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Online Rich Media Patented
An anonymous reader writes "Balthasar has been awarded a patent on "Methods, systems, and processes for the design and creation of rich-media applications via the internet" ( USPO 7,000,180). In an article at news.com the company claims that "The patent covers all rich-media technology implementations including Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX and XAML and all device footprints which access rich-media Internet applications including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes and video game consoles". The patent was filed on 9 February 2001, five years after the original Flash application, FutureWave Splash, was introduced in May 1996."
Perhaps any half-decent lawyer can have the patent invalidated, but perhaps not before some yahoo judge slaps a permanent injunction on the whole web. (cf. RIM)
When he says it covers all "rich media" he really means it covers rich media GENERATOR/EDITOR applications in said rich media, not all apps or the technology itself.
The patent describes a system for creating what basically is a Flash IDE with clipart online. That said the patent affects all sorts of CMS (content management systems), editors, template-based sites and so on and so on that fall under it.
The prior art for that patent is devastating. A lot of the claims are ridiculous and include the "revolutionarty" inventions of.. rotating, scaling and moving objects.
I'm still mightily pissed by this silly patent, but I'll just ignore it, should they try to enforce it, they'll have to face the prior art.
At first I thought "rich media" meant Jack Valenti, but now I see that, as parent says, this patent covers editing something like a Flash script over the Internet, with some network application server doing the actual work. However, if you had an X-Windows application that edited such a Flash script, & you exported its display to another terminal, then you're clearly violating this patent, even though you could have done this in the 90s, maybe the 80s.
Even if we ignored that, this patent is obvious: it's a principle of CS that anything you can do on your own box, you can do remotely, thus if the local application isn't patented, then the web application can't be patented either, because it's obvious. I think if the USPTO realized this (although they're systemically disinclined to understand anything, since their revenue comes from *approving* patents), many assinine web patents would go away.
A few weeks ago we saw an article advocating "patents lite", in which the USPTO checks that the patent covers something patentable, but does *not* check for prior art, usefulness, or non-obviousness. The patent is much shorter, like 3 years. The first time it's challenged, the burden is now on the patent-holder to show that it's useful, novel, & non-obvious.
It turns out that de facto, we have patents lite. Clearly, the Patent Office checked nothing before it granted this patent, so we're just waiting for the first lawsuit. We have patents lite, & the system still doesn't work. It's time to end this.
Since computers and the internet are so standardized, any invention conforming to any of the following should be obvious to anybody:
The invention already exists in a non-networked version.
The invention already exists in a non-scriptable version.
The invention already exists as a hardware implementation.
The invention already exists using older components.
The invention already exists and is being used as such using it's individual components.
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