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

My new patent:

[TripMaster Monkey]

Since we're on the subject, I thought this would be a good time to let all of you know that I have just patented the .sig file. That means that all you suckers who use .sigs now owe me a dollar every time you post. You'll all be recieving bills very soon now.

^_^

Seriously, though, I think the exchange on Dan Crevier's blog regarding his last patent is pretty telling...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...remember that kid?

Re:My new patent:

[Anonymous Coward]

You insensitive clod, I was that kid!

Re:My new patent:

[Uruk]

That means that all you suckers who use .sigs now owe me a dollar every time you post. You'll all be recieving bills very soon now.

That could seriously damage my .sig business! I've been in the business of selling high-quality signature files for quite some time now. I figure I may as well get my plug in:

This .sig is free shareware. Register now for only $49.95 to get its full 10MB version!

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: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:My new patent:

[fitten]

OK... so... if I can ignore the copyrights of the MPAA/RIAA/EULA and use their material as I see fit, then by the same token, I should be able to ignore the GPL and use the code any way I see fit, including using it in a piece of commercial code without making my code GPL as well.

Because the MPAA/RIAA/EULA defines in which ways that you are allowed to copy copyrighted material is not logic to claim that they "remove rights". 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. They are defining (under terms of their copyright rights) what you can and cannot do with their 'stuff'. If any of this violated consumer rights or the like, it would quickly be brought up.

Compared to the GPL, it doesn't "give" you anything. They are defining (under terms of their copyright rights) what you can and cannot do with their 'stuff'.

Copyright holders have kind of a dial to dial in how much of their rights as copyright holders that they can claim. MPAA/RIAA dials their in tight (they want to reserve all their rights that they can under the copyright laws). GPL dials theirs more lose and give up some of their rights that they are otherwise entitled to. They don't "give" YOU anything. They simply forgo some of the rights that they have which ALLOW you to do certain other things with their stuff.

Also, the FSF have not been found guilty of price fixing and collusion for the same end. RIAA have.

This is neither here nor there. Claiming (or not claiming) rights as a copyright holder is independent of then going off and doing activities like you mention. You are ALLOWED to retain your copyrights (or not, as you choose) regardless of whether or not you then go off and price fix or whatever.

Re:My new patent:

[jcaren]

In the UK it is your responsibility to provide proof that you have taken all reasonable steps to search for prior art.
I see no reason why if this is proven to be false, punitive action should not be taken.
Yes I do belive it is harsh but if implemented MS, IBm et.al would be divesting themselves of large numbers of patents - or registering them overseas instead.

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.

Time to fight back

[fishdan]

What needs to happen is someone needs to sue the Patent Office for negligence. There must be some case out there where it can be shown that the USPTO's negligence in issuing patents so casually has caused some company monetary damages. If a city can be held liable because of damages caused by a pot hole or a supermarket because of floors being slippery, or McDonalds for coffee being too hot, can't we hold the USPTO responsible for issuing patents for which there is BLATANT prior art? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question. Why is the USPTO never held accountable?

Hit them in the pocketbook. It's the only sort of censure a government office understands.

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?

Re:Time to fight back

[donnyspi]

I wouldn't do that if I were you. I have already patented the process for sueing the USPTO for negligence. Sorry.

Re:Time to fight back

[LO0G]

I know this is /., but RTFP.

The patent's actually not about treating email addresses as objects.

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.

And whatever else they added to the patent.

It's NOT about patenting .sig files.

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?

Re:Time to fight back

[rben]

Actually, the USPTO is supposed to apply a standard that demands that a patent be for something that is not obvious to someone appropriately trained and familiar with the technology.

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. All of those concepts are obvious and have prior art associated with them. I think the patent examiner should have insisted on some example applications that were not rehashes of technology that is decades old, since that might make clear what is actually being patented and thus narrow the scope enough that the patent would be enforcable and reasonable.

In your face MS

[Timesprout]

EMailAddress timesprout = new EMailAddress("timesprout@gmail.com ");

while(1) {

timesprout.spamMSLikeFuck();

}

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?

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.

Women as objects

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, in light of this patent let me be the first to patent women as objects. ..

I kid. I kid.

Re:Women as objects

[maxwell demon]

Well, I'll probably patent whitespace. Thenifyoudon'twanttowritelikethis,you'llhavetopay.

Re:Women as objects

[aug24]

Could've been worse, you could have suggested they were only Interfaces...

Anyway, for most people here they are probably Abstract anyway.

J.

On the contrary...

[tezbobobo]

... we can now sue microsoft for all that lost productivity. Somehow they must be responsible if they own the patent which made me sift through herbal viagra for 40 minutes each day

First violation

[77Punker]

struct emailAddress
{
string name;
string location;
emailAddress()
{
name = defaultname;
location = default@example.com;
}
}

Re:Bull Hockey!

[PaxTech]

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.

Luckily, it won't damage the porn industry, they have plenty of prior art on record for treating women like objects. But that scared me for a minute..

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.

USPTO has been broken since State Street.

[gdek]

Re: software patents, there's a whole lot going wrong. More to the point, just about everyone knows it's wrong -- except for IP lawyers, for whom this is all a tremendous boon, and who will fight tooth-and-nail to keep the system that way. It's just a matter of:

1. Understanding why it's wrong;
2. Formulating a clear position;
3. Taking that position to your congressman;
4. Over and over and over.

Did you know that the USPTO has a public advisory board? Did you know that it's populated almost entirely by IP attorneys?

http://www.redhat.com/magazine/007may05/features/p atents/

This is what the uspto spends their time doing...

[aphaenogaster]

I get at least 400 hits a month by somebody at the uspto. (biodiversity.georgetown.edu ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:43 -0400] "GET /tree/order/Homoptera HTTP/1.1" 404 339 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:44 -0400] "GET /tree/order/Homoptera HTTP/1.1" 404 339 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:46 -0400] "GET /tree/family/Cicadellidae HTTP/1.1" 404 343 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:46 -0400] "GET /tree/family/Cicadellidae HTTP/1.1" 404 343 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:47 -0400] "GET /tree/family/Cicadellidae HTTP/1.1" 404 343 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:52 -0400] "GET /images/counter/infosearch/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 363 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:52 -0400] "GET /images/counter/infosearch/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 363 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:55 -0400] "GET /images/counter/picture/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 360 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:55 -0400] "GET /images/counter/picture/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 360 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:38:59 -0400] "GET /images/counter/infosearch/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 363 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:02 -0400] "GET /tree/family/Cicadellidae HTTP/1.1" 404 343 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:04 -0400] "GET /images/counter/infosearch/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 363 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:06 -0400] "GET /images/counter/picture/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 360 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:09 -0400] "GET /images/counter/infosearch/leafhopper%20bug.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 363 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:11 -0400] "GET /tree/family/Cicadellidae HTTP/1.1" 404 343 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:13 -0400] "GET /images/counter/infosearch/planthopper%201.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 362 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:13 -0400] "GET /images/counter/infosearch/planthopper%201.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 362 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:14 -0400] "GET /images/counter/picture/planthopper%201.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 359 ptohidec.uspto.gov - - [21/Apr/2005:08:39:14 -0400] "GET /images/counter/picture/planthopper%201.jpg HTTP/1.1" 404 359

Prior Art

[thegameiam]

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?

Absolutely.

Lotus CC:Mail in the late 90's did this, as did all of the early mail apps which had to contend with Internet vs. FIDOnet vs. etc... networks.

-David Barak

How to read a patent

[radtea]

IANAL. The following does not constitute legal advice (if it did, you'd have to pay for it :-)

The patent does not claim "treating an e-mail address as an object" except in the most incidental sense.

There are various parts to a patent: Abstract, References, Claims and Description. The Abstract gives a broad and often-misleading overview of the patent. The References give the references, and the Description gives a human-readable description of the invention. None of these have any legal force or meaning, except possibly as guidance with regard to how the claims might be interpreted.

The only part of a patent that has real legal teeth is the Claims. Unlike the Description, Claims are not human-readable.

Each claim is a single sentence, which is often broken into separate sub-clauses to give it a quasi-sentence structure. However, all the sub-clauses in a claim stand and fall together. That is, a claim to a process [X, Y and Z] does not cover a process only involving X and Y.

Claims may have conditional clauses, but they still stand and fall together. That is, a claim to a process [X, (one of P or Q) and Z] does not cover a process [X, Y and Z], because neither P nor Q is used.

Claims come in two forms: independent and dependent. The typical structure of the claims is:

1) A claim to everything.

2) A method/process/machine as described in claim 1 but specialized in some way.

3) Further dependent claims...

4) A method/process/machine as describe in claim 2 but further specialized in some way.

5) A claim to everything else.

6) A method/process/machine as describe in claim 5 but specialized in some way

7) etc...

That is, patents are typically written in claim groups, with each independent claim having a number of dependent claims following it. Dependent claims may be dependent on either an independent claim or another dependent claim, as shown above.

Independent claims are typcially made a broad as possible.

To read a patent you should first read the abstract, to get a vague sense of what the thing is about. Then skim the description and figures, but don't get too caught up in them because a lot of the stuff they describe will not be covered by the claims. The description usually deals with "the prefered embodiment", which is the best concrete example of the patented systems the author can come up with.

Reading the claims is the important thing. First, look for each set of claims. That is, find the independent claims and their dependents. Count the independent claims. This is a measure of how long you'll be at it. The thing that really matters to understanding the patent is the independent claims: the dependent claims are just specializations.

I prefer to read each independent claim out loud, very slowly. If one is particularly complex, I try re-writing it in human-readable form. After a few minutes of this it is usually possible to figure out what the general intent of an independent claim is. I then try to think of examples of systems that would and would not be covered by the claim, because the claim describes a boundary between covered and uncovered things.

Patents can be daunting to the uninitiated, but anyone who can navigate the complexities of C++ or Perl should be able to make a reasonable patent yield up its meaning without too much difficulty.

To return to the patent in question here, it has a single independent claim. It consists of 11 unconditional sub-clauses and 1 series of conditional sub-clauses with 6 options. So to violate this patent a system would have to perform all of the actions in those 11 sub-clauses and at least one of the actions in the conditional sub-clause. This includes actions like the following:

"upon establishing correspondence with said one or more servers, determining if the address corresponds to an address in a contact list of at least one server;"

Rea

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.

*sigh* here we go again

[copper]

Microsoft did not get a patent on treating an email address like an object. Always ignore the abstract in a patent unless you need it to understand the background. The only stuff that matters is the claims. In this case, here is what Microsoft actually patented:

1. A computer-implemented process for allowing a user to manipulate an email address contained in the preview pane or full message window of an email message of an email program as an object, comprising using a computer to perform the following acts:

identifying an entry in the preview pane or full message window of an email message as an email address, said identifying comprising,

finding at least one field in the preview pane or full message window containing an email message header of the email message containing one or more email addresses, and

parsing at least one email address from the at least one field in the preview pane or full message window which contains one or more email addresses;

checking the email address against addresses in one or more contact databases to determine if it is contained in a contact database, wherein a contact database is a set of stored contacts and corresponding addresses, and wherein said checking comprises at least one of,

determining if the address corresponds to a single contact in the contact list,

determining if the address corresponds to a mailing list in the contact list,

determining if the address corresponds to a newsgroup address in the contact list,

determining if the address corresponds to an invalid email address or internet address,

determining if the address corresponds to a valid email address not found to match any addresses in the contact list, and if so,

ascertaining whether the user's computer is in correspondence with one or more servers,

if the user's computer is not in correspondence with said one or more servers,

appending an icon indicating to the user that more information is needed before sending the email message,

flagging the address such that an act of determining if the address corresponds to an address in the contact list of said one or more servers must be performed prior to sending an email message,

prompting the user to establish correspondence with said one or more servers, and

upon establishing correspondence with said one or more servers, determining if the address corresponds to an address in a contact list of at least one server;

marking the email address with an adjacently placed indicator; and

upon selection of the indicator by the user, allowing the user to manipulate the email address as an object.

Doesn't sound terribly innovative to me but can we at least be sure to criticize the right thing?

are they f***in serious

[b17bmbr]

holy crap. email addresses are strings. strings are objects in java. fill an arraylist or vector with strings. serialize it. bingo. object data. associate it with a particular action, open the application, and go. if that works, then here's my patent idea:

since this is just a combination of already established comptuer science methodolgies (object serialization, etc.) I propose the following:

1. user goes to mexican restaurant
2. user eats spicy burrito
3. user consumes spciy sauce
4. user drinks strong coffee afterwards
5. user takes huge shit

clearly the user serialized his data (i.e. the burrito), put it into a container (his stomach), then treated his data as an object by running it through drinking application (coffee) then running through another application (colon) and receiving final confirmation. toilet bowl full of shit.

so, who's with me?

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....

Prior art out the wazoo..

[jcr]

Apple's been keeping e-mail addresses in objects, and letting you drag and drop them, etc, since the Address book application in 10.2. Other software developers were doing the same back in the NeXT days (Simson Garfinckel's SBook app springs to mind.)

-jcr