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You Might Be a Microsoft Patent Infringer
theodp writes "Do you use drop-down menus, alphanumerical input boxes, check boxes, radio buttons or sliders to allow client side-processing of data? Utilize SQL, HTML, ActiveX, Java, Perl, JavaScript or JScript to do so? Employ arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, or decision trees to organize things? Well Bunky, you might be infringing on Microsoft's new patent for Dynamically adjusting data values and enforcing valid combinations of the data in response to remote user input, which the USPTO granted Tuesday after 6+ years and two rejections."
"Microsoft Patents 1, 0"
will be hard to prove on this one. Good grief. What is next, a patent on oxygen?
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. They might as well try patenting the advanced, new technology called "thought"... that way they don't have to file a patent for anything new in the future when they want to take control over any new ideas. Next thing we know, they will be trying to take credit for writing Romeo and Juliet and say that it's been embedded in the Windows source since before Shakespeare was born.
And look at this quote from the abstract: As such, the user can dynamically adjust the set of results and sub-items from a remote location. The system and method of the present invention preferably utilizes client-side processing to achieve real time interaction.
How can it be from a remote location if it is happening on the client-side? That would seem very local to me. But what do I know?
OK, perhaps there isn't prior art for this specific implementation but I remember learning about the concept of checking for valid user input and adjusting things accordingly back when I started to program in BASIC on a Vic 20. The fact that this got through is further proof that no one at the USPTO has a clue about computers, software, programming or indeed any piece of technology more complicated than a doorknob.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
What is claimed is:
1. A method for dynamically displaying pricing data on a client display device...
Note that that's a 1, meaning that's the patent request at its broadest. Once you get past the abstract, according to claim 1 there is required to be client-server communication, a price list, and rules for combining them.
This patent would likely apply to a typical linux distro installation package manager (handling dependencies etc) that was (a) run online, (b) charged prices, and (c) did dependency checking on the form itself before submission.
Hell, I doubt that even Linspire's Click'n'Run violates it...
If MS decided to send me, or anyone of millions of small companies, a letter saying "pay us 10,000 in royalties or we will sue you for 10 million in damages", guess what? I can't afford the patent attorney for the 8+ months of litigation, and I sure as hell can't afford the 10 million.
The sad thing is that I should even need a patent attorney in this case - it should be so cut and deied that you could represent yourself! But alas, that is rarely so.
IANAL, but once the patent is granted, the process becomes "guilty until proven innocent". If the patent holder goes after an "infringer", it is now up to the infringer to prove they are not, which can be a costly endeavor.
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
Still a crappy thing to patent, I totally agree, but hardly every damned control widget in every damned language in the known fucking universe as the author hints at.
FUD sucks, no matter who spews it.
"Why Slashdot obesses over patent issuance I'll never understand."
The problem for open source developers is defending their work against bogus patents like this. Getting the patent invalidated costs real money.
This sig kills fascists.
The reason that patent issuance is such a big thing in cases such as this one is that Microsoft can do a lot of damage with bad patents. Let's say you write some code and Microsoft decides that it infringes on their shiny new patent and sends you a cease and desist letter. You can either a) cease and desist, or b) try to fight it in court. If you choose option b you get to go up against a team of highly trained and well paid lawyers with incredible resources. This will cost you a lot of money and take a lot of your time. Have fun in court and enjoy your ultimate victory after five or six years of appeals and spending all of your money on lawyers when the patent is ruled invalid. Meanwhile of course your life has gone into the shitter fighting this bad patent, but hey, why get upset about these things?
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
...But the mere threat of court action could be enough to close down many free software open source projects.
I think this could lead to "not distributable in the US" clauses...
Hope y'all like living in a ghetto!
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Hey, maybe this means that MS can stop Slashdot from keeping track of how many mod-points I have.
After all, Slashdot "[d]ynamically adjust[s] data values and enforc[es] valid combinations of the data in response to remote user input."
Unless you're paying for mod points and there's an incompatible grouping of them ... no. :)
which the USPTO granted Tuesday after 6+ years and two rejections
They've successfully reduced Patent Examiner incompetence to 1 out of 3
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Digital Equipment Corporation (the remains of which are now part of HP) had an online customer ordering system in the early 1990s that did everything described in claim 1 of the patent. I'm pretty sure there were other systems in operation more than a year before the patent filing that did this as well.
Or doing thick-client things on a thin-client (i.e. browser).
...).
Send a 'large' chunk of data down to the client -- more than what will be displayed currently, including the navigation rules (graph edges) between blocks of the chunk of data, so that the client itself can enable / remove available pathways (i.e. screen controls) to navigate through the data. This saves having to perform a server round trip per each choice the user makes.
The example use of such a novelty is their online car shopping site use. But it seems to equally cover arbitrary things done in HTML / Javascript, such as limiting the proper number of days in the month according to the month entered (30 days hath
Lovely.
Good thing there'll always be someone in Eastern Europe ready to step up with a download site plastered with a "DO NOT DOWNLOAD FROM THE U.S. (wink, wink; nudge, nudge" disclaimer.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Unless you're paying for mod points and there's an incompatible grouping of them ... no. :)
Doesn't Slashdot adjust the mod points available to me dynamically on the server based on my remote input when I use one?
They've patented using client side script for what exactly it was designed to be used for. Like purchasing a bicycle and then patenting the act of riding it in the normal, intended fashion.
Constructs mentioned in the summarly like stacks and queues are fundamental computer data structures. All programmers have used them at one time in their lives, and will probably need to again.
Do you really think that any developer (or most companies) can afford to actually survive long enough to dispute it in court once Microsoft rolls out a fleet of high-priced lawyers? If they get overbroad patents, nobody in the industry will be able to do anything. Period.
First year programming courses will all violate the frigging patent.
The reason why Slashdot 'obsesses' with patent issues is they stand a very real chance of undermining the ability of people to work in the profession unless they're on the Microsoft payroll.
Unless, of course, you plan on funding the legal defence of the first poor schmoe who has to to find out if the patent will hold water in court.
Hell, even the US DoJ can't get Microsoft into a court room in a timely manner.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You are so right. I wish everyone would just let microsoft do whatever they want. Who cares if they eventually patent the way we eat, sleep, think (oh they did that one allready), and breath? We can all just move to the moon, if gates doesnt allready own it by that time. Apathy like yours is what got us here in the first place.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
Employ arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, or decision trees to organize things?
Finally some gain for not learning anything at school.
Everyone loses I gain.
Back in the mid-80's, I wrote a program in PROLOG. Rule sets for a character based "GUI" entry screen components were sent, based on the current task to be performed. Data validation, control layout and control enabling was done by executing the PROLOG predicates.
Simple idea... worked well (we only had 2400 baud modems, 9600 baud was the upper end; sending only entry rules and the PROLOG was a reasonable choice).
Took a 512K machine (at the time, a very big micro).
This was *never* used for "pricing" -- it was used to specify typographic instruction (a slightly more advanced task, IMNSHO).
Obviously, can be used for "pricing", "estimating", &etc. (estimating would have been the next logical use).
Still stands as my only commercial PROLOG program.
And the wheel goes around...
I would think that there are other examples -- the IBM 3270 field control protocol is almost there (and I bet that it has been extended to cover this use as well). Other interesting conflicts are with Smalltalk/Squeak, and even the TCL/TK toolkit.
So I don't think that Microsoft will dare enforce this one.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Just so you know. It's not a matter of maybe.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
How else are we going to raise the ire of the community to the level required to force a change in the system? Something has to be done, and the more of these frivolous patents that can be exposed, the more ammo we'll have to use in the debate.
/.-- keep 'em coming.
Bravo,
There's no time to stop for gas, we're already late.
Your point is valid. I'm just old and disenfrancised about the whole thing.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Alternatively, C, you can photocopy the stupid Cease-and-Desist letter, publish it to slashdot, and let us tear it apart, don't respond, archive the results and wait. When MICROSOFT spends the money to drag you into court, you don't even need to hire a lawyer- just take your printout and file it as an amicus brief. And be sure to send a second copy to the newspapers so that the rest of us can laugh at Microsoft also.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
.. Ford has patented the steering wheel, seats, tires, exhaust pipe,the gear shifter and red paint.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
I'm going for a patent on a "method for utilizing a consolidated broad base of network resources to issue corrective action against a publicly accessible database of information utilized by an entity that abuses any system for legally obtaining protection on intellectual property."
Look on the bright side. Patents are only for 20 years and then they run out. After that it is freely duplicatable. Copyrights are forever, if the RIAA and it's obsequious servant, Congress, has its way.
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
Like this one
Sounds like nvidia's driver download form.
1."Do you use drop-down menus, alphanumerical input boxes, check boxes, radio buttons or sliders to allow client side-processing of data?" Yes, but thats not what the patent covers. It involves the use of these things, but is not a patent on them or for them.
2."Utilize SQL, HTML, ActiveX, Java, Perl, JavaScript or JScript to do so" As above, none of these are being patented by microsoft
3."Employ arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, or decision trees to organize things" Again this is not what is being patented here.
4."Microsoft's new patent for Dynamically adjusting data values and enforcing valid combinations of the data in response to remote user input Oooh, so close, but you missed again.
The patent refers to items 1, 2 and 3, imlicitly or explicitly in their patent as things that are used to achieve the 'invention' they have 'created'
However number 4 is the opposite. They dont adjust data values and enforce valid combinations "in response" to remote user input. They use a process that causes the remote user to apply the rules themselves in an effort to decrease the load on the server to improve the speed of access to the page.
Also, although items 1, 2 and 3 are implicitly or explicitly mentioned in the patent, the use of them is only restricted by this patent if you do the following:
-Use them in such a way that the infrastructure of rules and options you are interacting with is WHOLLY RUN on the client side.
-Use them in a system that is used in relation to pricing for one or more items.
-Returns the result to the server After the client has validated it.
This is my interpretation of the patent after reading it. I assume that someone will soon read it even more carefully than I and debunk what I have said, but it would be nice to see the people posting articles read what they are posting about.
Dont get me wrong, its still too broad and overreaching, but its not as broad as it has been made out to be
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice. Nor will I accept responsibility if you are caught infringing on this patent after reading what I have typed here.
Having failed to compete, despite all their attempts to drive every competetent company out of the marketplace and faced with the owning up to empty promises of security in software that can never be secured, this, this is their response? to patent every obvious software thing under the sun and then sue everybody else's ass off?
You were right in the DOJ trials, Bill: "If Microsoft ever fails, let it be only because we have failed to innovate".
Yes. I'm sure the judge wants to read all about the GNAA, the goatse guy, and whatever fool(s) thought they got first post, but didn't.
That'll go over REAL well.
Re-reading the patent application It would seem that there is no provision for e-commerce in it.
Actually paying attention to the claim statement indicates that the patent only specifies a system that assists in the selection of the data, not in returning the selected options to the server.
For Example:
Lets say There are a group of drop-down boxes on my page, the first is the TYPE, second is SUB-TYPE, third is SUB-TYPE2, and the fourth is OPTIONS. below these drop down boxes is a field for the display of a price. What the patent claims as the invention is the following process:
My server sends the client all the potential TYPE's, SUB-TYPE's, SUB-TYPE2's, OPTIONS, all the resultant prices, and all the rules governing combinations of the above.
The client then works out for itself how the rules apply and what the price is, so it doesnt have to request the pricing information from the server every time a combination is selected.
Also it claims invention of automatically selecting the first valid TYPE, SUB-TYPE, SUB-TYPE2 or OPTION for any given TYPE, SUB-TYPE, SUB-TYPE2 or OPTION selcted. (IE, I Select OPTION A, so the system selects the first valid TYPE, SUB-TYPE and SUB-TYPE2 that will let me have OPTION A)
The Patent description ends there, it seems to lay no claim to using this 'invention' to return the options selected to the server, it is described often as an information device, not a transaction device.
Im not sure if using this within a transaction would violate patent law or not. Because you are using and extending the invention, it would make sense that it didn infringe. But like I said before...
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice. Nor will I accept responsibility if you are caught infringing on this patent after reading what I have typed here.
And unless its all decided client side. No
Dear Sir,
we both know that this is bullshit. I will not talk to an underling. Mr. Gates is welcome to phone and email me.
Should he choose to meet me in person, he's welcome to pick the day and the weapon of choice, and show up at dawn with an attendant.
So?
It is expensive to enforce copyright infringements too.
FUCK MICROSOFT!
It may seem that there's loads of prior art against this patent but I don't think Microsoft's goal is to actually win a patent lawsuit against FOSS. They would get just as good results by making sure that FOSS organizations are buried in legal battles for a very long time. For that reason alone, I'm still scared for Free/Open Source software...
This post is completely misleading. Whenever you look at a patent, you have to read the "What is claimed" section. In this case the patent very specifically states that in infringing system must be a client-server system involving pricing data, with loadable modules transferred across the network. Patents are only enforceable if ALL of the claimed ideas are infringed on, not ANY of them. So we are safe to continue using linked lists.
Ah- but also included in all that is examples of prior art- which means that even an idiotic message board with a bunch of garbage on it can tell that the patent is garbage- and that big company X is a con artist.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
1. Process in which individual cells internetwork between themselves in such a fashion that complex data structures can be stored, modified, transmitted to other cells either directly or indirectly linked, via either electrical impulses or chemical compound exchanges.
2. Method of using process outlined in 1 to develop additional methods and or processes to create new, or expand upon existing methods and or processes.
There.
That should cover the basic premise of thought, thinking.
All your IDEAS are belong to ME now!
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
It would appear that there is now a patent for the statement taught in just about every software engineering school for the last 30+ years. It goes something like, "Edit Your Inputs, Build Your Outputs."
...for dynamically adjusting data values...".
Or in the wording of the Patent, "...enforcing valid combinations of the data in response to remote user input...,
Now if Microsoft is NOT impling "Editing", then maybe if a User errors, Microsoft will come over and use some type of, 'violence'? To "'Enforce' valid combinations."
I also believe one can find prior art at, kellybluebook dot com.
I mean, really, I don't have "a system and method" for doing what is described, but the browser sure does. Hell, I'm not even sure what "remote user input" means. Sounds like they're trying to apply it to something as simple as loading a new page when you click a link (e.g., note the change in "pricing data" when I offer up: Select your system: PC or Mac ). Thank goodness for their freedom to innovate, or they never could have patented the web!
MS's 5 steps plan, (c) 1984 by Bill Gates:
1- If you can't patent oxygen, patent its use. If you can't patent its use, patent its use at a remote location - deny any prior art.
2- Get a restraining order for astronauts on Mars not to use oxygen in remote locations without being owned by MS first; the patent will be invalidated in less than 5 minutes. If the astronauts manage to survive, patent their heating system for the next 5 minutes after that. If that doesn't work, patent Mars rock analysis to make the whole mission is pointless.
3- Take over Mars. Rename it Microsoft RedPlanet (tm). Make sure MS manuals and college books don't mention the existence of alternatives, such as other planets. Use 18 front organisation to deny the existence of other planets.
4- Claim innovation, good faith, and take over a niche market unethically as punishment if caught taking over a niche market illegally.
5- Repeat until monopoly on everyone else's innovations!
I refuse to be modded funny. That's truly how MS operates!!
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
This patent seems to cover every computer program ever written.
:E
Adjusting data values? Dynamically? Isn't that what all of our computers are doing right now!!
Enforcing valid combinations? If else anyone. Sounds like input checking to me.
Don't let all that remote stuff fool you. Remember teletypes. Remember how far away they were.
And of course user input. Well I think MOST programs have SOME kind of user input.
I mean what happens in 3482 when some archeologist digs this trash up and asserts that MicroSoft (still around) owns all computer programs in the world, becasue of this patent (Still enforceable due to constant patent extensions by lobby groups).
May the Maths Be with you!
To see the list of 14 go to:c t1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0 &p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=AN%2FMicrosoft+AND+ISD%2F10%2F 12%2F2004&d=ptxt
m
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Se
If that URL doesn't work then go to
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-adv.ht
and enter "AN/Microsoft AND ISD/10/12/2004" into the search box and click the search button.
I looked at a couple and they were obvious prior art, coding and techniques I identified as ones I have been using since 1978.
While you are at it just enter AN/Microsoft and find out that MS has 3,486 patents assigned, while AN/IBM shows only 539 patents.
It would be interesting to do a search of Microsoft's patents and see how many were done by a single examiner, but I don't have time right now. Besides, in doing that I'd probably violate one of Microsoft's Intellectual Patents.
IANAL, but I doubt microsoft would enforce this much beyond long-winded threats for the same reason the MPAA hasn't used the DMCA in american court yet (IIRC).
Judicial review example:
1. Wealthy interest pays everyone in congress $99999199234 for some law they claim to need.
2. Said interest invokes law against civvy.
3. If case is tried and defendant wins/has-a-pulse law can be repealed in part or whole.
There are things in the DMCA that barely even warrant a laugh, and it will stay a law because nobody is stupid enough to screw with it. Like those stories your parents used to scare you with. Honestly the fact that Microsoft even tried to enforce the FAT patent (rofl) shows only they are so abysmally stupid to enforce something that is obviously invalid. Unchallenged the FAT patent was a way to make free money, backed up by fear of MS and the desire to be left alone.
Not that these things aren't dangerous as they become more accepted, but for the near future gay-everything patents aren't going to end the world unless we just let them.
Tomorrow I'm going to patent networking...
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
I can see that by "not learning anything" you mean also spelling. It's "Everyone loses again."
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
If MS's and the PTO's history has taught anyone anything, it's that the PTO will grant any coporation a monopoly on any wild ideas they can come up with a complex definition for a patent application, no matter how invalid it might be, and let everyone else clean up the mess they create by granting that application at everyone else's expense.
And MS, well, everyone (but you, it seems) already know they're a monopoly.
Time for you to get a fucking clue!
1. A method for dynamically displaying pricing data on a client display device comprising:
establishing a communications interface between a client computer and a server computer;
requesting pricing data from the client to the server for at least one object;
generating pricing data with associated options and rules for selection and combination of the associated options for each object at the server;
transmitting the pricing data, associated options, and rules for selection and combination of the associated options from the server to the client;
displaying a first set of pricing results on the client display device;
providing a user interface on the client display device for user interaction with the pricing data and selection and combination of the associated options;
using the rules to prevent a user from encountering a conflict by automatically correcting any conflicts to prevent the conflicts from being displayed during the user interaction with the pricing data, the rules for selection and combination containing all potential conflicts that may occur during the user interaction and corresponding safeguards to prevent the user from encountering and viewing a conflict during the user interaction with the pricing data; and
dynamically updating the pricing data using the client computer to process the update and displaying the pricing data on the client display device in response to user interaction with the pricing data and associated options, and rules for selection and combination.
So many of the objections I find in this forum seem slightly uninformed, because they pick out a single limitation, point to prior art, and call the patent bunk. Though the patent may indeed be bunk, it is not for many of the reasons accepted here.
This is incorrect. The burden of proof is on the owner of the patent to show infringement exists. I do agree that defending a patent case is costly, but you have the burdens of proof backward.