WordLogic Patented the Predictive Interface

Packetl055 writes "Have any of you heard anything about this company, WordLogic, with a soon to be granted/issued patent with 117 claims for predictability software? They recently received a patent approval/allowance letter from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Their patent application was submitted in March 2000. If I read this correctly, any software that gives you any prediction after you type something is infringing on their patent — e.g. vehicle navigation systems, cellular telephones, PDA's, Google with their 'Did You Mean' when using Google for a search, the new Apple I-Phone, Blackberry, Sony Playstation-3, etc., etc. If true, this is going to be huge: lawsuits after lawsuits." Their stock trend over the last few days suggests that somebody was paying attention to the the USPTO news from August 9. WordLogic makes products (assistive input software) and doesn't seem to be merely a patent troll.

Comments

Microsoft to the Rescue!

[hondo77]

Prior art from 1996, anyone. Thank you, Bill! ;-)

Re:Hello, incremental search anyone?

[ajs]

Don't assume that there's prior art just because the Slashdot summary seems to be similar to things you used in the past. The only measure of valid prior art (other than actually going to court) is when a patent lawyer looks over both the letter of the claims and the claim of prior art. Often, in that light, the prior art turns out to have no relevance.

Patent submitters typically know about the most obvious examples of prior art, so most patents are worded to carefully carve out a niche in which the patent almost, but not quite, describes existing technologies.

Re:Hmmm......

[Raphael]

And even if they haven't been a patent troll in the past, they may be becoming one.

Let's look at their latest quarterly report (SEC filing) and pick a few bits:

The Company reports a net loss of $840,446 for the six-month period ending June 30, 2007 [...]
For the six-month period ending June 30, 2007, total revenues were $2,673 compared to $9,705 for the six-month period ending June 30, 2006. As the Company is a Development Stage Company its revenue streams are not established and are not impacted by economic or market trends.

Recent Business Activities
On January 9, 2007 the Company announced it had developed a new text entry/text messaging input solution for cell phones utilizing the WordLogic's patent pending prediction engine. [...]

Plan of Operations
A critical component of our operating plan impacting our continued existence is the ability to obtain additional capital through additional equity and/or debt financing. We do not anticipate enough positive internal operating cash flow until such time as we can generate substantial revenues, which may take the next few years to fully realize. In the event we cannot obtain the necessary capital to pursue our strategic plan, we may have to cease or significantly curtail our operations. This would materially impact our ability to continue operations.

So it is a company that is making losses and focuses mainly on a single product. The success of this product depends on the licensing deals related to that patent. It looks like that company is betting a large part of its future on that single patent. So their best hope may be to become a patent troll. It may be a bit sad for the engineers working at that company, but I have serious doubts about their future business plans and methods.

Is it surprising that they issued a press release related to that patent a few days before issuing their quarterly report?

Predictive INPUT not Predictive TEXT

[jkgamer]

Does anyone here ever read these patents before posting how stupid they supposedly are? Reading the patent clearly shows that they are not applying for a patent on predicting text alone, but rather on an input method used by most PDA's and visual keyboards. In addition to displaying possible words, it HIGHLIGHTS the keys on the visual keyboard or displays the input strokes required to generate the next character that it thinks you want to select. Visual Studio never lit up characters on my keyboard, it never even displayed a visual keyboard on my screen. I'm all for patent reform and striking down obvious techniques, but in this case, while IANAL, on its face value it looks pretty legitmate to me.

(Not entirely sure that its all that much more useful than the standard predictive text stuff that I've already seen or used, but that is not the point.)