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IBM Patents Checking a Box
theodp writes "What do you call it when you drag a pointer over a checkbox to select or deselect it depending on its original state? Answer: US Patent 7,278,116. On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded IBM a patent for Mode Switching for Ad Hoc Checkbox Selection, aka Making an 'X'. Isn't this essentially the same concept as the older Lotus Notes selection model that IBM was recently asked to reintroduce?"
First of all, it's not just "checking a box." It's clicking to toggle a checkmark, and dragging across a bunch of other checkboxes to toggle them all on (or off, depending on the state of the first one you clicked).
Second of all, I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, it really bothers me in a cosmic sense that there was a patent granted for something so patently stupid. (Pun slightly intended.) I'm sorry, but this falls squarely in the realm of obvious to me. I mean, really, are programmers expected to patent every single frickin' thing they do out of fear that someone else might? Because that's the world we're living in, and I'd really like for it to change.
On the other hand, I'm sorry, but the Lotus Notes selection model is one of the most frustratingly stupid things I've ever encountered in my life. Almost every other piece of software follows the old click-first-item, shift-click-last-item model. (Or ctrl-click individual items.) It's been in use since... Well, as long as I can remember using a GUI, and I'm really hard-pressed to think of any other way that selections work. Except for Lotus Notes, where they use this asinine system of selecting messages which means that if I have several pages of stuff to select, I have to scroll past each. and. every. one. Frankly, if IBM is the only company that can do this and it prevents any other company that has the bright idea from implementing something like this, then I can almost bring myself to say that this is a good thing.
If IBM can patent the checkbox, what's next? The radio button? The text box? Maybe even the address bar?!?
.sig
I have prior art for this. I call it, the pencil and eraser. Oh wait. That prior art isn't mine. This is a technology at least a hundred years old. You want to select a bunch of boxen at once? You just drag the pencil accross all of them. You want to deselect? Turn the pencil over and repeat the motion! w0w!!!
The patent is on their hybrid 'checkbox/windows selection' GUI abomination. It's really fucking ugly - note the "If you scroll the current checked selection off the screen, the behavior changes."
IF YOU SCROLL THE BEHAVIOR CHANGES.
Dear IBM: Didn't you learn to share your drugs? Please be giving me some of that crack.
What do you call it when I drag the U.S. software patent system behind my car until it is an unrecognizable bloody mess?
Sorry for the graphic imagery, but I'm really getting sick of this crap.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I'm patenting my own method of box checking:
1. Cut a hole in the box.
2. Put your check in that box.
3. Make her open the box.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Well, I guess I won't be posting anonymously for once.
Patents are not eternal the way copyrights are. The more obvious stuff that gets patented now, the more stuff that's clearly unpatentable 17 years from now. We're not that far from clearing all the crazy stuff that was patented in the 90s.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's a stupid patent, and having that as the only multi-select method is annoying.
However, if you have a set of four or five boxes close together, I can see it as being convinient.
However if you drop shift/ctrl standards in your selection method, DIAF.
My patent (#2334533533.Bull.Crap) is: Drawing 2 circles on your body followed by a dot in each one prevents you from getting cooties from the opposite sex.
Circle Circle Dot Dot, now I got my cootie shot
And while we are ripping on Lotus Notes...
Why in the name of God would they take the F5 key (the key every other application known to man uses to refresh) and assign to to "Logout"?!?!??!!?
WTF?
Ive been using Lotus (against my will) for 3 years now, and still a few times a month I hit F5 because I just KNOW that I should have that email response by now.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN!!!!!
No, I dont normally invoke the name of God 2 times in an email (Well, I guess thats 3 now). Its just a sign of the wrath Lotus brings out in me.
I have actual prior art on this. This is a common UI design in the audio world. If you click on a mute button and drag across multiple tracks, it mutes all of them just like it would if you drug your finger across the mute buttons on a console. Most DAW software I've used does this---BIAS Deck, MOTU Digital Performer, Apple Logic.... the list is almost endless.
This is another example of a really obvious patent that adds NOTHING to advance the state of the art. The very fact that this patent was awarded is further evidence that every cool new idea that could possibly be patented in software has already been done at least once, and probably more than once, and hence, software patents to not do anything to improve the state of the art and only serve to harm innovation and stifle competition in the marketplace.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
There are various tricks to subvert patent expiration, and this is one of them. Instead of patenting a large system, they patent as many small parts of it as possible, spreading the applications over years.
This way, the system as a whole doesn't lose protection until the last patent expires. The mp3 patents are an example of this, as they would have entered the public domain years ago if not for these shenanigans.
The only real solution is to require one patent per system. Make them pick the best and disallow any associated patents.
No one here understands the complexity involved in checking a box. I don't work for IBM and I am not a marketing expert, if you have side questions on my post please contact me at nocengineer@ibm.com with that said:
IBM's patented technology is a boon to the Interweb of Googletoolbars worldwide. This extremely proficient alternative to physically filling out a form with a paper and pen method deserves its right in Patentdumb history. The traditional approach of said former technology via the pen and the paper is an approach that is inefficient and expensive. IMB's modular design of the radio button and check button interface allows users to utilize with maximum proficiency, the power of checking a box.
Thank you
THIS AND OTHER SUBSEQUENT POSTS ARE PATENT PENDING
Infiltrated dot Net
I see.
And what would be your feelings on, oh, say patenting putting your dick in a box?
As someone who used Notes, let me just say that God had nothing to do with it's design. You need to look in the other direction.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Almost every other piece of software follows the old click-first-item, shift-click-last-item model. (Or ctrl-click individual items.) It's been in use since... Well, as long as I can remember using a GUI, and I'm really hard-pressed to think of any other way that selections work.
I believe, like many other standards in GUIs, this was first introduced as a standard by Apple and documented in the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines in the 80's (although I'm sure someone did it somewhere before that). Later Microsoft began using a similar standard, while XWindows was still using a "select copies, and right-click pastes" into the 90's, at least in twm and many of the common window managers (not sure what Motif did here).
E pluribus unum
Programmers shouldn't even be ABLE to patent anything. Software patents should be abolished.
I am a patent attorney who tries to get his clients good, valid patents for any technology, including those that are implemented in software.
I really hate to see patents like this being granted, because they are so obviously stupid, and bring the whole system into disrepute.
If this were a granted European patent, it would have any number of oppositions filed against it. (An opposition is a cheap and effective challenges to a granted patent). IMO, no proper patent system should be without a workable system of opposition!
This is a horrible mess, and I wish that there were a way of extracting it from the US patent system in a way that will save IBM the ignominy of having such an obviously bad patent granted in its name.
A
If you spend 5 years developing a physical machine that takes some physical input, does something to it in a novel way, and produces output, you can get a patent on it.
Why shouldn't you be able to patent software which takes some electronic input, does something to it in a novel way, and produces output?
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Imagine how many index fingers will be damaged by that.
It is because they picked that key before F5 meant refresh for everybody else, and they don't want to change it and confuse all the experienced Notes users just because some newfangled (read: after 1990 or so) products do it differently.
You'll probably feel equally angry when you try out Notes 8 and realize that CTRL+tab doesn't take you between tabs because they decided to update themselves to use the same shortcut keys Eclipse uses for that operation, but you can't be angry at BOTH decisions and maintain internal rational consistency.
Wait a minute...
If I had patented all the ridiculously ugly things I can think of, would that have prevented Microsoft DevelopersDevelopers(woohooo) from trashing both Office07 and IE7 User Interfaces?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm pretty sure I've seen this same mechanism in the client software for IXIA network test equipment. They have a spreadsheet-like pages, and when there is a check box in a column, you can click it, then select a range of cells in the column and it will apply the setting for the check box you just changed.
Takes an input, does something, and produces an output.
Geez, that sounds a lot like a mathematical function.
Sir, I'm interested in your newsletter and wish to subscribe to it.
No offense, but little check marks have existed since paper tests immemorial... I guess click/drag is sorta different but still fairly obvious.
"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself." ~ Jack Gurney
The last time I was forced to use Lotus Notes was 2003, and I was amazed that it _still_ looked like what I imagine software written in the Cold War Soviet Union must have been like. In 2003, it still wasn't caught up to conventions that were standard in the 1980's.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
That was my first thought as well... except with pixel painting software. Magnify the screen and use the pencil tool to set a bunch of pixels without ever releasing the mouse button. This "invention" dates back to the parc xerox days.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
So IBM is trying to be the next big patent troll?
IBM Guy: Hey man, you know I have an patent?
Party Dude: Really? What does it pertain to?
IBM Guy: The "check box".
Party Dude: The check box? Is that a new microchip technology.
IBM Dude: No man... it's the box, that, you check... on forms 'n shit
Party Dude: Really? That's not that novel...
IBM Dude: Check it... you are on a computer and if you want to indicate that an item needs to be checked... you click on this little box, and, it totally gets checked-off... Way cool, cutting edge shit...
Party Dude: Cool man. Need to get away, um, I mean some beer. Check you later.
~ In Trust, We Trust ~
I spent the better part of last year working at a client site that used Lotus Notes for e-mail, and thus, so did I, at least for their corporate stuff. I found it incredibly frustrating to use and frequently wished I could use something with a more satisfying user experience. Say, pine or elm.
One of my lifelong best friends worked as a developer for IBM at the time, so naturally the next time I saw him I bitched at him about how much I hated Notes and asked how he could stand it. His reply? "Oh, I wouldn't know about that. We use Outlook."
I'm sure there must be some (maybe even most) departments of IBM that use Notes, but man. To foist that dog food on the world and not even eat it yourself? That's the devil right there.
I'm puzzled at this patent, but no more than I am about Notes in general.
If IBM can patent the checkbox, what's next? The radio button? The text box? Maybe even the address bar?!?
I wonder if this is IBM's attempt to show how screwed up the patent system is?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
In OUR company, we protect our intelectual property using patents. This is the best way for humanity itself to develop breaking-ground technologies like this one: imagine when you have a checkbox and you want to select it but are to lazy to click on it... yeah, i know, you frown... it has happened to you.
Well not anymore. IBM's wonderfully patented technology will CLICK FOR YOU!
Now isnt that a great breakthrough in human-computer interaction?
NO SIG
If you don't like IBM's actions, phone your representative for patent law reform as it's the government's own fault for the sad state in which patent law exists today.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Kids have been drag-selecting check-buttons for years. The de-selection mode of it wasn't done because even the de-selection of even one such button was not implemented for anyone without an elevator key.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
For those of you who haven't had an opportunity to actually use Lotus Notes, think of it as Business Herpes.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Which covers "Ejecting bodily excrements by restraining stomach muscles and putting pressure on the Bowels" - you all better start paying up royalties when you go for taking a dump or ill sue your butts out of you
that'll teach you to respect patents !
Read radical news here
No, I dont normally invoke the name of God 2 times in an email
You still haven't. 'God' is not a name; it's just a noun.
In that case, they should make it an option that can be set either way. It's not like Notes is a bastion of clean and simplistic design that would be ruined by a few more radio buttons or a set of drop-downs to define your function key behavior.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
I don't give a shit. In fact, I can't give a shit because I have an ostomy. Go ahead and send my an angry letter about violating your patent, I'll reply with a bag of shit, signed and dated.
Oh yeah, and you can have my butt as I'll not be needing it.
While independent claims 1, 6, and 11 do cover multiple checkboxes, they not require dragging do toggle the state of multiple checkboxes. That is covered in later dependent claims. Effectively IBM has just been granted a patent on the basic GUI checkbox which was implemented by Apple in the Lisa Office System in January 1983. Xerox probably used checkboxes before that, but I'm not certain. It seems likely that Claims 1, 6, and 11 can be invalidated by prior art, should someone be willing to invest the time and effort to do so. The dependent claims might have a better chance of being upheld.
I am patenting a mechanism to allow for intake of oxygen and discharge of carbon dioxide in a human apparatus. I think I may be golden.
This is a common UI design in the audio world.
Ah-hah! But this is On A Computer! Completely original!
Next up they'll patent the same thing, but On The Internet! Genius!
The enemies of Democracy are
That being said, let's see what IBM really patented. First, for the time being, discount everything before the "claims." Claims protect what the patentee considers his/her invention. There are 15 claims of the '116 patent ("We" usually refer to patents by their last three digits). Claims 1, 6, and 11 appear to be the independent claims. These are, arguably, the broadest claims in that the claimed subject matter is much broader than claims 2-5, 7-10, and 12-15.
Claim 1 recites:
A method for control of checkbox status, the method comprising:
Now, we come to the crux of the matter. What do these three limitations mean? Honestly, I have no idea. This is when we have to go back and read everything before the claims. Do these three limitations mean merely "checking a box"? Somehow, I don't think so. There seems to be a lot more going on here. For example, what does it mean to "detect[] a mode selection event"? That doesn't sound like merely "checking a box." That sounds like a bit more.
The other independent claims recite a similar limitations. For example, claim 6 recites "means for detecting a mode selection event." What does this mean? I don't know, I haven't read the rest of the patent's specification. Again, however, this seems to be a bit more than "checking a box." I live it up to another reader to figure out what this limitation means.
The lesson to take away here is that the patent stories on Slashdot are sensationalism at its finest. I read Slashdot, and often, I find the stories very interesting. However, the patent summaries are atrocious and are nothing short of informative, if not misleading.
If you think you have prior art that would invalidate this patent, then please, submit it. I invite you to read about the reexamination procedures at the USPTO. You can find them here.
The views expressed herein are in no way associated with any private entity or government organization
"The very fact that this patent was awarded is further evidence that every cool new idea that could possibly be patented in software has already been done at least once"
huh?
You're crazy if you believe that.
The reality is that IBM has a huge patent portfolio. You can't urinate on a computer without violating one of their patents. Why do they need junk patents like this one? If IBM is truly doing this defensively, they should be be phoning their representatives instead of filing such dubious patents. Instead of trying to change the system, they are taking advantage of the brokenness, and that's wrong.
IBM should drop this patent or release it into the commons or something. It should never have been granted, and profiting from wrong is still wrong.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Photoshop does the same thing. Click the eye to toggle vis of a layer and you can drag to do more than one.
to piss off grammar fascists like yourself.
How are my examples of prior art not on a computer? All those products I mentioned are audio software products that do almost precisely what is described in the patent. The oldest of those apps, Digital Performer, has been around since 1985, though it was originally called Performer. Assuming that was around in the original interface (I didn't use it back then), it is likely that there are already expired patents on this subject....
The only thing even slightly original here is that this makes an X appear instead of changing whether a button icon appears "pushed". The X UI has been in use for decades, so that's not really particularly original, either, and I even remember audio/MIDI software back in the 80s that used the checkbox UI itself for mute buttons, though I don't remember if any of those also implemented the drag behavior. I'm fairly sure (but not entirely certain) that Master Tracks Pro (MIDI sequencer) did this with a checkbox for their mute control back in the late 80s... or was that a dot in the box? Is there a difference between a check and a dot? If so, is it worthy of a patent?
In short, from my perspective, this patent makes Amazon one-click sound like a brilliant innovation by comparison. In fact, this ranks right up there with patenting the wheel.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
iirc IBM licenses it's software patents both to all open source software, and to anybody who extends their patents to FOSS as well. Actually having patents to allow FOSS to use seems fairly irrelevant, as Google jumped in to take advantage of this deal. So pretty much anybody who doesn't have a vested interest in damaging FOSS can still do strange drag mouse to checkmark actions.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
I think I implemented exactly this kind of interface in the mid '80s, though I would have to check the code (which I no longer have) to be sure. I know I had multiple checkbox selection and deselection by click and drag, it just seems likely that I would have done toggle too.
Personally, I would consider this kind of interface obvious. But thank you kdawson for yet another article with a totally clueless title. This certainly is not about patenting "checking a box".
Oh, well I thought you were talking about a physical console or mix board where the electronics inside would (on a digital board at the very least) certainly be a computer, the interface itself is traditional buttons, knobs, and sliders. Whereas IBMs patent is on a computer GUI. That's not the case, mea culpa.
More importantly, I was completely supporting your position that this is a stupid patent. I can't be more sarcastic than "Next up they'll patent the same thing, but On The Internet! Genius!" without feeling like I'm being a complete ham.
The enemies of Democracy are
The same reason you shouldn't be able to patent mathematical equations. It stifles innovation. Besides, you're still protected by copyright.
Damn! I just finished preparing my patent for "Usage of Computer as Human Waste Receptical", and you're telling me that there's prior art?
I'm pretty certain that's not the case.
Wow, someone who seems to understand the meets and bounds of the claim and proposes actual potential prior art. Now we just need to obtain some dated documentation. Great job!
It's hard to blame the examiner for not knowing about an obscure audio program that wouldn't turn up under more generalized searches. This is why the Peer to Patent project has some potential at fixing the problems with software patents.
Too bad this wasn't obvious.
On the plus side, no more surveys without IBM licenses.
If it is really a defensive action which I could imagine with a company around in Redmond, I think/hope they will carry Real Networks attitude. It will be completely free without strings attached to open source developers.
Only matters if it's someone else's prior art.
The M.Y.O.B Accounting software I use in my business has had this feature for years. When reconciling your checking account, for example, just click on a cleared check and drag across all the others in sequence that have also cleared, and they all get checked.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
In Soviet Russia you are buried in Czech Box!
...to software patents.
Pretty much all stories related to company X patenting trivial computing action can be summed up with that. When you have an asinine and completely absurd legal/patent system, don't be surprised when people take that for the example of how they're supposed to act using it.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Right, knew I saw this somewhere before. Mod up?
...drawing in MS-Paintbrush with the pixel grid on
Table-ized A.I.
Open Source as Prior Art and Patent Peer review...both have IBM as participants...
Just use "sticky" buttons instead of check-boxes on your GUI.
Table-ized A.I.
Ya know...I've been giving serious thought to patenting the names Dick bin Cheney and George bin Bush. Whadyathink????
So much for my new Tetris GUI framework.
Table-ized A.I.
>I mean, really, are programmers expected to patent every single frickin' thing they do out of fear that someone else might?
NO! They are supposed to patent everything so that TWENTY YEARS from now, there will be a sudden boost to development when all the patents from the big rush of the early 21st century expire all together.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>That differs somewhat from this patent. In this patent if you click a checkbox to mute, then drag it across a checkbox that is already in mute state, it
>would have to unmute it. The key word appears to be "toggle".
I'm thinking that anything that "works" this way, is into "UI hall of shame" territory anyway.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Is there some way to get the lawyers out of the technology business?
What they like to do in court is select a jury that cannot possibly comprehend the case. By doing this it becomes a crap shoot and either side has an equal chance of winning. Patents like this make no sense to anyone other than lawyers who like them as a way yo retrain trade.
It puts all programmers at a disadvantage because at any time we can be attacked by someone's legal beagles.
Maybe we can ask for a patent on a business model based on patents on obvious ideas an prior art?
RMS has many times explained very clearly why software patents suck.
The code itself if covered by copyright. The system architecture is not.
You seem to think that patent protection on physical goods encourages innovation, but patent protection on system architecture does not. Why do you think that is?
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
I have a version of my shareware program, called Commodity Server, which does this already. The idea is that you can sorta paint the checks in the boxes.
This is my sig.
"God" is a name. If he was referring to a "god", then it would be a noun. In most monotheistic religions, when you refer to their god, they call it God, since there is only one. Polytheistic religions give other names to their gods, but in a monotheistic religion, why bother? When you're referring to Zeus, you don't capitalize the "G", but you do if you're referring to Christ's father.
Back on topic, I think it's time that IBM starts donating it's patents and copyrights to Public Domain. . . They could have quite an impact on the community.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
As I recall, around the 1980s or so, there were no firm standards for what the function keys did other than F1 meaning "Help". In a lot of programs I wrote around that time for diskmagazines and the like, I used F5 to mean "Print".
--Dan
Web Tips
F5 Logoff - its origins:
Remember, Notes has been around since 1973 ('PLATO Notes'), so there are some quirks in there which might seem illogical until you examine its history. I first came across Notes in 1987 before it was ever released by Lotus. Back then it was known as DEC Notes and was widely (internationally) used within Digital Equipment Corporation on their VAX network, but never commercially released.
A DEC Notes user would logon to their VAX host using a 'dumb' VT terminal. To logout, a user could use a menu option or the command line, in which case their process was gracefully terminated by the host, alternatively they could hit the shortcut F5 key. On the back of your terminal was a DB25pin male RS232 port - on hitting the F5 key, the voltage on pin#20 (DTR - data terminal ready) would drop to 3 volts. The modem (DCE) to which you were connected would respond by dropping its carrier signal which would hang up your phone line (no Hayes commands either). At the far end of the phone line, the host modem would respond to carrier loss by dropping the voltage on its pin#6 (DSR - data set ready), and the comm port on the host VAX would respond by killing the user's process. This was the standard of the time.
When Ray and the guys took their idea to Lotus, pc networking and client/server architecture was just evolving. In the absence of any standard they simply carried over the tradition of F5 logout from the DEC environment. Up till then, the nearest thing to 'groupware' was internet newsgroups or bulletin board services (typically a host/terminal topology) - at the time, F5 was a well-considered choice for a logout shortcut
Soonafter, Windows emerged and some ignoramous up in Redmond decided to assign F5 as refresh.
So everyone who believes in only one god for their religion believes in exactly the same god as people from other religions who believe their god is the only one god? This makes no sense. That that I would expect them to make sense . . . you know, with them believing in the whole magic sky person stuff to begin with . . . but still.
Check out how (late) Phil Salin puts it: http://philsalin.com/patents.html "It is an absurdity to expect those millions of individuals to perform patent searches or any other kind of search prior to the act of writing a program to solve a specific problem." I just wish that people of the USPTO would pay attention to Phil's excellent article. ~Mike
Another, similar pet hate is undo/redo keys. Everyone uses Ctrl+Z to undo. So far so good. Nearly everything uses Ctrl+Y to redo. But TOAD uses Ctrl+Shift+Z to redo, and Ctrl+Y to DELETE THE CURRENT LINE! So you've not only lost your entire redo stack but you've also deleted a bunch of lines and the only way to get back to where you were is hope you saved the file and can reopen it. Fuck you, TOAD, fuck you.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I, for one, actually think it isn't that obvious and rather cool. I haven't seen it implemented before (granted the range of software I've seen is relatively limited). But the fact that this cool idea has been used in some corner of the software spectrum shows just how bad an idea software patents are.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I kill you now in the name of his grammar-loving shadow.
Science?
What's really funny is that I'm currently using the Notes 8 pre-release, and, well, shift-click/ctrl-click (or, more usually in my case, shift-arrow/ctrl-arrow+ctrl-space) does exactly what it does everywhere else, once I've applied the Notes8 template. So why they need to patent something that's going away, I'm not sure... maybe it's to get the "oh, you can't be serious about such a stupid interface" lawsuit into patent-infringement court?
To all the lawyers out there
with patents to press,
it's easy to do.
Just follow these steps:
1: Put a check in a box
2: Patent checking that box
3: ????
And that's the way you profit!
Not without violating my patents "Rendering equipment safe to urinate on by removing the power cable" and "Usage of Computer as Human Waste Receptical After Rendering It Safe"
:/
However someone else got the "Usage of Computer as Human Waste Receptical After Rendering It Safe Over The Internet" filed first
[The Universe] has gone offline.
Only matters if it's someone else's prior art.
The "On Sale" statutory bar of 102(b) applies. If the invention is placed on sale in the US by anyone, more than a year before the filing of the patent application, the application will not be granted.
Therefore your own prior art can invalidate your attempt to obtain a patent on something you've already brought to market.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
They believe that their God is the only one, and that the other religions are wrong and are going to burn in hell or wander in Purgatory, etc.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
> They literally patent the hell out of everything they can to avoid being sued themselves.
That isn't entirely true. If they feel the idea is not worth protecting they publish it to stop people from patenting it.
To file a patent isn't cheap. So I doubt very much they just put in silly ones for the sake of it.
Someone ought to put up the names of Patent Clerks who approve these idiotic patents and publicly humiliate them.
Seriously, I would LOVE to see a site go up dedicated to the absent minded idiots who think this stuff is innovative. It would be easy too. Just find the name of the clerk (public information), and post the name of the clerk and the bad decision on the internet for all to see. If they found out that their stupid decisions we being publicly and openly shown, I think that they would take there jobs more seriously. Plus the backlash and furor that would arise out of the posting of the names and decisions would bring massive attention to both the sheer, staggering ineptitude of the USPTO and patent abuse by companies.
The baseless lawsuits from the clerks (public posting of public information IS LEGAL. Period.) and backlash from the USPTO would make this a self-promoting issue, and the only ones who could lose would be the clerks, USPTO, and the companies who abuse the patent system.
It would be a cheap shot, but what have the clerks, USPTO, and companies been doing for years?
I think it would be WELL worth it.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Haven't gynaecologists been checking boxes for years?
Yeah, I knew Richard Dawkins was somehow to blame. I guess this UI evolved into this stupid mess somehow.
I'm gonna put in a patent on inhaling. Cease & Desist letters will be going out shortly.
Now, let's see...
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
That's the first one off...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I have implemented this two weeks ago in an application for the company i work for.....on the 19th Sept...just checked the repository. Heres the code
....
.... onmouseover="CheckBoxMultiSelect.onCheckboxMouseOver(this, event)" onmousedown="CheckBoxMultiSelect.setMouseIsDown(this, event, true)"/> ....
<script type="text/javascript">
var CheckBoxMultiSelect = {
mouseIsDown: false,
checkBoxIsChecked: false,
initialCheckBox: null,
setMouseIsDown: function(elem, event, value) {
this.mouseIsDown = value;
if ('INPUT' == elem.nodeName) {
this.initialCheckBox = elem;
this.checkBoxIsChecked = !elem.checked;
}
else
this.initialCheckBox = false;
},
onCheckboxMouseOver: function(elem, event) {
if (this.mouseIsDown) {
if ((this.initialCheckBox) && (elem != this.initialCheckBox)) {
this.initialCheckBox.checked = this.checkBoxIsChecked;
this.initialCheckBox = null;
}
elem.checked = this.checkBoxIsChecked;
}
}
}
</script>
<body onmouseup="CheckBoxMultiSelect.setMouseIsDown(this, event, false)">
<input
</body>
Do I have to remove this code now?
Symbian Nokia phones also use this method to select a number elements in a list (messages, contacts, etc...), and they have done for at least three years.
"First of all, it's not just "checking a box." It's clicking to toggle a checkmark, and dragging across a bunch of other checkboxes to toggle them all on (or off, depending on the state of the first one you clicked).
Second of all, I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, it really bothers me in a cosmic sense that there was a patent granted for something so patently stupid. (Pun slightly intended.) I'm sorry, but this falls squarely in the realm of obvious to me. I mean, really, are programmers expected to patent every single frickin' thing they do out of fear that someone else might? Because that's the world we're living in, and I'd really like for it to change.
On the other hand, I'm sorry, but the Lotus Notes selection model is one of the most frustratingly stupid things I've ever encountered in my life. Almost every other piece of software follows the old click-first-item, shift-click-last-item model. (Or ctrl-click individual items.) It's been in use since... Well, as long as I can remember using a GUI, and I'm really hard-pressed to think of any other way that selections work. Except for Lotus Notes, where they use this asinine system of selecting messages which means that if I have several pages of stuff to select, I have to scroll past each. and. every. one. Frankly, if IBM is the only company that can do this and it prevents any other company that has the bright idea from implementing something like this, then I can almost bring myself to say that this is a good thing."
did not know what to say, so I just used your reply, for you did not patented it, or attached any license (c. commons, and etc)
thanks.
> On the other hand, I'm sorry, but the Lotus Notes selection model is one of
> the most frustratingly stupid things I've ever encountered in my life.
> Almost every other piece of software follows the old click-first-item, shift-
> click-last-item model. (Or ctrl-click individual items.)
Actually this is exactly what Notes 8 does, and if you read the link provided you would see that the user community for Notes has asked that they reconsider going back to the older model as that was preferred by more users.
However, you make a good point as to ways the"standard" model you suggest is better. Nonetheless just because you happen to like this method doesn't mean everyone else does.
K.
> really, are programmers expected to patent every single frickin' thing they do out of fear that someone else might?
No, and it doesn't matter. In theory you can't patent something that has already been invented elsewhere:
From http://www.patent.gov.uk/protect/protect-should/protect-should-patent.htm:
"To get patent protection your invention must be:
* new, not known anywhere in the world prior to filing"
So if you disclose your program, it should be fine.
1) Make a square like a box
2) Put your check in that boooox!
3) Make 'em patent the box
And that's the way you screw 'em, It's my check in a box!
It is because they picked that key before F5 meant refresh for everybody else, and they don't want to change it and confuse all the experienced Notes users just because some newfangled (read: after 1990 or so) products do it differently.
You'll probably feel equally angry when you try out Notes 8 and realize that CTRL+tab doesn't take you between tabs because they decided to update themselves to use the same shortcut keys Eclipse uses for that operation, but you can't be angry at BOTH decisions and maintain internal rational consistency.
There is an unbelievably simple fix for this situation (if they would just develop it). File/Preferences/"Use Classic Lotus Notes keybindings | Use Eclipse/New/Whatever keybindings"
Several other programs do it, some even go as far as to change the layout of the UI (re: Dreamweaver) depending on what style you are used to. Changing the key bindings to be par with the current times is one thing, but give people an option to select which key binding set the want. Or.. *GASP* you could *can't believe I'm going to say this out loud* LET THEM BIND THEIR OWN KEYS!! What a novel idea.
And they said zombies weren't real!
Or perhaps it is an issue of the length of the patent. At the time the current term of 14 years was set, it took a long time to develop something, and it would be in use for a long time. Now with many software systems, the development period is much shorter and the time between introduction and obsolescence is less than a decade in most cases, and less than a few years in some; compared to many decades of use of, say, the cotton gin.
Or maybe it is an issue of interoperability. If only one company can produce a cotton gin, that doesn't prevent anybody from using other products to plant, grow, and pick the cotton, or to make clothes with it. Can somebody give an example of a software patent that covers one thing, but prevents competition (stifling innovation) in regards to products that work before, after, and in conjunction with the patented piece?
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Once again, the patent office shows us why we need actual experts examining software patents, not just scholarly bookworms. A software expert would recognize the difference between software requirements and actual implementation. Here's a hint: when your patent covers the process of how something is being performed, you're trying to patent requirements. If the telephone had been patented this way, they would have patented holding one or more sound producing devices to one or more ears while speaking into a one or more noise transmission devices. Why does it seem like the PTO dwells in the realm of the Galactically Stupid?
Nope. "God" is a title or a nickname. It's like calling your father "Dad". The Jewish/Christian/Islamic God's name is YHWH or Jehovah or Allah (I know, three names for the same Entity). It's considered bad form and disrespectful to actually speak his name though.
Almost every other piece of software follows the old click-first-item, shift-click-last-item model. (Or ctrl-click individual items.) Yeah, but most of them screw up the ctrl-shift-click aspect for multiple ranges (firefox, for example, supports it for selecting but not deselecting)
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
The headline to this thread reads like an Onion headline.
I could clearly see it next to "Bush makes surprise visit to work" in a recent issue.
This is the thing I find most frustrating about the current patent situation. Things that have been done on paper, or mechanically, for decades are somehow novel and patentable because someone did it in software?!? That's just silly. And ditto for doing things over the Internet.
Which is to say, I think generalizing your latter point invalidates your former one.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
This, from the company that brought us the hanging chad.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
He didn't, it was the Lotus Notes spelling checker.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I don't think this patent and the idea of patents is getting a fair shake today. A few quick points/questions:
/. readers strongly believe they've seen/used prior art of this submission? I think some solid statistics would be useful.
1)I personally have not heard of this idea previous to this article. Exactly how much of the population of
2)If there is so much prior art, and I do think this idea would help mass selection of checkboxes, then why isn't this better documented in UI best practices/standards? Why isn't this more prevalent in software products/UIs? Is it really as obvious and prevalent as some posters seem to indicate?
3)Even if there were instances of the application of this idea. I think there is value and credit for formalizing the idea. Just because some of us have seen a wheel or used it once doesn't mean we know the actual impact/implications of a wheel. If no one has actually formalized the idea nor stress the utility of it then maybe it isn't so bad to have it patented?
4)Btw, some of the examples of prior art is kind of a stretch. If continuously painting an area divided into squares can be cited as prior art, people can go back and break almost any idea down to more elementary forms.
Of course these days you'd need a 97 meg XML file compressed using a semi proprietary algorithm and stored in the registry. Now get off my lawn!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I thought they were all nicknames, as actually using the "people of the book" God's real name was idolatry or cause the end times or something. Hence YHWH instead of Yahwey... oops.
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
From TFP:
claim 1: preseting checkboxes according to previous state or user preferences, etc.
Claim 2: Click and drag across the checkboxes toggles them. It doesn't say Toggle to a specific state (i.e., the state of the first box in the drag).
Claim 3: Click and drag again, but this time, toggle to the state of the first box.
Claim 4: "XOR" click and drag.
Claim 5: Some gibberish about interaction between drags when clicking and dragging more than once.
Claim 6: Describes standard gui events for a checkbox; is generic enough it describes both X and Windows.
Claim 7: Adds "drag" to the idea of checkbox events, and tying 'drag' to toggling the checkbox.
Claim 8: Seems to repeat earlier claims; don't see a diff other than way it's expressed.
Claim 9: Store "prev" state of checkbox, toggle or not to the state opposite the first check box's state.
Claims 10-15: using a computer to do this, and storing 'preferences' on disk. This is just a 'game level reset' function, narrowed down to the concept of a single set of checkboxes rather than the whole game level. Also includes 'logging' to log the click-and-drag events that occur.
A very long time ago, I did this in Visual Basic on a user desktop app. Yup, it's a bogus patent.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Always feels silly, debating someone who agrees with you :-)
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Insert snide comment about "Americans With Disability Act" here.
...it's just business.
This is just the standard way IBM goes about its business: amassing an enormous portfolio of patents with which to intimidate other companies and to extort money out of them.
The handy thing is, though, that IBM is standing up for Linux at the moment.
You can be sure that as soon as Linux is no longer of tactical importance to them, the support will dry up and they might become the new enemy.
Stick Men
I think, given the context, the person you're replying to specifically meant selection of checkboxes or similar binary cases.
And I agree with what many have said, the way Notes does it is bogus. Lat week we had a fault on our call-out management system and I was getting bombarded with automatic notifications. It was a total PITA deleting them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
But these shenanigans are being done. As I said, look up the mp3 patents.