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Intel Patents the "Digital Browser Phone"
tibbar66 writes, "This sounds like an invention that has been invented many times before (e.g. Skype). Yet on October 10, 2006 Intel was granted a patent for a 'digital browser phone.' The patent was filed on Feb. 25, 2000. Here's the abstract: 'A telephone system wherein all the functions of a digital telephone can be accessed and implemented on a personal computer alone, thereby eliminating the need for a telephone set. By means of the computer display and mouse, keyboard or other input/output command devices, a user accesses and implement all digital telephone functions without the physical telephone set, the personal computer also providing the audio function. A graphical representation of a telephone set or other telephone-related form is provided on the computer display and accessed by the mouse, keyboard or other command device, this being accomplished by a computer program providing graphical interface implementation. A significant advantage of the system is computer access to and utilization of digital telephone functions from a remote location with communication via Internet, LAN, WAN, RAS or other mediums.'"
Last I heard, that was a soft phone, commonly implemented to utilize the SIP protocol.
So... they have patented the modem. Great job, Captain Obvious! Do they have some kind of entry test at the patent office to ensure only absolute hyper-morons work there?
If the submitter RTFP they would have seen that it was Intel, not M$.
As well as countless others, as M$ tries to rewite history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VocalTec_Internet_Pho ne
Skype ?
Or any SIP or H323 application that predates Skype ?
Isn't it time for Americans to revolt agains the patent crazyness ?
This signature is DRM protected. By the DMCA, you are not allowed to counteract or oppose to it.
From TFA:
./?
Assignee: Intel Corporation (Santa Clara, CA)
So what happened to actually reading the submission before posting them on
Also Skype is from 2002 and the patent was filed in 2000, so that makes for a poor prior art.
The patent was filed on Feb. 25, 2000.
And Skype received it founding funding in 2002. Though this isn't to say someone else doesn't have prior art to it..
really reinventing the wheel on this one guys!
I do believe VoIP has had this covered for a while in it's own form.
It's just that MS decided to romance the right people and had the major phone technology under lock down until they could perfect it's usage in this means. Now that they have it figured out, they're acting like they just found The Lost Ark.
In star trek the next generation '87-'94. Does that count as prior art? No pun intended.
I was with the patent requestors technically until "A preferred program is commercially available from Microsoft Corporation and known as ActiveX control. ActiveX control enables one to develop sophisticated controls...". Now I realize this was some kind of joke.
For me this is another reason to use Jajah Web: it does not infringe this patent.
Sounds like another silly patent on something obvious and common; the relevant question is, was it obvious and common in 2000 when the application was filed, or was it really original and novel at that time?
It seems unlikely that it was really novel then, but I don't actually know for sure.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
This story is just another reason to hate patents. If the iPod's clickwheel could be used by other manufacturers, than everybody and Apple would need to offer -more- and thus, innovate, to make sure they keep their customers and sell their devices. (ok. maybe it's not the patent themselves the problem, but how long they are enforced. I feel 2 to 5 years should be enough...) Same for this MS patent which sound a little too much obvious technology to me.
And the off-topic part, Apple came up with an interesting yet-another-patent one for a configurable input system (patent screenshots included). In short: "The concept is based around adding physical/tactile controls over a touch-sensitive pad. By having such a modular system, an iPod or laptop could become even more multi-functional." As much as this patent is interesting and could help transform computers into something more versatile and useful, it's still a patent which impedes anyone else using the idea at the commercial level.
Animoog.org
Wasn't there ICQ back then? I think that is prior art to at least some parts of the patent.
-- Cheers!
It seems to work here in Europe: after a big campaign of small IT businesses and citizens, the European Parliament rejected a proposal for introducing software patents in the EU.
Sure, the "war" is far from over, but we have won each "battle" so far. But I fear that we have a big probability of losing, unless software patents are challenged also in the rest of the world.
So, please, if you live in the USA or in Japan write to your MPs and tell them why sw patents are absurd and should never be granted, you will help yourself and us in Europe too! Don't think it's impossible: try!
More references:
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
boring
The open h323 project was started in 1998 and had a soft phone by 2000. This should count as prior art. http://www.openh323.org/fom-serve/cache/3.html
It also stinks that they get to sit on it for 6 years from date of filing. Patents used to be valid for 20 years from date of filing, now a company can sit on it, tweek it, and get 17 years from date of issue (AFIK).
CuSeeme was similar and much earlier. You could speak to and see people by going through a central exchange (reflectors), or directly person to person. A videophone in other words, all by "clicking buttons" on the computer.
Heh? In 1994, we were already buying commercial softphone applications for PC to PC telephony. In 1995, we had the ability to click a button on a web browser and launch a voice session with a customer service rep in an ACD pool. In 1996, we demonstrated a macintosh running voip software connected to a gateway that put the voice session out on an ISUP trunk to an M-1 PBX. I'm having difficulty understanding the originality of a 2000 filing on this subject.
I had an IBM Aptiva in 1997 with a phone system. I could telephone other people using the computer. This was done using a normal telephone line, no adsl or cable. The computer was not online. When somebody phoned me, I would hear a ringtone via the loudspeakers, and I could talk using a microphone. I used it several times, but it wasn't really practical, especially because of sound quality.
NetPhone was around 10 years ago, and although it didn't provide a POTS gateway, it did allow you to talk to other NetPhone-equipped parties using a telephone-like interface remarkably similar to the softphones of today.
I think someone at the USPTO needs a cockpunch.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Clearly it's time to submit my patent for a four-wheeled carriage device, powered by an internal combustion engine (an invention for which I also have patent-pending)...
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
"CROSS REFERENCE TO A RELATED APPLICATION
Applicants hereby claim priority based on Provisional Application No. 60/121,755 filed Feb. 26, 1999 and entitled "Digital Browser Phone" which is incorporated herein by reference"
If I read this correctly, they claim priority over _someone_else's_ patent filing by referring to an earlier filing by themselves.
Regardless of whether M$ or Intel are the grantees of this bogus patent. VoIP and by extension a digital phone set via PC were invented by Danny Cohen in 1973 via an ARPA sponsored project involving the predecessor to VoIP - Network Voice Protocol (NVP). Read more on Wikipedia. In addition to this prior art, Cisco would probably have some disagreement with the validity of this patent as well with their Personal Communicator Application.
Are the people at the USPTO on drugs or do they just have their heads up their corn holes?
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
in ~1995, I was working at Bell Labs/Lucent on the velociraptor project. Part of that WAS the desktop system as described.
Man, I swear that gov has fallen apart over the last 5 years. Patents as screwy as this show either an actual attempt by the gov. to hire idiots (hard to believe considering the economy of the last 6 years), that it is purposely trying to allow BS patents to major companies (conspiracy theorists unite), or that it is being severely underfunded( Bingo ) .
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Speak Freely is a 100% software-based VoIP phone originally written in 1991 by John Walker, founder of Autodesk."
http://www.speakfreely.org/history.html
Another thing: the abstract talks about "A graphical representation of a telephone set or other telephone-related form is provided". So, those VOIP/telephone programs that don't look like a phone aren't violating this patent?
The abstract isn't the patent. It's just a summary of what the patent is for.
The actual patent is a specific means of implementing the invention. This means that lots of people can have a patent on different ways to achieve a similar result.
WASHINGTON, THE NEAR FUTURE:
The Supreme Court threw a monkey wrench into American Industry today when it ruled that any patent examiner who issues "idiotic" patents makes all patents issued by him suspect. In the case of Microsoft vs. The Free The Fone Foundation, the court threw out US Patent 7,120,140 over prior art considerations. Said the court: "Not only was there prior art, but anyone with a modicum of intelligence and resources could have found it. We further rule that during the period of 2000-2006, the members of the team that granted this patent either lacked the intelligence or the resources to do their jobs. Therefore, we are declaring that all patents issued between 2000-2006 who were researched by members of this team no longer have the assumption of validity patents typically enjoy. We are ordering the patent office to promptly redo the work on any such patent at its own expense upon request by any interested party."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Okay, patent application submitted 2000. I distinctly recall my human-computer interaction class in *1997* wherein one assignment was to create a phone interface. This was an undergraduate class, and the topic didn't seem all that revolutionary even then.
Surely, a patent that deserves to be dismissed.
sloth jr
Patents used to be valid for 20 years from date of filing, now a company can sit on it, tweek it, and get 17 years from date of issue (AFIK).
It's the other way round: Patents used to be valid for 17 years from date of issue (allowing 'submarine' patents). Since 1995, they are valid for 20 years from date of filing.
That's a broad summary of the situation; for the details see a law site, e.g. here.
Wasn't that Net2Phone?
s p
w ww.net2phone.com/
Here is the companys timeline. http://web.net2phone.com/about/company/timeline.a
And here is the archive of their website from february 1997 http://web.archive.org/web/19970205073734/http://
I've written Soft Phones (3 at last count), worked on my own pesky SIP stack, and generally done my best to advance the State-of-the-art at the company I work for. Here is why I'm pissed, the patent refers to a test system they built using the Netmeeting SDK. Ahem, Netmeeting is H323, a technology Avaya and others pioneered years prior to the filing. In fact, if memory serves, Avaya and others have offerred a Softphone similiar to their original invention years prior to their eureka date. No, I don't work for Avaya, but they are one of my firms suppliers. Nortel has also offerred this for a while. Now, due to the messed up US Patent system, this patent can be used to sue for royalities for a couple of years till its tossed. Killer
...in the patent system, patent applicants aren't going to list prior art, and other interested parties aren't routinely aware of some of these over-the-top applications. The Patent Office needs an overhaul (I personally believe that software patents are inappropriate, but I'm apprehensive about what would happen if they were abolished, since so many have been granted).
As a stopgap, 'submarining' patents should be criminalized (it is prohibitively difficult to investigate whether a patent already exists), and demonstration of actual implementation should be a condition for granting patents. Patents shouldn't be meant to reward thought processes that may occur to other inventors, they should be to protect those who would actually implement their original ideas.
i propose overthrowing the government. it will benefit just about every other company. surely people like song/panasonic etc must be thinking the same
Why UNIX?
For a community so up in arms about patents, the level of ignorance here about patents is astounding.
What a patent actually COVERS is what is in the CLAIMS. The abstract means NOTHING. Here is the text of the three principal claims of this patent:
1. An apparatus, comprising: an interface to connect to a synchronous digital link and to send and receive digital signals to and from a telephone switch over the synchronous digital link; a controller to generate graphical display information and events based on the digital signals received over the interface; and logic to communicate over an asynchronous digital link, to convert the digital signals to an asynchronous format, and to transmit the digital signals and the graphical display information and events over the asynchronous digital link, wherein the logic is arranged to receive key press and hook state commands over the asynchronous digital link.
3. A method, comprising: receiving digital data from a public branch exchange (PBX) over a synchronous digital communication link; generating graphical display information and events based on the received digital data; transmitting the graphical display information and events over an asynchronous Internet protocol (IP) link; receiving a key press and hook state command over the asynchronous Internet protocol (IP) link; translating the key press and hook state command to a different format; and transmitting the translated key press and hook state command to the PBX over the synchronous digital communication link.
6. A computer readable medium including instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to: convert received light events and display updates to a graphical format; cause a first display device to display a digital telephone including the light events and display updates; convert received input device data that is related to the displayed digital telephone into a packetized format, wherein the input device data includes a key press and hook state commands over asynchronous Internet protocol (IP) link; and transmit the packetized input device data over the asynchronous Internet protocol (IP) link.
Also, the patent was based on an earlier application filed on February 25, 1999. For most purposes, the date against which to shoot with any invalidating prior art would have to be Feb. 25, 1998 or earlier. Having to go back these two additional years makes it much harder to shoot down this patent than it would be if the relevant time frame was 2000, as implied by the lead post.
I don't know if the patent is valid or not, but it certainly has a lot more merit than suggested.
Plus, as has been pointed out above, the patent owner was Intel, not the hated Microsoft.
But, after all, this is Slashdot, so why be burdened by any actual facts?
I remember ICQ back in 1998 (probably 1997, but '98 at the latest). CUSEEME, or whatever it was called, existed even earlier. I bet Wired magazine has an article from before this patent was filed about a slew of web startups pushing online telephony software. Do patent examiners search wired for prior art? Or do we have to do that for them?
Only the claims have any real standing when testing a patent... the first claim is for:
An apparatus, comprising: an interface to connect to a synchronous digital link and to send and receive digital signals to and from a telephone switch over the synchronous digital link; a controller to generate graphical display information and events based on the digital signals received over the interface; and logic to communicate over an asynchronous digital link, to convert the digital signals to an asynchronous format, and to transmit the digital signals and the graphical display information and events over the asynchronous digital link, wherein the logic is arranged to receive key press and hook state commands over the asynchronous digital link.
So this patent only covers an interface that communicates over a synchronous digital link, ie, ye old PBX. It doesn't cover any of the VoIP/SIP/RTP solutions. The first claim is too broad, in that PBX's have had this sort of controller/logic etc, so the subsequent claims come into play.
Claim 3 talks about receiving digital data from a public branch exchange (PBX) over a synchronous digital communication link; so it's talking about POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), admittedly over the newer digital circuits. Again, not VoIP/SIP/RTP.
Claim 6 talks about a "medium" wherein the input device data includes a key press and hook state commands over asynchronous Internet protocol (IP) link;. So if you're not sending the equivalent of key presses and on/off hook states over the IP link, again, you're outside the bounds of the patent.
A patent abstract may contain any crap of someone's liking.
/. and cite claims instead of crap.
I simply wished, that after so many reminders as dished out by myself and others, the editors finally understood (and referenced) the independent claims (or maybe the claims, if independent sounds too difficult), please ?!
There is enough 'itsatrap' and FUD around. Let's be professional on
Prior art.
Around 1996 Apple had a geoport express modem with software.
You could connect this modem (which in fact only contained a ring detector and a D/A A/D convertor) to a quadra 660av or 840av.
PGPfone was around way before 2000.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Not prior art because Star Trek happens in the future.
The 840AV had a fully functional software phone and answering machine. It worked great and was to market in 1993. Read about it in Byte: http://www.byte.com/art/9401/sec9/art5.htm The Quadra 840AV's DSP uses a real-time operating system that can perform several signal-processing tasks simultaneously. One such task is the sound preprocessing for PlainTalk. Other programmed functions that the DSP can handle are telephony, modem, and fax operations. A bundled Telephone application lets the Quadra act as a phone, and, with the Apple AudioVision monitor, you can actually use the system as a speakerphone. Telephone can also answer the phone, play a recorded message, and then record a message from the caller--but you'll need lots of hard disk space to record digitized messages.
I can go even farther back. My first PC was a Packard Bell which had phone software that allowed me to use speakerphone from the computer using a phone like interface and it also was fax and answering machine software. My PC shipped with WFW 3.11 in 1995 right before the Windows 95 launch. I got a "free" upgrade to Windows 95 and a newer version of the software that worked with it. I no longer have the PC, but I think I still have the CD somewhere.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Another patent win for Captain Obvious!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Roderick Simpson
[Original story in Wired 3.10, page 140.]
Which would exactly make it patentable. ;)
That doesn't mean that there is any sound reason to dish one out, but your argument shows exactly that you don't understand the patent system.
You simply have too much common sense for patents !
I guess I'll be modded redundant, but this is what the thing claims, and not what you write:
An apparatus, comprising: an interface to connect to a synchronous digital link and to send and receive digital signals to and from a telephone switch over the synchronous digital link; a controller to generate graphical display information and events based on the digital signals received over the interface; and logic to communicate over an asynchronous digital link, to convert the digital signals to an asynchronous format, and to transmit the digital signals and the graphical display information and events over the asynchronous digital link, wherein the logic is arranged to receive key press and hook state commands over the asynchronous digital link.
You have prior art for this ?
I'm going to patent inventing things. My concept is that "by creating new things, you improve efficiency." You can improve productivity in a number of ways, including just by working harder (see my other patent filing). This patent seeks to cover the process of inventing new processes.
And I'm going to refernce everyone who came before me and had the audacity to use my process to create things.
You all owe me big time.
The Dec Rainbow machine had phone capabilities if I recall correctly.
I think I could now patent the spoon if I worded the damned thing correctly. The USPTO should be ashamed.
Dog is my co-pilot.
When you submit a patent application, you need to declare under penalty of law there is no reason you know of the patent should not be issued. So, in such a glaring case of prior art, it seems quite possible the people who submitted this application knowingly broke the law by failing to disclose prior art they knew of and if so they should be prosecuted (or failing that fired for being so inept and ignorant of their field :-), and a trial should determine their criminal innonence or guilt. Enough trials like that and bogus patent applications might drop in number.
Prior Art: ONStar?
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
On June 1, 2006, Net2Phone (the Internet telephone unit of IDT Corp.) filed a lawsuit against eBay and Skype accusing the unit of infringing US Patent 6,108,704 which was granted in 2000. Maybe they should File against Microsoft as well....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It was actually a different product, but just the same it's good to have even more evidence that this was hardly a novel idea worthy of patent protection in 2000.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Of course is was obvious!
I remember windows 3.1 and 95 both had a program to make phone calls on the computer, it presented a display on the computer to "dial" much like a real phone. And this was before 2000.
There used to be something called Dialpad that seems to have done just this. Googling it, it seems that it was recently acquired by Yahoo!
http://www.dialpad.com/ - I used them when they first came out in 1999 because of the really cheap international rates. They had a browser based phone interface which used an activex control for communications when they first started out. Definate prior art.....
I went to VON (Voice On the Net) 2000 where a lot of people were already exhibiting working systems that implement what the patent describes. The patent is a dead duck. Tons of prior art, and an entire tradeshow devoted to the fact that it was obvious to 'one proficient in the field'. SIP was already around then - designed to interface between different implementations of software phones.
You have to remember that lots of shit patents are filed, but then never used. This will sit in a cupboard forever as it is not worth the money to try and defend it.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Here's some prior art: dialpad in 1999.
Dilogic has had sychronous cards out since at least 1995. I'll bet that Asterix will support sychronous.
This illustrates again what is wrong with the USPTO and software patents in general.
There is so much prior art to this invention the patent office simply is no longer able to do it's job.
Right; patents aren't about common sense. Patents are about suppressing creative thought because some fool got to an office first. Probably the single greatest stumbling block to technology and progress humanity has ever had the misfortune to allow to be thrust upon itself.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I saw some $19.95 product in SkyMall (right next to the remote control blimp/scalp massager) a few years back that did the exact same thing. Prior art?
to file a patent on phone dialer?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Well, not the Simpsons, but everyone except Microsoft has already been doing this for year. Hell, there are plenty of free VOIP programs that are freeware or open source, and have been since the '90s.
Hey Microsoft! 1997 called and they want their prior art back!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
This Sinclair* machine was released in 1984:
s t=1&c=275
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?
* I think Sinclair was sold under the "Timex" brand in the USA.
No sig today...
Also Lucent (BCS, later Avaya) had softphone application (though working with their PBX only) back then. It was quite crappy piece of software, but it did have all the features mentioned. It could work both VoIP (proprietary) or forwarding to actual phone.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
had one of these. back in 1996 my mom bought a Compaq Presario that came loaded with a windows shell called Tabworks. it was laid out like a day planner with different pages for the different (windows 3.1) windows. it also came loaded with a speakerphone. a graphical representation of a phone.. that you use the mouse to dial, and everything. I'm just amazed that Intel finally came up with something like that, I was getting worried that I may have been insane, imagining future technology. I, for one, welcome out graphical-represented telephony-patenting overlords. but does it run on linux?
I personally don't, but you should ask around Lucent or Avaya, I think they have. But hurry before Bell Labs are razed to make space for a new golf field for the board & CEO.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
h = openFile("ordinary_behavior.txt");
while (w = readNextWord(h)) {
if (random(0.0,1.0) > 0.96) {
w = w + " using a computer ";
}
print(w);
}
Table-ized A.I.
I thought peer to peer (P2P, point to point, person to person, ...) computer communications was around before VTC. Also, I thought VTC was around a few years prior to VoIP.
.... It has all become very pitifully funny that marketer-spin, IPR awarded by phrase, obvious no IPR prior art ... then ConArtIt as creative. I wish we had at least one Albert Einstein (in charge) in the USA IPR offices that could stop the paper pushers and signature automaton processes.
...) they run to the selfish-interest for advice on how to make the problem a more profitable, dysfunctional, and expensive FUBAR with getting rich pork for which civil service is blamed for failures, and public teachers, doctors, workers receive to much pay and benefits in the view of politicians, HMOs, CEOs, CFOs, politicians, televangelist ... pay, benefits, and options rewards increase as the selfish-interest decision makers whine-piss-moan about taxes, their rights/property, and their sex lives being unfair/troubling.
... the poor should not be blamed or penalized for the failure by decision makers to lead and make sound and reasonable decisions. Welfare [some say] was designed to keep the illiterate exploitable poor on isolated urban reservations as a cheap labor pool. Social Security is another hood-wink for US ... eliminate a real-debt by shifting blame onto the expensive do-nothing unhealthy elderly, take all their property and money before they can leave it to their children, but end the inheritance tax on the obscenely selfish-interest wealthy. Selfish-interest/politicians hawk-spin a conflict as a war to justify spending more tax dolors to benefit corporatist and wealthy contributors then destroy young American lives, no need for drafts, or rationing (just spend, spend, spend ...) just some poor warm honorable patriotic bodies for a less than holy (more evil) cause.
..., but selfish-interest greed of corporatist, politicians, televangelist ... appears to be ending our USA destiny even before we grow out of spoiled idealistic childhood. What will be will be WWIII for our babies.
....
Well IPR laws work well for controlling market share and holding customer hostages by first claim of a technology/science/engineering term an/or phrase. More USA dejure CorporatistCommunism mislabeled as legal competitive capitalism
===
I know we have a few new politicians in the Congress, but they will just screw it up IPR laws more.
I mean look at the last 30 to 40 years; every time the politicians say they are going to fix a problem (Education, Health, Banking, Science, Military, Civil Service, Economy
USA Selfish-interest decision makers (Corporatist-communist/politicians) had the bright idea that HMOs (and other BS) would fix the (1960-present) problem of rising medical cost. They said that school vouchers would fix the public education (1970-present) problems in the USA, now poor public education is considered a National Disaster threatening our National Security. They said Welfare handouts would raise poor folks out of poverty, welfare cost a lot, did little, and still is considered an expensive mess
Oh hell, we're fucked by selfish-interest rapist and apparently we will not notice our fall any quicker than the Romans.
I will always hope the USA can (for two thousand years or more) be a beacon to humanity for democracy, freedom, capitalism, charity, education, science, philosophy, art
Yes, I know I like eventually drifting off-topic
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Back in 1991 at the Interop trade show my company (Epilogue Technology) helped Simon Hackett (now of Internode in Adalaide), show "Etherphones". (Some rather nice T-shirts were made to note the event.)
These were internet based telephones that ran using phone handsets hooked to sound cards in PC's.
The caller would call - and of course software on the PC was involved - making a connection over UDP.
So I would say that MS's patent claims were merely prettier versions of what was more than 6 years earlier.
But even earlier, back in the 1970's or 1980's, the folks at ISI (Marina del Rey) and SRI (Menlo Park, Calif.) had voice over the net. I understand that at one time they even had a van driving up/down US 101 with an internet phone in it.
The patent exanimers should be forced to take drug tests. Anyhow, is there any way for a reporter to trace it back to the granters and reviewers, and quiz them up the wazoo? As long as it is a closed-door process, there won't be any real strutiny.
Table-ized A.I.
Speak-Freely - a unix and windows VoIP software, is the sourceforge continuation of a project at Fourmilab (speak-freely.org) which is developpement of code released on UseNet during 1991.
PGPfone - was released in 1995.
Microsoft's own NetMeeting was a late comer, being only available with Windows 95 OSR 2 (circa 1997).
Roger Wilco - not the Space Quest caracter, but a VoIP software specialized for in-game chatting, was released in 1999.
The H.323 specifications which are used by almost half of workd's VoIP implementation were released in 1996.
The SIP specification - almost the other half of the VoIP world - was first described in RFC 2543 in 1999.
One may refere to the wikipedia article about Secure VoIP for other exemple of historical clients (like Nautilius which got TCP/IP support somewhere between 1995 and 1997).
The only excuse for Intel filing the patent, is that this platform is just a "plain telephone service in a computer over the 'net' ", whereas all those predecessors are either more feature full (SpeakFreely, PGPfone and Nautilius are complete phone + encryption service, and Nautilius is designed to work over a pure direct MODEM-to-MODEM connection (no Internet) ) of supersets (H.323 and SIP and all software designed to use them provides much more service : sound, but also video, fax, text messaging, data, call redirection, etc. to be used in VoIP but also multi-point video conferencing, multimedia diffusion (IPtv a like), etc.) or for specialised uses (Roger Wilco with both its "mostly for in-game" chat and it's push-to-talk features, is more a digital walkie-talkie than a digital phone. But such argument won't stand a chance in court.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yes, early 1980'2. I worked for Mitel and prototyped the GUI on a Radio Shack color computer which I had to post a bond to get into/out of Canada. We controlled a modified digital phone via a DOS-based application and could dial by name, display caller, etc. on a DOS application. This should count for some prior art -- quite a bit ahead of this patent....
The geoport express modem was a first generation soft-modem - it wasn't really meant to be an internet phone (as per the patent - it mentions something about phone layout), so the patent may be valid in that respect. Many manufacturers made soft modems, though they're rare today.
Dialgoic, before being purchased by Intel, used to have a program of trying to acquire or patent computer telephony applications in such a way that no one could put a crimp on Computer Telephony based patents in general. [I believe this started after someone patented something involving computer telephone and went after Dialogic's customers who were creating and providing computer telephony solutions. In order to protect their market, Dialogic became involved. If anyone can confirm or deny this history, I'd appreciate getting an authoritative answer one way or the other.] I wonder if this patent is the natural extension of that program, but under Intel's ownership of Dialogic. Is Intel trying to use this pastent against someone yet? If this is from the Dialogic program under Intel's ownership, it might be defensive.
The nice thing is that there were computer telephony applications that provided these types of interfaces and services connecting a computer with the telco switches to deliver services a lot earlier than 1999 (or even 1998).
I haven't read things in detail, but it seems the magic words so far were "digital signals," "telephone interface," the computer serving as the telephone handset, and something about connecting with a switch for these services. If that's really what the claims lay out, then I point you to Visual Voice - a VB toolkit for writing computer telephony applications on windows 3.1 with visual basic 3 and 4. If memory serves, that would be around 1995, before Windows 95 was released. I believe you could use Dialogic T1 cards (satisfying the digital signal claim) and I think there was a sample app that had a telephone interface. What I don't remember is if you could use the microphone and sound card to provide the other end of an interactive phone call; I know you could use them for playback and recording of audio files through the phone, but I don't remember if it supported them live/interactively.
If not, I am pretty sure there were other tools/options in the 16-bit windows environment that did this. Some modems used the sound card to provide telephone/speakerphone use. That was single line and analog, but the extension to a digital signal is fairly obvious; I wonder if ISDN modems offered this feature - that would be digital.
And then there's Quicknet - a company I worked for from 1997 to 2000, their Phone Jack hardware and MicroTelco services were created well before this patent (1999 for sure, 1998 also pretty sure) and would seem to provide the same services.
All-in-all, while it's definitely a lot harder to prove obviousness, if there isn't direct prior art to negate this patent, I think there are enough pieces of the patent in prior implementations of phone services that this patent might be invalidated as being obvious. Of course, that assumes the person making such a ruling actually applies the "obviousness" based on people in the field, and not people in general.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
I think patents were a good idea, when people were less technologically advanced, and couldn't figure out how things worked by studying them, so they had to get the inventors to divulge their secrets. Now, analytical methods have grown to a point that even if you don't know how something is build, you can figure it out. Pepsi could make a drink that tastes exactly like Coke, but nobody want's a Coke copycat, they want the real thing, and Pepsi drinkers like Pepsi, not Coke.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Patents need to be for a way of doing something, not an abstract desription that bars anyone from figuring out news ways to get your "idea" done. There are probably millions of different ways to implement something that would fall under this description. Each way requiring it's own research and development and real innovation. I just wish I could go back and write on a piece of paper, "a way to make a solid state device to emit blue light" and send it into the us patent office. Then I could own all the work that other companies spent making blue diodes, or even prevented them from wanting to develop it because I already owned it. Then we would have no ps3.
You are right that it is the claims that matter. In the case, the claims appear to cover a case where the softphone sends key presses and hook-state to a PBX. It seems like a pretty narrow claim since SIP softphones and IP PBXs don't do that. It would be a rather oddball system that was implemented in a way that infringed.
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fs rchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7012997.PN.&OS=PN/70129 97&RS=PN/7012997
That said, the oddball nature of the claims is also pretty retro. PBX phones worked this way when 8 bit CPUs were hot stuff, and you wanted to minimize what was going on in the phone. It is difficult to believe there is no prior art for something this old-school.
So what is going on here? I bet most of the original claims were rejected, leaving the description badly out of sync with the claims.
Contrast this with another patent filed in 2000 and issued in 2006 (one that I am very familiar with):
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
In this patent, all the claims went through, so the claims match up much better with the description.
I wrote parts of this stuff
IBM shipped phone functionality with the Aptiva's back in the '96 time frame - using the mwave. You could set it up as a phone mail system and stuff too. I don't think the remote use stuff was there though.
This patent should probably be thrown out right away since there is a large amount of prior art avaiable. In the 80's and early 90's on win 3.11 and 95 you could purchase a fax modem card. With it you often got a program which replicated (on screen) a phone fax or copier etc. You even used your mouse to work it. So as far as something new goes this is not at all new or unique or even an invention.
Nah, that can't be right. I'm sure society has patents simply to suppress creative thought.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Didn't ICQ have VOIP abilities back in 98-99 ??
I was doing this with an IBM PS/1 in 1992 and strangely enough, the sound quality was good. Though normally I'd be using a real telephone since there were more of them around the house.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Same-old garbage garbage garbage.
I didn't even have to think about this one. I used Net2Phone back in 1997-2000, one of their first sign-ups AAMOF, and what they provided back then seems to match the claims of this patent. I hope the EFF is paying attention to this discussion.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
As I remember it, the AT&T system did all sorts of neat things like allowing you to transfer to someone by name -- and then you could let the system know where you were, and calls transferred to you would follow you to wherever you were registered at the moment.
This would work kinda nice with RFID locators... Star-Trek like capability to simply call 'The Captain' and only the phones nearest The Captain would be (automagically) activated.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
No, a mechanism already exists for that purpose; it is called "trade secret." The way it works, see, is that if your idea is complex enough to be non-trivial in terms of the resources required to instantiate it, then you just don't tell anyone how you did something, you simply develop it, and market it. If it is useful, you'll have a market window, and this gives you that "very temporary monopoly" you need to make a reasonable amount of income from your idea. What is great about it is that it doesn't involve lawyers, it doesn't involve the government, and it doesn't involve repressing everyone else's creativity. It also has built-in safeguards against simplistic ideas being given the status of unbreakable dams against progress.
You really don't understand how things work. It's not "society" operating here; it is corporations and the rich. And what they want to supress is your ability to do anything at all without paying them, either for a product, or for the use of an idea they've latched onto.
The fact that this suppresses creative thought is a side-effect, one that (a) only injures the general public and so (b) is not of concern to either the government, the corporations or the rich. What they're trying to do (and suceeding very well at) is suppress competition. What you think is of no concern to them. The system is designed to ignore what you think. That's why legislators make law, and you don't get to. It's trivially easy to bribe the very few legislators (think PACs, trips, speaking engagements, employment after politics, re-election support) but it is not easy to bribe the hundreds of millions of citizens at large. Not only do you have no input into the process, you're pretty well stuck in the loop of supporting the system from without by paying for these patents and for the bribes and for the legislators. All those costs are built into everything you buy that has one or more patents, with the single exception of the costs that are built into your taxes.
The system is locked-down. You can get a decent patent (meaning, one you have a slight chance of being able to defend in court) for about ten grand. But even if you can meet that financial standard (and of course, the vast majority of people cannot, nor is there any correlation between those who are creative and those who have such funding available), you have another, much higher hurdle to jump: You have to be able to pay for the defense of that patent in court. You on one side, with your house mortgaged (agin, if you have such a resource) and on the other, for instance, IBM, with (compared to you) absolutely unlimited resources.
But hey, don't worry about it. After all — it's not going to change.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This was unique and innovative in 2000? Yeah, right... I was using "digital" computer telephony - using my PC to make and receive calls and act as my answering machine (which it still does) - years before that! And I was hardly alone.
How could the PTO researchers have possibly not known about this history and just how unoriginal it was, and what a landslide of prior art which existed? How long have FAX capabilities existed in Windows and computing in general, anyone? Yeah, a LONG time, and the same goes for other telephony functions. I'm quite sure that Talkworks, for one, existed as a commercial product before 2000.
This is such a transparent failure it might just finally be the straw that breaks the PTO's back and brings the reform issue to the 11 O'Clock News.
Surely the interface between IP and whatever system your local telephone operator is using is down to the geographic location of the device linking the IP call to the land line telephone call, and the interface would have to work with whichever system is in use there, not necessarily POTS, could be PSTN, just because the AUDIO channels are on the internet does not make the idea of linking a source of AUDIO to and from a telephone line a new idea, it could been a duplex ship to shore radio channel for example..
The fact that it suppresses creative thought* is balanced by the fact that it's the one thing that is keeping the business of invention and innovation alive. Would you prefer it dead, or sick?
What kind of protection is that? It's not legally enforced, meaning that society has no problem with people completely nullifying the value of the inventor's initial investment. It's not secure, since it's simply security through obscurity. It would be like, for example, if MS were to say that Windows is more secure than Linux due to the fact that hackers can see Linux's code. Surely, as a
Rubbish. They only injure the general public if you completely ignore what they have done for society. They have done some pretty terrible things too, but I, for one, don't think that they should be judged by their shortfalls. Sort of like how the car is ruining the global climate, dimming the globe, sucking up our oil reserves, and costing many people their lives, but they have done something wonderful for our culture. That's how we appreciate cars.
The problems inherent in patents are a concern to the government. It affects their electorate and themselves on a personal level. I vaguely recall some
* I'm not sure that the term "creative thought" is fair. Patents do have an effect on the "creative thought" process, but it isn't one of stifling, but one of inspiration. There's nothing illegal about mentally developing on an idea that someone patented.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Could this be the reason Skype made a deal with Intel to only let Skype work to its full potential on Intel CPUs?
The system is designed for them, as I said, and they will continue to use it. I also said it wasn't going to change; I said the system benefits them; I said they had no concern for any of the rank and file; how much plainer can I be?
If anything is ever done, it will have to be done at the level of legislation. But again, I don't expect that to happen, because as I already explained, there is no way provided for the rank and file to change the system.
That is tripe and nonsense. Inventing is a nearly cost-free process. I've been doing it all my professional life, and I started with zero dollars. I'm the poster child for inventing things on napkins and in simulation. It doesn't take money; it takes an innovative outlook and a reasonable fund of knowledge. Both are available for free, the more so today for that matter.
The reason it "looks" like a rich vs. poor matter is because the patent system is tuned for high dollar players, just as I said. You know, it doesn't have to be so: just the fact that it is should tell you a lot.
It is temporary, which is enough. I made my fortune with it; I can assure you it is adequate to the task. My point is that patents are too much protection; in fact, they go well beyond protection and constitute assault on people who legitimately invent something on their own. Trade secret does not protect the obvious. Yet if you look, you'll see that even the patent system wasn't supposed to do that. It has been perverted to do so, one of its many problems.
You're assuming that only patents can do this. But that is false. I've been inventing all my professional life and never used them. I've put out many innovative products, and I have benefited from this a great deal. Patents injure the public because they are a repressive means of handling invention. They work by suppression of the many and encouragement of only one person, the first inventor to get a claim to the patent office. Trade secret encourages everyone, all the time. It is not only better for society as a means to provide faster and more numerous innovations, it is ethically more sound at every level.
There's nothing illegal about wishing you were free when you're actually a slave, either.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Patents were originally created to promote creative thought. There is a very simple test of whether patents are promoting or hindering creative thought in a given field of engineering. Do engineers in the field routinely do a patent search to avoid reinventing the wheel? Or, instead, do they as a matter of policy avoid ever looking at any patents in the field to avoid paying triple damages to patent trolls? In many fields, patents are still beneficial. In software, however, they are a total bust. Very, very, few software patents actually disclose anything useful. They are used solely as offensive or defensive weapons - never as an actual source of technical knowlege.
Take, for example, the Nintendo DS. It has protection built in to prevent unlicensed code from being run on its hardware. However, soon after it's release, devices that allow people to bypass this protection and run unsigned code appeared on the market. Nintendo spent a lot of time developing the DS, and the main revenue stream is through licences. I know it would be a blatant lie to tell you that it destroyed them, but it did damage them. Fat lot of good the trade secret did there.
What about things that take time? To use the old saying, time is money. And if inventing is cost-free, it at least takes time. Why should we rest our society's innovations on people's spare time? Companies aren't going to touch them; it isn't nearly worth their time. Besides, there would be a lot of redundant time spent on inventions that exist or are about to exist. That's one thing that patents can also help.
I agree with you there. What we need is real prior art protection. Protection that allows people to overturn patent infringement lawsuits with evidence of prior art, even if the patent has already been granted. We also need to do away with submarine patents, patents without a working prototype, restrict patent infringement cases to commercial uses only, and make exceptions for the government.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
My opinion is that if it takes Joe three years to invent product X, but it takes Leroy 1 week to reverse-engineer product X, then Joe has been out-competed by the simple fact that his time is worth a lot less by direct market value, since Leroy's time can produce the same product in 1 week. Joe, therefore, is not entitled to out-compete Leroy in the marketplace, unless he can do it with downstream mechanisms (customer service, add ons, games, etc.) Even though Joe invested three years.
In other words, what you have here is something that was obvious to Leroy; and the obvious doesn't deserve protection. Of any kind. At some level, there will always be someone who can think of an idea, but will find it very difficult to actualize. These people are not well served by trying to be inventors. Invention requires the ability to conceptualize, actualize and then either sell (the idea) or market (the product.) That would be Joe. Leroy, on the other hand, is well suited, because he can do in a week what Joe can do in three years.
The example assumes that Joe's invention is in fact properly protected in terms of trade secret; there are no numbers on the IC's, the code has been freed of debugging information, the inside of the device is filled with epoxy — whatever it takes. Trade secret does, of course, require that you not share design information. Again, anything so simple that its design is obvious, is, well, obvious. :)
Nintendo was affected only in the sense that the window of opportunity they tried to create was closed. I don't have a problem with this. Nintendo has many other opportunities to work the marketplace, such as producing games, adding goodies to the hardware, perhaps even stopping the practice of trying to make the games pay for the console, which is dubious at best anyway. I look at Nintendo and I see a company that has turned many millions of dollars using the system as it is. Lots of high-paid people, lots of satisfied customers. If things went a little different than they had planned, as Japanese, I expect them to understand, because as they say, "business is war." Remember: Trade secret won't serve to protect the obvious, nor can it be counted upon to let an attempt at obfuscation (like Nintendo's) function over something with little complexity or originality. Trade secret is at its best when the idea is not obvious, the implementation is non trivial, and the product is not exposed at the design level. In other words, trade secret serves those who invent things of significance in terms of resources, operation, effects, and follow-on issues. Finally, great success will breed imitation. No way around it. You have to plan for it; imagine your competitor's surprise (and displeasure) when they find that their customers are turning to you for service, add ons, and so forth.
If it legitimately takes time, that is, it would take me just as long, or longer, than it takes you, then the time it took you to create it is the window you will have to market it before the first competitor -- me -- reaches your market. In that time, you can establish cost efficiencies, customer service mechanisms, add-ons, and so forth that add value to your product in such a way that the newcomer has yet more work to do to catch up. Additionally, you have had the opportunity to take the cream off the market. You had the opportunity to say "We've invented the Widget-O-Tron!"... which is a great marketing tool. At this time, you are now in the position of someone who is selling something that is no longer unique; this is not an untenable position, millions of manufacturers and retailers occupy this niche each and every day and do
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Taking your example of Joe and Leroy, how would that apply to music and the copyright system? If Leroy takes weeks/months/years to produce an album, and Joe could make a one-to-one copy instantly, does that morally justify Leroy's loss of the competitive edge? In fact, it's more than just competitive edge. With the Internet, pretty much all its value is lost, due to the unlimited supply of copies. Any value of initial investments are instantly gone with the abundance of free supply. Do you really think that any creative/design industries would survive?
I'm guessing you are opposed to legal intellectual property, especially with the emphasis on the free market principles, and the aversion to lawyers. If I'm guessing, assuming, and interpreting correctly, let me just say that I disagree. Intellectual property needs to be protected. It can be so easily reproduced, and it has extremely fragile, but still very valid value. People are willing to pay for it, people spend their time and their money on it. If you do not protect it legally, the value will all but disappear, and you will discourage invention, stagnate technology, and severely disadvantage society. To stop intellectual property laws because it benefits the rich at the expense of the poor is to cut off your nose despite your face.
The example wasn't about the purpose of the technology, it was about how the technology can fail dismally if it simply stays as a trade secret. Regardless of what Nintendo intended, they developed a technology that proved useless very soon after release. If it weren't for the DMCA (or whatever covers hardware DRM), they would stand to lose significant profits. It probably took a long time to develop, and probably took very little time to undo. Does this make it trivial?
I guess what bugs me most about your system is how easy it could be to become obsolete in the market you created. There seems to be no recognition for those who worked hard to come up with an original thought, but lost the baton to someone who is even more rich and who is pouring resources into outclassing the inventor. In that respect, your system is more geared to the rich. For that reason, I can't see people and companies alike participating.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
That's pretty much how I look at it, yes. But you have to keep in mind that if I am producing the "thing" at pretty near cost, and you also have to reverse it, come into a market I've already staked out a claim in, supersede my marketing and customer service and solution-fitting... just reversing it isn't going to buy you much. Reversing only works if a product is put into a market with a huge margin and the cream is being skimmed. Then there is room for competition. If I take a market properly, I won't leave much room for you, yet my idea is still there if you can figure out another way to use it that doesn't put you into competition. Today's model is that Joe invents X, charges WAY more than it is worth until Joe's patent runs out, then retires the idea. My model is that Joe invents X, puts it into the market in such a way as to actually be competitive from day one, and this reduces competition by making it actually difficult to compete based on service, quality, and so forth. If the idea is non-trivial, new, and executed well, it should do fine.
Wrong questions. I'm not saying this is how it is; I'm saying, this is a much more reasonable way for it to actually be. Also, this is how I'd like it to be. Also, this is a way I've managed to do well, myself, and that's at least one pilot case. No more than that.
It doesn't, really. Copyrights and patents are different beasts. The copyright system has its own problems, and for the most part, they aren't really all that similar. But in broad strokes, recompense for writing a story or a song is reasonable. Bards were always paid with something, even if it was just a bed for the night. Earning millions, or tens of millions, for a story or a song? Is that equitable? I'm not sure it is. If it really takes you years to come up with a song (so that years of income need to account for your work) perhaps you really aren't cut out to be a musician. And mind you, I'm a musician and I own a literary agency, so I'm pretty sensitive to copyrights and what they can earn.
Society has jammed itself into a corner where a very few artists receive wildly large incomes for insane (by my view) terms, and most of the rest simply starve, even though many of them are really very, very good. I don't think that's particularly healthy for our society, and I do think that the main pressure that has caused this is long copyright terms and disproportionate rewards for creative works that really aren't that different from one another. But as I say, I don't really see this as the same set of issues — the ability to reproduce information (music, stories, videos) for essentially zero is going to require a whole different set of solutions than those problems that encompass physical objects.
I like questions like this: Are we going to let the cost of a Hollywood blockbuster (say, the star wars series) and our interest in such blockbusters choke the entire rest of the creative industry with DRM and so forth? I see that as a very bad road to go down; I'd rather lose the big productions and see less recompense in general, with a better chance for more artists to be exposed. I also think that as (ok, if) the balance swings more towards people who are doing art for art's sake instead of for that one chance at the brass ring, we're more likely to see exceptional works (which I would not, for instance, include star wars in...)
Joe an
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Secondly, I'm not a fan of the free market. It's certainly not a one size fits all ideology. Even when it fits, it has nasty side-effects. Sure we get cheap food and cheap clothes, but we also have sweat shops and less small business (both bad from my viewpoint). You also get anticompetitive behaviour, price fixing, etc which the system naturally rewards. You assume that everyone wants to play the free market game, but investors in inventions can easily get cold feet when they have no guarantee. No guarantee that they won't either drop out of the market, or be forced to rock bottom profit margins, where the elevated cost of initially producing the prototype will be slow to recoup. Or, possibly, we would see the supermarket effect, where the little guy who invents it gets out-priced by the big guy who had the resources to quickly reverse engineer it, and sell it at impossible profit margins. Tell me that that system doesn't reward the rich.
Not me personally, but people would miss it if it went for the reasons above. I can also tell you that you can't disprove it either, even by asserting several high-profile examples. Just about anything has its flaws, but it doesn't mean that it's time to scrap the entire concept and move on. It simply needs a tune up. In the grandparent post, I mentioned what I don't like about the current system, and how it could be changed. How many of those debacles would have happened with my suggestions?
You would like a lot of things. No doubt they're admirable, but too idealistic and at times, impractical. Much like the whole free market principle. In practise, we need the law on our side in order to invest in anything major. Would you buy a car if it were legal for someone to hotwire and drive away in it? Would you just say "Damn, that's the third time this week. I guess I'm not worthy of owning a car"? Or would you feel some entitlement to it? Similarly with intellectual property, no-one but the hardened idealist would invest in it. Only the guy who thinks "Well, if I hide my car in the back alleys, lock it up really tight, install an immobiliser, then I suppose I would be OK" would go for it.
For god sake. How many times do I have to tell you that the application is not important, the fact that it's protected by being a trade secret is important.
I knew that
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I have a funny story about that guy.
I was working for a company that was doing measured pouring from an intelligent (relatively speaking) bottle cap for use in a bar. In case you don't know, the bar industry considers "over-pouring" to be a huge source of monetary losses. I did the electronics for the cap and the remote RF sensing stuff. Fun. Anyway, the ace bandage guy (Lenny) was one of the investors in the company. Another guy, a mechanical engineer named Joe, had this idea for a perpetual motion / energy creation machine. Joe physically designed the cap, its gears and valves, etc.; he sat next to me.
In short, his idea went like this: You have a tank of water. At the bottom, you feed in a series of little bubbles of air. Atmospheric pressure on the top of the tank would subsequently force the bubble to rise; the bubble was caught in what amounted to an upside-down cup, and this was attached to levers and gears which turned things and which you could tap for energy. He (Joe) thought that the energy in the system was coming from the broad surface of the water, and that squeezing the air into the bottom of the vessel would cost less energy than the rising force would generate because... well, it's not entirely clear to me why, as that was the crux of our arguments.
So, I argued my face off both to Joe and to Lenny that this would not work. I really did. I did the math. I showed them the math. All to no avail. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a BIG prototype. And of course, it didn't work. At all. Neither one of them thanked me for trying to warn them of this outcome. Ungrateful wretches. :)
Just goes to show you that even if your imagination can come up with something really cool like the ace weave, it doesn't mean you're competent to do anything else...
So, for you and me, it is time to put the argument to bed. I will continue along my chosen path, although unlike Lenny, I'm doing well with my choices -- my net worth increases consistently. :) You can continue to champion the patent system, and encourage those changes to come about. My feeling is that no changes will occur, because the system is controlled right now by the people it is designed to benefit the most. Unless you can wrest control from them, you won't be able to implement any changes at all -- not yours, and not mine.
Again, I enjoyed the conversation and appreciate your time and commentary.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.