Microsoft Applies For Patent On Private Browsing

PhilDEE writes "Microsoft is in the process of applying for two patents for a private browsing mode in their next version of Internet Explorer — a feature already present in Safari, among other browsers."

Comments

First place I saw it was distrust

[AvitarX]

best firefox extension ever.

Re:First place I saw it was distrust

[Scootin159]

I believe distrust predated this option. Distrust also allows you to mark specific time periods to remove from your browsing history - allowing you to keep the good, but hide the bad.

Re:First place I saw it was distrust

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting to see a detailed comparison of the various options.
Rank at the top of the list something like browsing with Firefox under Ubuntu run from a Live CD (not even VM swap on disk then), and down at the bottom options that remove or prevent only visible-in-browser stuff like the history....

It has been a while since I looked, but some time ago I noticed that Safari used with some sites had many JPEG images left in the JAVA cache files even in Private Browsing mode, and a surprising amount of data in the logs.

Private isn't private if a tech savvy housemate can easily see such things directly or with utilities.

Re:First place I saw it was distrust

[robmv]

Clear Private Data is not as secure as not saving the data on the first place, remember that files are cached, and no matter if you do use that option, someone with the knowledge can find not overwritten data of deleted files. Private browsing is the next step of security after Clear Private Data

Re:First place I saw it was distrust

[oakgrove]

I would suggest http://anonymityanywhere.com/incognito/. LiveCD based on Gentoo Linux with a KDE desktop featuring TorK for anonymous browsing, instant messaging, torrenting (although running torrent traffic through the onion is a little weak). It has plenty of codecs for multimedia viewing, truecrypt pre-installed so you can just open your own truecrypt volumes. The LiveCD doesn't utilize the swap space already on your hard drive unlike others like Knoppix; I'm not sure about Ubuntu. And for its final coup de grace, when you shutdown the LiveCD, it automatically wipes your RAM to avoid the freeze spray (whatever it's called) attack.

Highly recommended. I haven't found anything better.

Typical ..

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Search for useful features already in use by other products
2. Patent the unpatented
3. ???
4. PROFIT $$

Re:Typical ..

[DittoBox]

Technically:

1. Search for useful features (history, cache, saved entries)
2. Patent the removal of said features
3. ???
4. Profit!

I see the point of removing or disabling histories in a browserâ"it makes senseâ"but these are just added features that some very old or very basic browsers don't have.

How can you patent the removal of features? It's not "making" anything, it's just tearing down something that already exists and only putting some parts back when you build it again. Obviously not everyone wants those parts, hence "privacy-aware" browsers exist, but you can't patent that!

Microsoft:

[Inglix the Mad]

We didn't make it first, but that won't stop us from trying to patent it!

Re:Microsoft:

[V!NCENT]

Mister Ballmer, this is our lawyer. Our Lawyer, this is mister Ballmer. (Nice to meat you). Uhhhhh we have this little piece of paper that shows evidence that we made it first. It is called prior art. Something you are probably familiar with. Uhhhhm... err... it basically come down to this -"Hey can I just like... interrupt for a bit? Heh. Can't we make a settlement?" - sure what's on your mind -"Well we, ofcourse, have a lot of money, so if you can keep this, you know... quiet than we are uhm... sort of 'willing' to give you a, what we like to caaaall, compensation of some sort?" - yeah, sure.

Re:Microsoft:

[Godji]

Nice to meat you

Given that you're talking about lawyers, I don't think that's a spelling mistake...

Trademarks, not patents!

[LO0G]

They aren't patent applications, they're trademark applications. Check the source

BIG difference.

Patents==Bad and subject to prior art.
Trademarks==Good, and not subject to prior art.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[gEvil (beta)]

Mod parent up. MS can have "cleartracks" and "inprivate" as trademarks if they want....

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[falcon5768]

while your right, I would hardly consider Trademarks good too, especially when its often used to Trademark very common things like colors, common words, etc, which it is not supposed to be used for, and like Patents very hard to overturn.

A good example would be the non-profit org who where sued by Miracle Grow for using GREEN and YELLOW on their package of fertilizer despite the package it's self looking NOTHING like a Miracle Grow package at all.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[Dancindan84]

Yeap. Nothing to see here. Why BBC would translate trademark->patent for no apparent reason is a good question though.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[Theaetetus]

Trademarks can be very valuable, not just to the company, but to the consumer - if I go to BestBuy to buy a television, I can only see the feature list and the picture quality. They tend to frown on me cracking it open and seeing what quality of components were used in the power supply, for instance.
The trademark identifies the manufacturer, and their reputation gives me an indication of the quality of hidden components. If it's a Sony, it'll probably hold up for a while - if it's an apparently-identical Daewoo, it'll probably die the day after the warranty runs out.

Your point about common words and colors is valid, but that just means there needs to be better inspection, auditing, and reexamination procedures - not that trademarks aren't good in general.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, you can argue that some trademarks are stupid. You have to remember that trademarks are context sensitive, though, so even if the trademark is a common word the question is it's use in the context of the product in question. This is how "Linux" can manage to be both a kernel and a laundry detergent.

In this case, the two words "ClearTracks" and "InPrivate" are not obvious common words. In fact, there are only two other live trademarks for "ClearTrack", one applied to golf putter training rails and the other applied to software to track packages in transit. A search on UPSTO for "InPrivate" only brings back the application from Microsoft, so it apparently has never been used before.

I would say that these are good and valid trademark applications. They don't imply invention, they don't attempt to hijack common parlance and they are quite narrow in scope.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[DriedClexler]

Let's not be so black and white: Patents AND trademarks can be very good; it's just that they've been abused to the point that they've gone way beyond their original purpose.

When an organization can get a patent on a drug it developed that no one else could (and yes this happens a lot), a patent is good.

When an organization can patent a long-known remedy or long-used functionality, that is very, very bad.

When an organization can keep others from selling fake versions of its products as if they were the real thing, that is good.

When that organization uses trademark law to keep ANYONE from making unapproved references to it (like when Ford sues to stop publication of the Black Mustang Club's calendar even if it has a disclaimer saying it's not an official Ford product) that is very, very bad.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[purpledinoz]

If this is just a trademark, then what's the big deal? Everyone will just use another name.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[nametaken]

While there are always cases of people/co's being ridiculous, I think there's a very good argument for trademarks.

I don't want to pick up a Coke and get a Pepsi, an eee PC and find out it's not made by Asus, or buy an iPhone online and find out it's not the Apple iPhone.

Ok... that last one is a bad example. ;)

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[jellomizer]

Patents==Bad and subject to prior art.
Trademarks==Good, and not subject to prior art.

What a wonderfully 2 dimensional view of the world you have.
Both have their good points and both can be misused for bad stuff.
Patents are so the inventor can make money on their invention for a period of time before someone can copy it. While misused to keep competition down at its worse it can be used to improve competition at its best. Eg. Say a guy invents and patents a compression algorithm that is Faster, Lossless, Tighter then all other compression algorithms. So he is making money selling licenses to use the product. Now lets say Microsoft (as most people on slashdot sees them as the bad guy) wants to get in, however they don't want to pay the licensing fee. Without patents they could just copy this guys work (which could have taken years of R&D and costs the guys life savings) and he would be penniless for his invention.

Now for trademarks they are for protecting "idenity" of the company say a Logo or a Name. A company I use to work for has the Hourglass Nebula part of their logo which is trademarked. Although they have never enforced it they could have sued Perljam as they used that Nebula for one of their covers. Or they may have gone against say some small astronomy club who used a picture of it for their logo.

So saying Patents are Bad and Trademarks are Good is a very poor view of the world. Things rairly ever go so neatly into categories. Now a more correct view would be realizing that Patents may have gone past its origional intent and needs some major reform while trademarks less so. But saying it is bad and good is a huge understatement.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[wild_berry]

It's a mistake. The blog they cite (istartedsomething.com) has it as trademark too.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[HUADPE]

Trademarks are limited in their scope, but can be used for common words. E.g. Apple is a trademark in reference to computers, but not in reference to fruit. You cannot trademark a word for it's dictionary definition usage. For example, if I were selling printer ink, I couldn't trademark "Ink" or "Printer Ink," but I could trademark "Bob's Printer Ink."

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[miserere nobis]

Apparently BBC reporters are like us, and don't necessarily feel the need to RTFA before writing and publishing some reporting or opinion about it.

Glad to see the mainstream media is finally getting with it and learning how to properly make use of the Interweb!

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[AK Marc]

Trademarks can be very valuable, not just to the company, but to the consumer

Go read up on the nut trademarking "stealth" and tell me whether you think they are so good. He's trying to own the word, performing a DOS on the word itself. Trademarking a company name makes sense. Trademarking every single feature with a different name is a useless practice. It's easy to realize that "word processor" means different things if made by Microsoft vs IBM. If there was a shelf in a store with "Microsoft Word" next to "IBM Word" I do not think that a significant number of people would be confused, yet trademark law protects "word" from being used by anyone else. That's where it loses its usefulness.

The trademark identifies the manufacturer, and their reputation gives me an indication of the quality of hidden components.

And everyone tries to trademark every little feature. I've even seen marketing material with "The only Car/TV/chair/whatever with XXX" when XXX is nothing more than a trademarked name for a feature everyone else had. That's deceptive and works to harm the consumer's choice and knowledge, not add to it. Like copyrights, trademarks are a good idea that manages to fail in implementation. Yet no one seems the least bit interested in fixing it.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[poetmatt]

You haven't heard about the olympic committee going ballistic on anyone who uses the phrases or shows the rings?

It has the same problems as the DMCA: it's easier to stifle someone's freedom/speech than it is to fight back such situations.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[Tenrosei]

HUADPE thank you! People are idiots even if you trademark a word like yellow to a new watch. Your trademark is limited to the product you are calling yellow so someone else can still have a yellow trademark on a new type of telephone, or trademark yellow as a new type of hat.Also, "If a court rules that a trademark has become "generic" through common use (such that the mark no longer performs the essential trademark function and the average consumer no longer considers that exclusive rights attach to it), the corresponding registration may also be ruled invalid." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[jelton]

When an organization can keep others from selling fake versions of its products as if they were the real thing, that is good.

When that organization uses trademark law to keep ANYONE from making unapproved references to it (like when Ford sues to stop publication of the Black Mustang Club's calendar even if it has a disclaimer saying it's not an official Ford product) that is very, very bad.

I agree with this, but will take it one step further.

The origin of federal trademark law is in fair trade law (no use of similar marks to confuse customers). When a trademark is used to protect consumers from harm, it is fulfilling its purpose; when it is used to provide an undue and/or unfair business advantage to the holder, it harms consumers and is operating counter to its intended nature.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[Pantero Blanco]

In this case, the two words "ClearTracks" and "InPrivate" are not obvious common words.

"InPrivate" is alright, as long as it's limited to the proper scope. "Clear tracks" is a fairly common phrase for people to use in reference to this.

http://clear-tracks.qarchive.org/
http://www.softplatz.com/software/clear-tracks/

I don't speak for the software in the links above, just pointing it out...

Amusingly, it looks like it's also the name of a piece of tracking software. So, you can clear your tracks, or you can leave them clearly.
http://www.claritytech.com/software/clarity/cleartracks/

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[DriedClexler]

How much affordable is a drug that hasn't been discovered?

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[GuyverDH]

Actually, if you're at Best Buy, and it's a Sony, then it's probably their Sony "Express" line for big retailers, high on features, low on quality.

If you go to a mom and pop, or custom shop and buy a Sony, then it's of the "We stand behind what we sell" product line and the quality is higher.

^^^^^^^^ Stuff I've learned being in a family with retail shop owners...

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[skeeto]

I would hardly consider Trademarks good too, especially when its often used to Trademark very common things like colors, common words, etc

Microsoft is one of the guilty companies in this case (ie. Word, Windows, Works, etc.). However, when the "Windows" trademark was tested in court in Microsoft vs. Lindows (now Linspire), Microsoft almost lost it because of how general a word "windows" is. To avoid losing it, Microsoft ended up settling with Linspire, paying Linspire $24 million dollars. That's a pretty happy ending :-).

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[cjb658]

Patents==Bad and subject to prior art.
Trademarks==Good, and not subject to prior art.

Patents & Trademarks == Good

Patent & Trademark Abuse == Bad

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[uniquename72]

If companies can't recoup the often hundreds of millions of dollars that it costs to create and test a new drug, then there's no incentive to develop new drugs (drug patents, BTW, generally last 15-20 years). But in order to prevent large-scale deaths and piracy that inevitably result from over-priced drugs, they are generally happy to offer discounts to developing countries (this creates other problems, like corrupt governments selling those drugs back to wealthy countries at a discount instead of using them to help their own people).

Of course, this doesn't help poor people in the countries where those drugs are made, but there are often government or private monies available to help those people.

Where the system becomes crappy for U.S. taxpayers is that drugs are often designed using massive government subsidies and/or grant-funded research. So the government ends up being billed twice -- once for the research to help create the drug, and again in Medicare or other programs to help people afford it.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[sootman]

Wow. The THIRD SENTENCE in the original blog post said "On July 30th, Microsoft filed two trademarks..." and the BBC reported that as "Australian blogger Long Zheng has found two patent applications made by Microsoft on 30 July..."

So: first we had Slashdot visitors not reading the articles. Then we had Slashdot editors and summary-writers evidently not reading the articles, and I thought that was pretty bad. Now Slashdot is linking to a story on the BBC, and the BBC evidently didn't read the original blog post when they wrote their article, to which Slashdot linked with, of course, no fact-checking whatsoever.

Holy Fuck, it really is turtles all the way down.

How to fix things: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ -> Contact Us -> Website -> Style, accuracy, grammar

Maybe someday we'll see http://slashdot.org/ -> Contact Us -> Website -> Style, accuracy, grammar :-) Hell, it would be a better use of electrons than Idle.

Re:Trademarks, not patents!

[JohnBailey]

Not they cannot. Certainly a watch can have a phone function. Yellow(tm) would sue the telephone maker into oblivion.

And what if Yellow(tm) decided to come out with a line of hats with a built in watch? Or even just a "hat clip" for their watch?

Ahh.. like apple (fruit) Apple (computers and music players and now phones) And Apple (Records).. One is a fruit, another sells consumer electronics,and the other publishes music, and so long as Apple consumer electronics don't get into the music business, everything is ok..

Oops.....

Patenting the absence of something?

[slim]

The original CERN WWW browser didn't keep cookies, didn't maintain a history, and didn't cache pages. Is that therefore prior art?

Then again, my coffee cup does none of those things either - it doesn't even browse Web pages. Now *that*'s privacy...

How can you patent the absence of a feature (or more accurately, disabling a feature)?

A word of warning ...

[bwthomas]

I've got a business process patent that I think Microsoft should be aware of: "A specific process and procedure for patenting pre-existing technology in order to build a patent portfolio which can be leveraged using the court system to gain substantive competitive advantage."

Re:A word of warning ...

[BitterOldGUy]

I've got a business process patent that I think Microsoft should be aware of: "A specific process and procedure for patenting pre-existing technology in order to build a patent portfolio which can be leveraged using the court system to gain substantive competitive advantage."

I already found a way around it: A specific process and procedure for patenting existing technology in order to build a patent portfolio which can be leveraged using the court system to gain substantive competitive advantage.

Ha ha! You have a patent for PRE-existing technology whereas, I have a patent for EXISTING technology. Which means your patent patents mine ..Oh Shit!

ignoring the patent isssue

[larry bagina]

putting a private browser mode on IE is like putting a shit filter on your ass. Or a lameness filter oin slashdot.

Summary and Article WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all wrong. Microsoft did not apply for patents, they applied for trademarks for the names they're giving the features, namely "ClearTracks" and "InPrivate". Unless you can find existing use for those names in privacy software you're not likely to find any objections to the trademark applications. Trademarks are not a claim of invention and in no way prevent others from implementing the exact same ideas or algorithms. They're simply a claim to a name in a specific context.

Even the original blogger got it right:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080820/microsoft-hints-private-browsing-feature-ie/

I don't expect Slashdot to actually fix the summary, though. The word "patent" will generate a lot traffic, whereas everyone will simply yawn over "trademark".

Why haven't the patented...

[rallymatte]

the web browser already? Is it too late?

For uhm... medical conditions

[mrvan]

FTFA:

Users may wish to turn on the privacy mode if they are planning a surprise party, buying presents or researching a medical condition and do not want others users of the same computer to find out.

Yeah, right...

Re:For uhm... medical conditions

[LinuxIdiot]

Or you know researching methods to kill someone as recently seen in news reports where forensic computer research showed people researching "undetectable ways to kill someon"

Trademark not patent

[zoobab]

While searching the patent numbers, it appears that this story is not even about patents:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080820/microsoft-hints-private-browsing-feature-ie/

"On July 30th, Microsoft filed two trademarks for:"

So please CmdrTaco, update your article.

Best,

Re:Trademark not patent

[Frosty Piss]

What? You expect Slashdot "editors" to "edit"? How much dope do you smoke, pal...

Standard post about patenting patents

[Random BedHead Ed]

This is the standard post mentioning the apparently humorous idea of patenting the idea of patenting obvious ideas, thus being able to sue companies like Microsoft who do so (a joke that is often described as "ironic," even though it isn't). This joke occurs in each article pertaining to obvious patents that appears in Slashdot's Patents section, though from this point forward I will be taking personal responsibility for including it, freeing others to focus on making more original and insightful criticisms of the USPTO.

Thank you for visiting the Slashdot Patents section.

Another Example

[ISoldat53]

The IOC suing businesses on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State for having "Olympic" in their names.

Re:PROXOMITRON did it first

[Oxy the moron]

What's new?

The fact that you're using WinME???

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

[tepples]

Why BBC would translate trademark->patent for no apparent reason is a good question though.

A single government agency handles U.S. patents and U.S. trademarks. Might that have something to do with it?

Re:M$ - Tabbed Browsing Patent

[j79zlr]

The story you have linked to is about using TAB to switch between links, not tabbed browsing ala Opera or Firefox as I know it. The thought that you can patent something as rudimentary as using tab to switch between fields is very ridiculous though.

Re:Really?

[greenpanda]

"PornBrowsing®" is their next feature. It's like private browsing, but "goes deeper".

No, they cannot...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

MS can have "cleartracks" and "inprivate" as trademarks if they want....

There already is a very similar software product called "TracksClear". I would imagine that "ClearTracks" will be sufficently confusing.

Re:No, they cannot...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Actually, you DON'T RTFA

Karma-whore

Except... There are problems

[mpapet]

Neither one of those are super-enforceable. Unique names in sound and spelling are worthy of a truly enforceable trademark.

These trademarks are not unique in as much they ram two common words together. I know it's done "all of the time" but that doesn't mean they are perfectly defensible.

Trademarks like this are commonly used to drown your smaller competitors in legal bills by filing infringement claim after infringement claim. Nothing else.

Re:legitimization through familiarity

[Macthorpe]

Luckily for you and you obviously over-used Righteous Anger Gland, the BBC got it wrong.

As mentioned below, they're trademarks, not patents.