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."

Comments

Re:Good luck enforcing it

[gvc]

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)

Important Clarification + Rant

[suv4x4]

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.

Re:Important Clarification + Rant

[suv4x4]

The patent covers content created online, i.e. if FrontPage was running from Internet Explorer as a Flash or Avalon+XML or HTML/JS, then it'd probably have pieces affected by the patent.

This is one more case of "same stuff but in a new medium" patents, just like Apple patenting their "unique" menu system (used on iPod) for use on mobile devices, as if we never used tree menus before.

Obviously obvious invention

[mwvdlee]

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.