USPTO Issues Email Address Patent to Microsoft

theodp writes "On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted U.S. patent no. 6,895,426 for treating electronic mail addresses as objects, which Microsoft notes allows email addresses to be easily added to a contact list, copied to the computer's clipboard, or double-clicked to open the related contact information for that email address sender. After the reaction to news of his first patent, betcha inventor Dan Crevier isn't too eager to let folks know about this one."

Comments

Re:Time to fight back

[julesh]

Because the USPTO has a right to issue patents, this kind of action could not succeed. My understanding is that the laws that enable them to issue patents do not require them to ascertain that the patent isn't for something ridiculously trivial like this one, therefore they have performed their duty as described in relevant laws and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Except bring political pressure against it. Have you talked to your political representatives at every possible level of government and asked them to do something about this problem?

The USPTO is Moderately Broken

[Uruk]

People have a lot of theories for why bad patents are granted. In reality, it's a bunch of different problems combined. I've dealt with a few trademarks and I've been involved in some patent review talks. Here's my IANAL take on some of what's involved:

• The examining attorneys don't get it. They don't have sufficient people with sufficiently deep knowledge in any particular field, so what's obvious to the practitioner isn't necessarily obvious to the examining attorney.
• They don't know how to search for prior art. If you don't know that "a digital identifier associated with an individual user of digital (web-based resources) intended to act as an identifying mechanism" is commonly called a cookie, you might grant a patent related to that because you didn't know how to search for similar stuff.
• In some cases, examining attorneys are paid by the office action, or how many letters they send back and forth contesting a mark or patent. In some cases, this provides opportunities for applicants to add much more supporting information to the application, and get a feeling for the thinking of the USPTO and what they need to say in order to get around the USPTO's mental biases
• Lawyers have the time and money to browbeat and appeal USPTO decisions. USPTO doesn't have the time and the money to fight every one to the bitter end. The reality is that the only way to make some attorneys go away is to grant it.

There's a company out there called M-CAM that does IP valuation - in other words they can tell you if what you have is a bogus patent worth nothing that shouldn't have been granted, or if you've got something that is fundamentally innovative. I saw a presentation a while back from the guy who runs the company, and they really get it. (The presentation started off by likening bogus patents to counterfeit money, particularly since companies use these patents to inflate perceptions of their valuation when sold)

Re:The USPTO is Moderately Broken

[sharkb8]

I've used M-Cam, it works great. THe problem is, it only searches the patent database.

One thing to note, the people examining patents are not attorneys. All you need is a techinical degree, like chemistry, physics, or engineering. You need only qualify to sit for the patent agents exam. I don't even think you actually have to take the patent agents exam to be an axaminer, and if you're an examiner for 5 years, you can waive the exam to become a registered patent agent. As an aside, the USPTO is recruiting at my law school for patent examiners, and I don't think anyone can afford to pay back $100K+ of law school loans on what the government pays (around $35K i believe).

The problem is that you get a lot of people who have english as a second language that go into government service because you don't have to be particularly qualified or competent, you just have to pass a civil service exam. Most examiners leave the PTO after a few years to make bigger money prosecuting (filing) applications.

Having dealt with the USPTO, the biggest problem is that PTO examiners generally only examine the US patent database. They don't realy search online for more prior art. Additionally, even if there is something that eveyone in the field knows about, but nothing is written down, the examiner probably can't point to it and say it's prior art. That's the reason so many software patents get granted. As a former programmer, I know I may comment my code, discuss my solutions on message boards, but rarely did I write a book or post a webpage on a clever hack. There's no paper trail.

The United States used to be the country aothers looked to for patentability. If a patent had been granted in the United States, then it was pretty certain that other countries would grant the same patent with little examination. Now, the U.S. has been slipping, and Europe and Japan do a much more thorough examination.

Re:Bull Hockey!

[Intron]

If you look at the article, the patent is on treating an email address as an object. This means that the patent office has opened the door to any "treat X as an object" patent. Essentially, they have just killed OO programming.

Re:both sides of the story

[Anita Coney]

"Patents are a good defensive strategy for any company"

That's BS. Let's assume that a company admits the patent system is screwed, so it obtains patents for defense. That makes no sense unless it is also working to change the current patent system so defensive patents are NOT necessary.

Obviously because Microsoft is not working to fix the current system, it is using these patents for offensive means, not defensive means.

Re:This shows utter Incompetence at the USPTO

[Uruk]

A couple of other things to keep in mind about the USPTO - this doesn't in any way excuse their behavior, but makes it at least somewhat understandable. First, this was filed in 2000, so the examination about its merit probably happened a long time ago. Whatever standards the USPTO has now for examination of these patents, they didn't have standards even that high at the time this thing was being seriously considered.

There are also quite a few claims with some specificity in them, which might have led the USPTO to think this was a new idea. One problem with these "obvious" ideas is that if it's really obvious, no one ever publishes anything on it, which lends credence to the claim it's a new idea. After all, if it wasn't a new idea, wouldn't someone have written about it?

Keep in mind also that a patent is frequently used as a defensive mechanism. There's a difference between having a patent with the claims that they have attached, and having something that will lead to a successful suit in open court against an infringing party. Sometimes though just the threat of an expensive lawsuit is enough to get people to back down.

My guess though would be that this is so widespread, MS probably patented it to prevent someone else from doing the same and then beating them over the head with the patent.

Re:My new patent:

[Java Pimp]

...he gets a barrage of posts criticizing him for stifling innovation, and instead of addressing them, he closes the thread. Yes, yes, I'm well aware it's his blog, and if he doesn't want to play, he' s well within his rights to close the thread...just like that kid who would always take his ball and go home when the game didn't go his way...

Actually, what would anyone expect him do do? Arguing the current patent system is as bad or worse than arguing religion. There are good and bad points to both sides of the argument and nothing anyone says could possibly sway the other side's opinion. Especially when their opinion is strong enough to cause them to take the time out of their day to bitch slap someone on their blog...

That being said, I'm sure Dan doesn't want to sit there and get flamed all day... or waste his time getting into a religious argument. The only thing defending himself would do would be to invite more flames... Really, I can't blame him for closing the discussion...

Re:My new patent:

[TripMaster Monkey]

That being said, I'm sure Dan doesn't want to sit there and get flamed all day

Well, then perhaps he shouldn't have boasted about his new patent on his blog, and invited others to respond. I'm sure he would have kept the blog open if all the conversation was mindless adulation for his cleverness (which it looks like he was expecting), but since he got a little heat, he just shut down and ran.

As to what I expect him to do...I expect him to follow through. If you're going to open a discussion, don't shut it down because things aren't going your way. Heck...he didn't even have to post anymore if he didn't feel like it, but killing the thread is just plain cowardly.

Re:In your face MS

[SnapShot]

Well it does say "In a preferred embodiment... {blah, blah, obvious stuff about user interface}". If you were Microsoft trying to make a buck off of this patent, do you honestly think they would limit their lawsuits to applications that exactly implemented the user interface decisions described in the patent?

Back the question of objects, wouldn't any patent that begins "blah, blah, treat X as objects" be invalidated because of prior art due to the existance of pure OO languages like Smalltalk. I mean if there has ever been an email client implementated in Smalltalk or other OO language wouldn't the email address be treated as objects by the definition of that language?

Trivial

[mopslik]

The patent's about tagging the origin of an email address and altering the display of that email address based on the origin of the email address - if the email address came from the address book it looks one way if it comes from the internet it looks differently.

Trivial. Seriously.

"Check the address against all entries in the address book. If it's there, underline it. If it's not, italicize it."

I'm not aware of prior art in this one - do you know of an email client that visually differentiated between internet based email addresses and ones from the address book?

Remember, kids: just because you do something first, doesn't mean that it deserves a patent.

Re:My new patent:

[Java Pimp]

Well, then perhaps he shouldn't have boasted about his new patent on his blog, and invited others to respond. I'm sure he would have kept the blog open if all the conversation was mindless adulation for his cleverness (which it looks like he was expecting), but since he got a little heat, he just shut down and ran.

Yeah, perhaps he shouldn't have, but as you pointed out, I don't think he was expecting to get flamed for it either. I'm sure we've all done something we've perceived as a personal achievement and sought recognition and congratulations from our peers only to be less than enthusiastically received (I know I have...). They knock you down a few pegs and you want to crawl under a rock for a while...

Granted, a public forum probably wasn't the best place to boast. However, I would think it reasonable for him, since it is his blog, to expect that most (surely not all) people reading his blog are his peers (or atleast people who think like he does) and he would receive a warm reception. It's not like he posted it to Slashdot...

As for not following through, he wasn't planning on getting into the religious argument in the first place. He post wasn't "Hey, software patents kick ass and here's why...". He was just looking for a pat on the back from his peers...

Re:The next battefront

[symbolic]

If you read the patent, it could be interpreted as something innovative, until you start looking at the examples of how it's meant to be used.

Correct. Now, I'd imagine that the innovation tagged by use of the phrase "...on the internet" will be replaced by "...as an object". What absurdity. What companies have started doing is disecting broad areas of knowledge/application, and staking claim to individual pieces. In this case, "...as an object" is exceedingly trivial to anyone even mildly familiar with object-oriented programming...ANYTHING can be an object. And to think that having an icon to denote some kind of state, or classification is something new or innovative....

Re:My new patent:

[VitaminB52]

Removing rights would most likely be an actionable offense. Suppose they said that you weren't allowed to make a backup copy (fair use), then you could do something about that because they are trying to remove a right that you have. That isn't the case though.

Nonsense. Some copyright protection schemes make making a backup copy (almost) impossible. So they are taking rights away, and as a consumer you don't have a change in court because you're bankrupt long before the MPAA/RIAA runs out of money.
No, they do not say you're not allowed to make backup copies - however, they make it technologically almost impossible to make that backup copy. And if you circumvent the anti-copy system, then the MPAA/RIAA will throw the DMCA at you.

Making a backup copy is fair use, but if you're not a geek, then some anti-copy systems will prevent you from making that backup copy; and if you're a geek who can and does circumvent, then they'll hit you with the DMCA.

Re:My new patent:

[going_the_2Rpi_way]

There are good points? Like what? Defending inventor's rights? Ummm no.. quite the contrary the fact they will grant a patent to most non novel ideas with or without priror art simply makes for an easier legal challenge. More lawyers, time money wins... Patents are becoming worthless (or worth 10 hours of a lawyers time) under the current review process. Letting ideas eventually reach the public domain? And what about when a couple of companies gang up to extend a patent well beyond it's expiration date ( see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000AF01 8-31CA-1FFB-B1CA83414B7F0000 ) So please tell me what the USPTO is doing that is worthwhile. Seriously.