Why are we allowing people to patent "methods" in the first place? A patent should be for the physical, mechanical device which performs the task. Stupid patents = stupid lawsuits.
Now, I don't know upon what basis TVI is accusing Microsoft of patent infringement, but if I had to guess, I'd say that they are equating the load/eject button on a CD drive with the "data" button described in their patents. Like I said, it seems like a stretch to make their patents fit the situation.
I'd say that in this case, the USPTO didn't screw up. Blame TVI for this one.
-h-
i feel dirty now.
Putting a windows cd backwards, plays evil messages, but it gets worse, putting it right, installs windows.
think about it.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I think you mean nudge, nudge.
Actually the Amiga 1000, the very first version of the Amiga line, supported auto-detect and auto-run of floppies. I believe the A1000 was released in 1985 (or maybe late 1984).
For those too young to remember, the Amiga's autodetect worked by having specialized floppy hardware which would send an interrupt to the processor when media was inserted or ejected. So there was no "polling", such as was done on early PC hardware. And "autorunning" was possible by a variety of means. The Amiga supported 4 floppy drives.
The Amiga floppies also fully supported partitioning too, I remember having a floppy disk that had four separate and independant filesystems on it. How cool.
More to the point, what sort of idiot fiddles around with the registry when there's a perfectly good utility to do this in the form of TweakUI.
If they are going after autoplay for MS, there are tons of prior art, because Windows 95 was released August 25, 1995, so autoplay had to have been in development for at least a year before this.
I'm claiming a patent on reading on the internet. You're all in voilation of my Intellectual property.....please send checks to: 123 Anystreet Your Town, Your State USA, 12345
See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
I've got XP, and it could be demonstrated that this doesn't work correctly. Sometimes it pops up the box, sometimes not. And it consistently ignores my requests to "Take no Action" and "Do this every time a CD is inserted". Why can't the system just shut up?!
Yes, I know my "local area network" cable is unplugged. It was never plugged in in the first place, you idiot. Stupid Microsoft.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
The worst part is that these patents keep being passed, over and over.. we need some technical people in the patent offices, not temps making $7 an hour.
No, we need to ban software patents. Software patents have done absolutely nothing for innovation. Everyone getting sued is not someone who saw the idea and said "Hey! Great idea! I think I'll integrate that with my product." They've all been developers who come up with the idea independently, and then years (and years) later the company who was successful in marketing the product gets sued. All it has done is increase the amount of patent barratry.
And software is already protected by an insane amount of IP laws anyway. Not only is it protected for 90 years by copyright (if owned by a corp.) but trade secret law, and still for some unfathomable reason, you can patent it as well.
Oh well. Sucks to be us, I guess.
These patents were just recently submitted and approved... /lame :-/
Didn't the old Macs from the 80s have autorun on their floppies? TVI can go suck my ass for that one...
My car from 1978 used to play casette tapes when you inserted them.
"host device equipped with means for starting a process in response to detecting insertion of a storage media' and one entitled 'method for starting up a process automatically on insertion of a storage media into a host device." I'm astonished something so elementary as autoplay can be patented. So are all car stereo manufacturers infringing on patents then?
Slashdot posters aren't exactly on top of USPTO related news.
Congress is already reviewing the patent process via HR 1561 being voted on today?
United States Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act of 2003 is important as it allows for inventors to submit their own searches from an outside source, such as the european patent office or a private search firm.
On a side note, tax payers don't pay patent examiners. The USPTO is a fully fee funded agency.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
I hold the patent titled, "System or Machine through which or by whose means Things and/or Tasks are Done or otherwise Achieved and/or Accomplished" .... so, you guys should really pay me lots of money now.
I was thinking my college had sued Microsoft.
And then I find out it's just another company from California suing over some ridiculous patent.
Sheesh...
Albuquerque PC
This bill being voted on today regarding the 3rd party searches.
Right now its up to the patent office to make a primae facie case of obviousness.
3rd party searches have their own issues, such as inherent bias if it is a paid search firm, or will the examiner be able to do a search on their own if an EPO/JPO search is submitted. The bill is silent on that.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
ohhh, burn.... no, I play games aand stuff.
what sig?
given the date, i think that tvi has no basis for such a claim.
seriously, this was elementary, 30 seconds with google. do they not have internet connections at the ustpo?
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
On a serious note, the automount daemon doesn't seem to be being updated, with more recent patches going into Automount 3, not 4. If it's not being maintained, then it may be harder for TVI to complain.
IAPE I am in no way discussing the validity of this patent or any combination to reject this patent.
your trashcompactor, and many other examples here, are considered non-analogous art. It is very difficult to combine non-analogous art because there has to be a motivation to combine such varying technologies, and there must be some teaching explicity, or implicently in a teaching before it may be combined.
Here is a citation from the manual of patent examining and procedure
2141.01(a) Analogous and Nonanalogous Art
TO RELY ON A REFERENCE UNDER 35 U.S.C. 103, IT MUST BE ANALOGOUS PRIOR ART
The examiner must determine what is "analogous prior art" for the purpose of analyzing the obviousness of the subject matter at issue. "In order to rely on a reference as a basis for rejection of an applicant's invention, the reference must either be in the field of applicant"s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor was concerned." In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1446, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992). See also In re Deminski, 796 F.2d 436, 230 USPQ 313 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 659, 23 USPQ2d 1058, 1060-61 (Fed. Cir. 1992) ("A reference is reasonably pertinent if, even though it may be in a different field from that of the inventor's endeavor, it is one which, because of the matter with which it deals, logically would have commended itself to an inventor's attention in considering his problem."); and Wang Laboratories Inc. v. Toshiba Corp., 993 F.2d 858, 26 USPQ2d 1767 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
You know, as much as I dislike Microsoft (I don't say hate only because I liked Windows 2000 and 98) I don't want to see them lose this case. If Microsoft used the same method for detection, then maybe the suit should be against M$. Otherwise, this could hurt more than just Microsoft. Don't some Linux distros have autoplay? I know Red Hat 8 does.
This is getting insane. It's sad that the whole world seems to revolve around blame and accusations rather than actually DOING or MAKING something.
Someone should really tell Nintendo and Sony! Hell, Nintendo has been violating this patent for decades!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I remember the Toastmaster 1B14, but before that there was the:
'Sunbeam, Model T-20, from the late 1940s through the mid 1950s. This was the first "fully automatic" toaster. When bread is placed into this toaster, it is automatically lowered; when the toasting cycle is complete, the unit shuts off and gently raisies the toast for removal.'
Wonder how those lawsuits ended up?
http://www.toaster.org/1940.html
Seems like I recall doing this with Beatles records on my mom's floor sometime in the mid 70's.
:)
Then I discovered their flight properties and the game changed...
If microsoft wouldn't pay licensing fees for a patent which was clearly legitimate, why would they pay out for one as dubious as this one?
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
every time i install windows i have to turn it off because its such a pain in the arse. Maybe they'll get rid of it (woo!)
I'm fairly sure the IBM mainframe I used back in 1975 would auto-load and execute a deck of punched cards if you just dumped them into the input hopper.
Oh - wait...they're suing Microsoft. Ah. In that case:
Those evil Microsoft guys - always stealing other people's technology. Bastards!
www.sjbaker.org
More prior art:
My Betamax VCR (circa 1985?) would automatically begin playing the tape, after it's inserted.
Same goes with my car's casette deck. I pop in the tape, it plays without further intervention
Note the patent says "process," not "computer program." Not only is there a mountain of prior art, this definition is overly broad, and I'm confident it will be tossed out of court.
"For that will need to be done by tax paying citizens taking up torches and pitchforks and decending upon Washington in an orgy of blood lust. Then maybe we might see Congress decide to "review" the patent application process."
That won't happen. For the average citizen to revolt against Congress, some severe problem must exist that directly and adversely affects the citizen.
Patent problems only affect inventors, not consumers. The United States predominately consists of consumers who are not directly affected by patents one way or the other. Hence they don't care one bit about patent problems.
If you sat them down and explained to them, perhaps in terms even a child could understand, they would shrug their shoulders and wonder what the big deal is. The vast majority are completely uncaring about what they perceive to be not their problem. Don't count on them to even understand, much less care.
Mac's had something similar..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For that will be done by tax paying citizens taking up torches and pitchforks and decending upon Washington
Jesus Christ, instead of doing that over patents, wouldn't it be better to, say, do so about all the Love Canals that are dotting the landscape, or perhaps the massive war Bush started? Maybe about the loose rein corporations have been allowed?
There are more important things than patents.
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
Its not like microsoft just included this feature in windows, where has TVI been over the last 10 years? picking their asses like SCO?
I own a patent which says "Any button or which like device which when pressed completes a circuit thereby powering another device" I call it power switch. where my patent money?
When does common/expected functionality become public?
Autoplay can be disabled with TweakUI. There's no need to mess with the ugly muddle known as the registry.
When the USPTO becomes even more dysfunctional, and starts granting patents that cover other specific inventions that they have (recently) granted patents on to other parties.
Instead of looking for prior art, which noone really cares about, you'd be able to point a finger at internal accountability problems or outright fraud within the office. Internal accountability and ethical problems are the only things that will ever engender change in such an organization, unless you advocate violence.
The original patent is invalid because it interferes with my own previous patent. I have whimsically called my own patent "cause and effect", which describes the process where when something is done, something else happens. This patent has been recently strengthened by the scientific works of Stephen Hawking, which not only clarifies my patent, but describes exactly when, where, and how exceptions to the process described may occur. To protect my patent, I am bypassing the lawyers and proceeding directly to locusts and plague.
--god
funnnny
I dont think they're refering to the autoplay in Win9x that runs a specified exe file on insert of a CD-Rom. What I think they're refering to is the new autoplay in Windows XP that does different things depending on the type of media inserted... a disc full of photos and it starts a slideshow, a disc full of MP3s and it adds them to a playlist. If you read some of the patents that are linked here, you'll see that that is the basic premise they patented, the idea of autoplay depending of the type of files contained in the media. Just my two cents.
I don't think the US govt has any driving need to change things at the USPTO. With patents becoming an increasingly important potential revenue sources for the US, changes need to take place on a wider basis.
After all, if IBM/MS/Eolas/... gets granted a patent, that potentially is a way for drawing revenue into the US via licence payments from non-US companies. Quite frankly, the US govt must be drooling at the potential income in this area as countries such as India and China race headlong into technology.
Suppose the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) stepped in and said "We no longer recognise US patents as applying worldwide. We regard the USPTO as an incompetent organisation, and thus we're giving the US govt 1 year to fix the problem. After that time, we'll send in an independent team of reviewers and they can assess whether the USPTO has become competent to grant what are effectively worldwide patents."
"If we find the USPTO is still incompetent at that time, all USPTO-granted patents will only apply within the US. The rest of the world is free to ignore them. End of story"
*That* would get the US govt jumping.
Gee... sounds like an 8-track tape to me :-)
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Comment removed based on user account deletion
that auto-plays tapes when they're inserted. Something tells me this suit won't last very long.
I mean really, didn't those play automatically too? I remember my parent's 1975 T-bird had quadrosonic 8-track stereo...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
TiVo owns the patent that allows my VCR to detect I've inserted a tape? I did not know that.
And computers have been autodetecting an inserted CD longer then TVI has existed.
If I remeber right, my apple IIc would automatically run a program wheh I inserted a floppy. Or maybe that was a hack I did... hmm to long ago.
You know, I could have sworn that said TiVO. I'm glad I double checked because I was going to make an extremely funny remark.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
i put in my patent today, a device to take in oxygen and replenish living objects. I'll call it my Breathing Patent! no one ever thought of this one, i'm gonna be rich!
In... let me see... 1982? I dealt with a PDP-11/23 running RSX-11-M-PLUS which autostarted backups and things when you inserted media (e.g. 1600BPI magtape into a Cypher F880(?) tape drive). We also had monstrous great two megabyte removable hard disks the size of a sombrero, and the system would auto-start things when the correct one of those was inserted. It had been doing these things for many years before I arrived on the scene.
A local Fight'o'net BBS operator I know, back in the same era, had a process auto-start when you inserted a tape cartridge (snail-mailed from the 'states) full of downloadables in your '286.
So they're just being SCOlets, pump-n-dump barratrous assholes. It seems to be trendy these days.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I miss the days when your patent gave you exclusive rights to "device", not merely what the device does, or, apparently, the title of the patent. Do shovel patents cover backhoes? Can't I stifle improvement of my invention with a patent on it?
--
make install -not war
This has existed since at least Windows 98(I don't remember 95 or 3.x enough to know if it could do autoplay).
Why the hell didn't these people sue earlier? ok, I know the answer, but even though it shouldn't be so surprising, I'm constantly amazed at peoples complete adn total lack of integrity.
May 3 1999 - 6,249,863
March 22 2001 - 6,418,532
June 30 1995 - 5,711,672
The top three are "Host device equipped with means for starting a process in response to detecting insertion of a storage media," and the bottom is "Method for automatically starting execution and ending execution of a process in a host device based on insertion and removal of a storage media into the host device."
Considering that the preview version of Windows 95, which included autoplay features, shipped before June 30 1995, it's safe to say Microsoft has prior art in this case. (Not that Microsoft has the only prior art; Amiga and Apple have both been pointed out.) This case is like myself patenting the idea of a typewriter, then beginning litigation against Underwood and Royal.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
are you all nuts? there:s a perfectly easily accessible option in the drive itself, and also in powertoys since 95.
don't try to act like its a hard thing to disable.
It automatically mounted the file system when you inserted the disk. You could define the code that mounts disks as an "application"
And MS has had this feture since windows 95...
then...
???
If you insert a light bulb, into a powered socket, bingo it auto boots and runs and "lights up" and works.
:) from 1854?
Dang isnt that prio art
Patent approvals should be like scientific experiments inlabs, they should define what difficult problem they are trying to solve, and explain WHY it was difficult and define the amount of hours spent to 'figure out' the solution.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Donald Duck has a S C R E A M I N G ORGASM every time his autorun mechanism operates!
Listen in on Donald Duck!
It was called the Saddam virus (and now we finally 'got him' ;-)
c atalog/a miga/html/saddamor.htm
See:
http://agn-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/
It would slightly corrupt the disk, in order to trick the AmigaOS into starting the disk-validator, which itself was infected. Very clever trick, as it didn't require running a program or booting from a disk.
Microsoft didn`t invent the idea of autostart, such things have been around for years...
Most computers and consoles will boot when you insert some bootable media, most video players will begin playing when you insert a tape, a lot of dvd players and some cd players do the same..
AmigaOS and MacOS always auto displayed icons when you inserted media.. windows takes it a step furthur and executes code, which is a bad idea really.. the mac/amiga way of displaying the icons so you can do what you like is better and safer.. aside from the risks of a virus propogating this way, if you insert a cd while your doing something and the program which starts consumes too much ram/cpu it can hinder what your already running.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I'd rather take a floppable booty, thanks.
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
I toyed with a portable 45rpm record player built surely before 1975, the brand is "Pack Son" (here in Italy). It plays the record upon insertion. If any "inventor" out there retains the patent for a mechanical eject button, mind that those record players have one.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I think a deeper question we have to ask is why are these civil cases being brought to the courts now?
To an outsider this is troubling. In the past common sense seemed to rule. Now, it seems businesses are more concerned with controlling any implementation - as opposed to competing in an open market - that includes open source.
Just as the automobile industry went through changes in the 1970s due to changing realities (cheap foreign cars, and rising fuel costs), the incumbent technology companies are starting to realise the new reality that the internet and open source/free software and cheap computers are creating.
This all makes me want to go to my garage and fire up the soldering iron and get to work building my own devices - because the businesses will be too busy litigating to actually create new technology - and what little arrives in the stores will be so encumbered by criss-crossing royalty payments as to be priced out of range of normal people.
I see an Engineer in the future designing a new product, "well, we could add this 'play' button - but that would infringe on the Microsoft patent #23897847; of course, we own the 'fast forward' feature - in addition to the 'stop' feature, so we are good there. Does anyone know what Cisco is charging for the 'device for routing TCP packets across a network' feature - patent #40987272?..."
Invention is dead.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Put a write-protected tape (like the movies rented from a video store) any in semi-modern VCR and viola! Autoplay! This is obviously an example of prior art. I am not a lawyer, btw, but, in order for TVI to win this case, they would have to prove that the idea is more than just an adaption of what VCRs have been doing for years.
PS, this same concept is also found in DVD players, and CD players
For a pathetically simple example, I google from the command line. (C:\4NT> google your+mom+is+a+slut .. remember spaces are pluses with GET.)
For a more complicated example, scripts that I have that reference specific files on specific harddrives use environment variables ("%HD25G") so that they function on EVERY computer despite the file being on ONE computer. (This is how I "mchk " a regular expression to see if I have that music, or "vchk " one to see if I have that video, or "# " to get a friend's phone number.
Yes... I can finally admit it. I am a windows user and I love grep. (hangs head in shame)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Your memory is basically right. WDEF came out in 1989, so there were a few viruses before it, but it did behave mostly as you describe...
With one notable exception: WDEF actually called the system's WDEF, rather than trying to do a pixel-perfect impersonation of it.
Other viruses that used this technique included CDEF, MDEF (like Garfield)...
One nice thing about WDEF was that you could remove it just by rebuilding the destkop (holding down command and option while inserting an infected disk, assuming you haven't already mounted an infected disk).
These viruses were effective until System 7.0, when Apple changed the format of the desktop database. This new format was changed slightly for Macintosh Easy Open, and that format exists to this day for Mac OS 9.2.