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IBM Wants Patent For Regex SSN Validation

Posted by timothy on from the noteworthy-inventions dept.

theodp writes "What do you get when you combine IBM contributors with the Dojo Foundation? A patent for Real-Time Validation of Text Input Fields Using Regular Expression Evaluation During Text Entry, assuming the newly-disclosed Big Blue patent application passes muster with the USPTO. IBM explains that the invention of four IBMers addresses a 'persistent problem that plagues Web form fields' — e.g., 'a social security number can be entered with or without dashes.' A non-legalese description of IBM's patent-pending invention can be found in The Official Dojo Documentation. While IBM has formed a Strategic Partnership With the Dojo Foundation which may protect one from a patent infringement lawsuit over validating phone numbers, concerns have been voiced over an exception clause in IBM's open source pledge."

53 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative
    Application Patent Date: November 20, 2007
    Online Prior Art at the Regex Library from 2004:

    ^(?!000)([0-6]\d{2}|7([0-6]\d|7[012]))([ -]?)(?!00)\d\d\3(?!0000)\d{4}$

    Put that into your favorite Javascript regular expression object and write a stupid onChange reference to it in your HTML and ... tada! Too complicated? Here's some more prior art. Or here. A little bit of Googling must be too much for the USPTO.

    Are we suddenly shocked to discover one line of code can be patented when a whole mess of code can be patented?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 2, Funny

      I wish I could mod this up to "6". "Prior Art so Prior It Hurts". I love it.

    2. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Rei · · Score: 5, Informative

      The amazing part is that IBM is wasting this kind of money applying for a patent that has no chance of standing up in court, if they're even dumb enough to grant it in the first place. I'm in the process of applying for a software patent myself (I know, summon the chorus of boos; but having it could be the difference between being able to raise VC and not being able to raise VC for my starting business; loans, too, are often secured against your IP). These things don't come cheap -- mostly in terms of legal costs. As in a $5k retainer, $5-10k total for a single patent, more if it takes multiple patents to ensure sufficient protection, and if you want international protection, it can go up to $100k or so. Also, from discussions with my attorney, it's really hard to get away with the "bloody obvious" software patents anymore after all of the blowback from things like the Amazon 1-click patent.

      I'm surprised they'd waste the money trying. Perhaps their legal department didn't have enough work to do but they didn't want to cut staff.

      --
      Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
    3. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Zordak · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Also, from discussions with my attorney, it's really hard to get away with the "bloody obvious" software patents anymore after all of the blowback from things like the Amazon 1-click patent.

      Somebody mod parent up. The days of the patent office just rubber stamping software patents (if there ever were such days) are over. Those guys have gone absolutely freakin' nuts with KSR. Seriously, you could send them an application for a working FTL drive, and they'd just shoot back an obviousness rejection combining one of Einstein's publications with an episode of Star Trek. I'm not saying it's bad to treat obviousness as a hard fact question where we have to actually use our heads rather than mechanically use the Teaching/Suggestion/Motivation test. But these guys have gone totally the other way. They don't use their heads. They just mechanically reject everything as obvious if they can find the pieces in any prior art, regardless of whether it was obvious to put them together (and for those who think this is a good thing, the result of this line is there's no such thing as an invention, because everybody builds on what's already there).

      And now with Bilski, the examiners are all hot to reject any software claim as not patentable subject matter. Really, the landscape has changed. Anybody sitting around posting on Slashdot and grousing about the USPTO rubber stamping software patents really has no idea what they're talking about.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    4. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by ttyRazor · · Score: 4, Interesting

      More true than you know. A friend of mine started working for the the patent office not too long ago with the explicit instruction to reject everything that comes across his desk.

    5. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Zordak · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My post is flamebait and yours is "funny"? [Shakes head in disbelief]. This isn't a flame or a joke. It's absolutely true. I've seen a former examiner say, on the record in a deposition, that he had to get permission from his boss's boss to allow an application on the first action. The assumption is that you will reject all applications at least once (and preferably at least twice so you can draw an RCE with those yummy fees).

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    6. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by radtea · · Score: 4, Insightful

      as long as he doesn't sue anyone over the patent no puppies have been harmed.

      And when the company gets bought out and the puppy-torturing plans get put into action by the new owners, and he screams, "But I didn't mean this to happen!" he will not be forgiven.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    7. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by EvanED · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm in the process of applying for a software patent myself (I know, summon the chorus of boos; but having it could be the difference between being able to raise VC and not being able to raise VC for my starting business; loans, too, are often secured against your IP). These things don't come cheap -- mostly in terms of legal costs. As in a $5k retainer, $5-10k total for a single patent, more if it takes multiple patents to ensure sufficient protection, and if you want international protection, it can go up to $100k or so.

      IBM has staff lawyers; they aren't paying standard retainer fees like you are.

    8. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Informative

          It's not trivial, but not impossible.

          The first 3 digits are the area (state) code.

          The next 2 digits are the group.

          The last 4 digits are the serial number.

          There is no check digit, so no further math is required to validate it.

          State codes are listed here http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/stateweb.htm

          The highest issued group as of May 01 2009 is listed here: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/ssns/highgroup.txt

          You can pull the high group file back to November 2003 from the SSA site here: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/employer/ssnvhighgroup.htm

          The group numbers are used out of order for "administrative" reasons.

          The groups are assigned as:

          ODD 01 -> 09
          EVEN 10 -> 98
          EVEN 02 -> 08
          ODD 11 -> 99

          Area 000 is never issued.
          Group 00 is never issued.
          Serial 0000 is never issued.

          The Area (state) code is based on where the card is issued, not where the person was born. If you were born in NYC, but your number was issued in California, you would have a California area (state) code.

          Now, the SSN is generally requested by the hospital, so if you have a baby born in the US, part of the stack of paperwork includes the SSN request form. In those cases, obviously the birth state and SSN state should match, unless for some odd reason the request is sent to another state.

          When I was born, there was no requirement to get a SSN issued immediately, and my family moved when I was 5, so my SSN was issued by the second state.

          The logic to test if a SSN has been issued is pretty easy with a couple tables in a DB, or a whole lot of hard coded crud that has to be updated monthly.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    9. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Rei · · Score: 5, Funny

      So if your VCs wanted you to torture puppies to death before they'd give you money, would the "chorus of boos" have any effect on your actions?

      I assure you that my company, Puppy Waterboards, LLC, does care about your concerns about our patent, "Method and apparatus for puppy euthanasia utilizing superheated corkscrews", and will direct them to the appropriate staff.

      There are many ways to get money. Some of them are right, and some of them are wrong. People with consciences know there's a difference.

      On a more serious note, you don't even know what my patent is about, and yet you're positive it's "wrong". People with consciences try to find out the facts before they criticize.

      --
      Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
    10. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Zordak · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Haha, how clever you are. Seriously, I'm stunned at your masterful retort. But here's the problem. The patent office rejecting an application is GREAT for my business. Every time the patent office sends me a rejection, whether it's legitimate and well-reasoned or flat-out crap, the client has to respond. That means I keep getting paid. So it's not like KSR put patent attorneys out of business.

      My entire point, which you seemed to have missed, is that this notion that the USPTO rubber stamps patent applications (and especially software patent applications) is absolutely, demonstrably false. Now, that said, yes, it would be great for my clients if the USPTO only issued legitimate rejections. And I wouldn't really mind seeing it either, because maybe then I could help more people get patents. But in the end, even the most craptastic, infuriating rejections aren't harming my personal interests.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    11. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Zordak · · Score: 4, Funny

      Aaah. I see my error now. I was responding to your inane publicly-visible post instead of your secret invisible post where you said something insightful. The publicly-visible post just said, "Awww, do you want us to cry because you actually have to work hard to get a patent? Let me call the waaahmbulance for you." Next time, I'll be sure to remotely hack your computer and locate and decrypt "SuperSecretInsightfulPost.html" so I can be sure to respond to all of your brilliant points.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    12. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 3, Informative

      If it gets granted, how much lawyer time will it take to get overturned later?

      This is a setup for a denial of service attack on the budgets / legal resources of smaller companies in future legal engagements.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    13. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Ninja+Programmer · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The initial rejections are just a smoke screen. The USPTO just does that to try to disincentivise appliers from doing "blanket patents". They are forced to come back and justify the patent a second time, which costs lawyer money, which the applying corporation (rarely is it a person) will have to consider before they try to push through their patent.

      But in the end, as long as the applying company has the money (like IBM) and people willing to explain the spin on their patent, the USPTO is basically powerless to stop them. The USPTO does not hire talented people who can actually assess patents and understand what is obvious and what is not (such people would rather be working for a start-up or a big corporation or whatever). I know this because of the questions on the patent I applied for as principle (and got). They asked the wrong questions -- where I was being innovative they challenged me on prior art (clearly not the case) rather than obviousness.

      Nothing changes the fact that the USPTO is in way over their heads. All because they allow software patents in the first place, and there are too many cynical software engineers trying to get their little bonus incentive to file the patent and throw it on their resume. (I should know, that's what I did.)

    14. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by _Swank · · Score: 2, Insightful

      really, i'm not trying to defend IBM here, but you realize that the prior art you list at regexlib.com fails *Claim 1* of the actual patent application don't you?

      the patent claims that the specific character(s) that breaks the regex is flagged. which the method at regexlib.com (as well as your other examples) does not do.

      you recognized that the patent also claims real-time checking, but passed that off as trivial. but if either or both of these differences are really trivial where are all the examples of this being done?

    15. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Zordak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your bias is showing.

      Says the guy with the .sig "The patent system. The whole edifice is based on handwaving."

      You're right about one thing. A patent != invention. A patent is an exclusive property right in an invention. But I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. I am not "assuming" that they are the same thing. I am well aware of how they are related. For example, the title of 35 U.S.C. s. 101 is "Inventions Patentable." The text is "Whosoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." A patentable invention is one that is novel (see s. 102), non-obvious (see s. 103) and useful (from s. 101).

      Now, as for your patent search, the fact that a patent has the word "software" somewhere does not make it a "software patent." Most patents will mention software somewhere if they have anything to do with technology. And since I doubt you have read and analyzed all those claims, your blanket statement that most of them are obvious looks a lot like "handwaving." If you were just going off of the titles, you need to learn how patents work. It's fine to think the system is broken, but understand it before you complain about it. Here's a pretty good primer one of our partners wrote. You ought to read it, even if you think you understand patents (he made me read it when I started, despite the fact that I was already a registered patent agent, and I learned some things). Remember, if you're going to go crusading, you should at least know what you're fighting against.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    16. Re:Prior Art so Prior It Hurts by Zordak · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you trace the history of software patents

      This is the trap lots of people fall into when discussing software patents. They see obvious software patents and use those as an argument against all software patents. I have seen reasonable and logical arguments both for and against software patents as a class. But obviousness is not one of them. KSR was not about software patents. It was about a brake pedal. The point of KSR was to strengthen the obviousness standard overall. I happen to agree with the conclusion (and that's certainly not herd mentality---most patent attorneys are very critical of KSR). But it has no bearing on whether software is patentable subject matter. If you think software patents should be categorically prohibited, you can have that opinion. Just find a different reason. On the other hand, if your problem with Amazon 1-click is that it was obvious, then your problem is with section 103, not section 101.

      Care to provide some evidence to backup your claim that the USPTO went through all the work to find the prior art and research your invention only to fall short on the analysis and do a knee jerk rejection?

      Ah, young grasshopper, if only you knew. I see lazy, sloppy rejections on an almost daily basis. But no, you're not going to see me specifically criticize a sitting examiner on a public message board. I'll complain about the way the place is run, but the examiner I criticize today may be the one I have to ask for a notice of allowance tomorrow (to any examiner who may be reading this: you, obviously, are one of those diamonds in the rough who issues only clear, well-reasoned office actions). And to be fair, if you ask an examiner, he'll probably tell you that he sees lazy, sloppy responses from attorneys on an almost daily basis.

      The real problem is the fact that the examiners are evaluated on a stupid "count" system that encourages them to breeze through an office action without taking the time to understand the application or the prior art. So he reads the claims, pulls out a couple of key words, searches his patent database, finds a couple of references that look promising, and shoots off a quick 103 (obviousness) rejection. And then he ticks one off his list and breathes a sigh of relief, because the application is somebody else's problem now. Ironically, this system of over-burdened examiners is just as bad for those who aren't a fan of patents. With so little time, it's hard for the examiner to find and understand the best art. So he just tosses out whatever looks good and leaves it on the attorney to convince him. This means that often the examiner and the attorney are arguing about junk that doesn't even matter, while real, relevant art is sitting out there unexamined. Believe me, I would LOVE it if I could count on the examiners to understand what's going on with the application and find the very best art. That would mean that whatever claims got allowed would be very nearly bullet-proof in court.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
  2. What bullshit? by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is this buillshit? "A persistent problem is dashes in SSNs"???

    How fucking hard is it to strip non-numeric characters from a string?

    I cannot believe there could be such programmer incompetence; no, it has to be some managerial cluelessness and hard-headness.

    1. Re:What bullshit? by mckinleyn · · Score: 3, Funny

      A persistent problem that plagues Web programmers is the proper formatting of data into text fields. Fixed that for you, IBM.

    2. Re:What bullshit? by fizzup · · Score: 3, Funny

      Maybe if we put it in a format IBM can understand:

      SOCIAL-SECURITY-NUMBER PIC 99-999-9999

    3. Re:What bullshit? by obarel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How can you not believe programmer incompetence?

      I still see the old "1 object(s) processed" (in multiple forms, of course). How hard can it be?

      "%d object%s processed", num, num == 1 ? "" : "s"

      I even see the odd "1 objects processed" every now and again. How hard can it be?!

      I see these things on the PS3 and my blood boils - with the price of the hardware and the games, how can they justify this incompetence? How can a usability tester pass this "object(s)" non-word? Do they also talk like that? "I take two bus or buses to get to work".

    4. Re:What bullshit? by SQLGuru · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd say this was funny, but you got the format wrong.....999-99-9999

    5. Re:What bullshit? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Sorry, your post was in ASCII, so we couldn't understand it. Could you try resubmitting it in EBCDIC please?

      Thanks,
      IBM

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:What bullshit? by idontgno · · Score: 3, Funny

      Exactly.

      Being mostly a Perl hacker now, I'm as guilty as most in trying to find the perfect regex solution to a blindingly simple problem. It's seductive, it's cool, it's mystical, it's insider cant and sacred dweomer and secret handshake all rolled together.

      I have, posted on my cube wall, a particularly good quote from Jamie Zawinski:

      Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  3. What. The. Fuck. by Glendale2x · · Score: 2, Funny

    Are you fucking kidding me? Did they just really patent the format "###-##-####"? I didn't RTFA because I didn't want my head to explode.

    --
    this is my sig
  4. psst... hey buddy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    ^\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}$

    ahh thats right baby, patent infringement!
    I live on the edge...

  5. As a programmer at a federal agency that uses Perl by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    this is bullshit.

    We parse SSNs all day long. I think WE may have prior art.

  6. What if we assume they *are* on our side? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I see lots of comments coming up about how ridiculous this is. Maybe that's the point. Maybe the best way to bring out patent reform to to patent every simple thing there is. You have to remember that IBM is paying to patent something as simple as:

    s/(^[0-9])+//g

    which most certainly has prior art all over the web. Why would it be worth IBMs money and time to do such a thing? The best reason I can come up with is that they want to prove a point. There's probably quite a bit an open-source firm can gain by causing a collapse of the software patent system, and this may be the best way to do it.

  7. Re:Cuff me... by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sorry, you forgot to put question marks after the hyphens. Obviously, you'll need to license IBM's patent, because that additional tweak makes it a non-obvious invention.

    --
    $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
  8. Real time is the key claim by wiredlogic · · Score: 3, Informative

    The first claim mentions the real time nature of the validation. The example regexes are for validating a completed string. This is still silly and obvious but you may have a harder time finding specific prior art for this case.

    --
    I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    1. Re:Real time is the key claim by glebovitz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Stick the RE ^\d{3}-?\d{2}-?\d{4}$ in a QRegExpValidator in Qt and you have real time validation. Nokia has an example of this in their Qt course materials.

    2. Re:Real time is the key claim by radtea · · Score: 3, Informative

      I assume that most Javascript validation waits until all of the text has been entered.

      Your assumption is false. It's called an OnChange event: http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_onchange.asp

      I am not a "Web programmer" but anyone with even a passing familiarity with JavaScript has seen this.

      The first claim in the patent is: "1. A system for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:a validation-enhanced text input element configured to contain an attribute for a validation expression for a text field in a rendered Web page, wherein the validation-enhanced text input element is contained within a source code document corresponding to the rendered Web page; andan input text validator configured to validate a user-entered character of the text field against the validation expression in real-time and visually indicate invalid user-entered characters."

      So these losers have filed a patent application in which the first claim is exactly nothing but a completely standard bit of JavaScript code. People have been doing this kind of real-time validation and response for years and years and years. JavaScript is designed to do it.

      This is by far the most egregiously stupid patent application we have seen on /. in a long time.

      Why IBM is doing this is a complete mystery, although "never assume venality where stupidity will do" comes forcibly to mind.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    3. Re:Real time is the key claim by ClosedSource · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My understanding is that the onChange event doesn't fire until the input field has lost focus. That means that it wouldn't support character-by-character validation.

    4. Re:Real time is the key claim by bluej100 · · Score: 2, Informative

      True, but onkeypress works.

  9. More to it than that. by gurps_npc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The numbers in your social security number mean things. By State originally. I am sure, IBM is at least including double-checking that information, to make sure that you can't type in 741-99-0000 and have the machine mistakenly think it is a valid social security number. How do I know this? Because the numbers mean things, you can tell that certain things are obviously bad social security numbers. For example, no field can have all 0. 111-00-1111 has never been assigned. Similarly, no number above 740-##-#### has ever been assigned.

    You can read more about it here

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:More to it than that. by QuoteMstr · · Score: 3, Informative

      Strictly speaking, it does, but it might be large. As a quick and dirty test, here's the result of evaluating (regexp-opt (loop for x from 0 to 700 collect (format "%d" x )) nil) in Emacs:

      "1\\(?:0[0-9]\\|1[0-9]\\|2[0-9]\\|3[0-9]\\|4[0-9]\\|5[0-9]\\|6[0-9]\\|7[0-9]\\|8[0-9]\\|9[0-9]\\|[0-9]\\)\\|2\\(?:0[0-9]\\|1[0-9]\\|2[0-9]\\|3[0-9]\\|4[0-9]\\|5[0-9]\\|6[0-9]\\|7[0-9]\\|8[0-9]\\|9[0-9]\\|[0-9]\\)\\|3\\(?:0[0-9]\\|1[0-9]\\|2[0-9]\\|3[0-9]\\|4[0-9]\\|5[0-9]\\|6[0-9]\\|7[0-9]\\|8[0-9]\\|9[0-9]\\|[0-9]\\)\\|4\\(?:0[0-9]\\|1[0-9]\\|2[0-9]\\|3[0-9]\\|4[0-9]\\|5[0-9]\\|6[0-9]\\|7[0-9]\\|8[0-9]\\|9[0-9]\\|[0-9]\\)\\|5\\(?:0[0-9]\\|1[0-9]\\|2[0-9]\\|3[0-9]\\|4[0-9]\\|5[0-9]\\|6[0-9]\\|7[0-9]\\|8[0-9]\\|9[0-9]\\|[0-9]\\)\\|6\\(?:0[0-9]\\|1[0-9]\\|2[0-9]\\|3[0-9]\\|4[0-9]\\|5[0-9]\\|6[0-9]\\|7[0-9]\\|8[0-9]\\|9[0-9]\\|[0-9]\\)\\|7\\(?:00\\|[0-9]\\)\\|8[0-9]\\|9[0-9]\\|[0-9]"

      What regular expressions can't do is match strings that aren't described by a regular language. Roughly speaking, if what you're trying to match has a maximum length, you can match it with a regular expression. (For a more formal description, see the Pumping Lemma.)

  10. Re:Even bigger problem by Shakrai · · Score: 3, Insightful

    put a damned example on your site, like this: nnn-nn-nnnn

    You can put as many examples on your site as you want but your users will still find a way to fuck it up. You need code that checks for this and either corrects their stupidity or kicks it back and makes them re-enter it.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  11. On the positive side... by minsk · · Score: 2, Funny

    We need more overly-broad patents on embarrassingly horrible user interfaces. In fact, someone ought to patent *all* the common mistakes. That way their lawyers could run around suing everyone building crap.

  12. What if We Assume They *Are* Idiots? by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Program Manager: What the hell is happening?! Why is the website down?!
    Web Programmer: It's the users, sir, one of them put dashes in their SSN on the form!
    Program Manager: I don't have time for this mumbo jumbo geek jargon ... what are you trying to tell me? This is an emergency, accounting said our money is leaving!
    Web Programmer: Well, you see the dashes are inside the string.
    Program Manager: Inside? How is this possible?
    Web Programmer: Well, the user must have paused to push the dash key, sir.
    Program Manager: So if the dashes are inside the string, we have to get them out. Is there someone we can pay for this service?
    Web Programmer: I'm afraid it's too complicated for that. But maybe if we had it write to a file and one of us kept refreshing a text editor on that file ... we could remove it and then it could read back the file after waiting for a few seconds. We would have to hope that more users don't come while we are performing emergency dash extraction.
    Program Manager: Goddamnit! Why didn't testing find this?!
    Web Programmer: Well, they did but to fix this bug we just removed the dash keys on their keyboards.
    Program Manager: Can we do that to each of the users?
    *IBM employee enters with massive box labeled "Enterprise SSN Dash Extractor"*
    IBM Sales Rep: Gentlemen, let IBM solve all your SSN problems for a mere $2,000 per site license!

    --
    My work here is dung.
  13. Revolutionary Patent Idea!!!1! by serutan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Patent Application 973255489

    "Method of enhancing sarcasm through the intentional introduction of typographical errors within multiple exclamation marks."

    Within a set of not fewer than four (4) and not more than eight (8) Exclamation Marks ("!"), an Erroneous Character from the set of characters [1, 2, @, #, ~, `] is inserted after the third or fourth Exclamation Mark. The Erroneous Character is perceived by the reader as a typographical error consistent with hurried, careless typing, reinforcing any sarcasm contained in the textual comment preceding the Exclamation Marks.

    1. Re:Revolutionary Patent Idea!!!1! by OttoM · · Score: 2, Funny

      You mean a "plurality of exclamation marks"

  14. Heck Why not.... by gabrieltss · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Heck a lawyer patented the method for swinging on a swing
      Why not IBM patenting something stupid like this! Maybe enough of these will bring the patenet system into reform or it's destruction...

    Ref:
    http://www.google.com/patents?vid=6368227
    http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.html
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reexamination

    --
    The Truth is a Virus!!!
  15. Awesome by Trails · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'd like to assert that I've personally written prior art.

  16. Actually by Zordak · · Score: 3, Funny

    Actually, they're trying to patent "A system for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:a validation-enhanced text input element configured to contain an attribute for a validation expression for a text field in a rendered Web page, wherein the validation-enhanced text input element is contained within a source code document corresponding to the rendered Web page; andan input text validator configured to validate a user-entered character of the text field against the validation expression in real-time and visually indicate invalid user-entered characters," and "A method for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:receiving a user-entered character in a text field displayed in a Web page;immediately validating the user-entered character against a validation expression contained within a validation-enhanced text input element associated with the text field, wherein the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for the text field; andwhen the user-entered character is determined invalid, visually marking the user-entered character," and "An input text validator for validating a text field of a Web page in real-time comprising:a partial input expression generator configured to generate an expanded version of a validation expression, wherein the expanded version of the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for a text field of a Web page; andan invalid text highlighter configured to visually highlight a user-entered character in the text field when the user-entered character is determined as invalid for the expanded validation expression."

    Remember, patents are all about the claims. You don't know what they're "trying to patent" until you have read and understand the claims.

    --

    Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    1. Re:Actually by Philip_the_physicist · · Score: 2

      Actually, they're trying to patent "A system for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:a validation-enhanced text input element configured to contain an attribute for a validation expression for a text field in a rendered Web page, wherein the validation-enhanced text input element is contained within a source code document corresponding to the rendered Web page; and an input text validator configured to validate a user-entered character of the text field against the validation expression in real-time and visually indicate invalid user-entered characters," and "A method for providing real-time validation of text input fields in a Web page comprising:receiving a user-entered character in a text field displayed in a Web page;immediately validating the user-entered character against a validation expression contained within a validation-enhanced text input element associated with the text field, wherein the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for the text field; and when the user-entered character is determined invalid, visually marking the user-entered character," and "An input text validator for validating a text field of a Web page in real-time comprising:a partial input expression generator configured to generate an expanded version of a validation expression, wherein the expanded version of the validation expression defines a set of acceptable characters and character positions for a text field of a Web page; and an invalid text highlighter configured to visually highlight a user-entered character in the text field when the user-entered character is determined as invalid for the expanded validation expression."

      Remember, patents are all about the claims. You don't know what they're "trying to patent" until you have read and understand the claims.

      This isn't quite as bad as the summary suggests, since what they are doing is checking the data as you type, and highlighting the first character on which it fails. This could be tricky to do on the desktop if you're using a poor choice of widgets, and doing it in javascript could be rather hackish if it is to be portable.

      The most obvious way to do it in Javascript is to use a div made to look like a text field, which, echoes the text to the div and formats it appropriately. If the setup is done entirely in javascript, the real element could be shown if scripts are disabled, or the CSS support is faulty.

      The idea is a lot better than TFS suggested, but it is still fairly obvious, both in concept and an implementation, and shouldn't be patentable.

  17. phone numbers too by egburr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I run into this problem with entering phone numbers into web forms. Some want them as xxxxxxxxxx, some as xxx-xxx-xxxx, some as (xxx)xxx-xxxx, and even other weirdness. Some sites take whatever I put in and mold it to their desired format; others tell me my input is invalid and make me enter it again (some even tell me the desired format). Some sites actually break it up into three input fields with appropriate limits on the number of characters.

    I've seen similar cases with SSNs.

    It's pretty obvious that some sites have no trouble parsing the input data and making it fit what's expected. How is this a novel concept to be patented?

    --

    Edward Burr
    Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
  18. Not just regex, but real-time regex. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you read the patent application, they aren't patenting just validation of a text field. They are patenting the idea of validating a string, one character at a time, as it is entered by the user. As the string is entered, when invalid characters are found using regex, a "visual change" is made to the input to let the user know they made a mistake.

    An example they give is that in an email input field, as soon as the user enters a comma, the comma would change colors.

    It's still not groundbreaking, but it's not quite as trivial as it sounds.

  19. Have you read the patent application? by dzfoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    You didn't read the patent application, did you?

    They are not patenting a regular expression to validate social-security numbers, they are patenting an entire validation system for web application, in which there is an API for a developer to specify a regular expression, and the framework will then validate the user input in real-time, while the front-end highlights the specific characters that caused the failure. The particular problem they are trying to solve is the user confusion when they submit a form which tells them that a field was rejected without telling them what's wrong with the input.

    This is not to say that there isn't prior art for that, but as you can see it is much more than just a patent on a simple reg-exp pattern.

            -dZ.

    --
    Carol vs. Ghost
    ...Can you save Christmas?
  20. Slashdot true to form by thethibs · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow! All this steam and no one read the patent. It's been a while since the Slashdotter stereotype was so well validated.

    The patent is for incremental validation as the characters come in. The text input widget is primed with the regex and validates each character as it is keyed, and reacts immediately if it gets an invalid-in-context character. The effect is that it's not possible to enter an invalid string.

    Whether you think this is novel or not, it's not ordinary.

    --
    I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
    1. Re:Slashdot true to form by CorporateSuit · · Score: 2, Informative

      Whether you think this is novel or not, it's not ordinary.

      One of the first forms I programmed for a commercial company would delete non-numeric characters and commas onKeyUp. It's extremely ordinary, and the practice is probably a day younger than javascript.

      --
      I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
    2. Re:Slashdot true to form by radtea · · Score: 2, Informative

      Whether you think this is novel or not, it's not ordinary.

      Handling a JavaScript OnChange event is not ordinary? What about a button click event?

      Can I patent "1. A system for providing real-time information in a Web page comprising:a retrieval-enhanced button input element configured to contain an attribute for a retrieval expression for a button in a rendered Web page, wherein the retrieval-enhanced button input element is contained within a source code document corresponding to the rendered Web page; and an document retriever configured to retrieve a document real-time and visually display it."?

      Also known as "a help button".

      My fanciful claim above is a minuscule edit to the first claim in this idiotic application. If you can patent OnChange event handling for realtime validation (that being one of the purposes for which the event was added to the standard!) you can certainly patent any specific use of button handling. Closing a window, opening a window, displaying a document, changing a background colour... any specific use that is "non-obvious" to someone completely ignorant of software development.

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  21. Are you pondering what I'm pondering? by dword · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why don't we try to get USPTO's attention over to Slashdot? Then, if they think they don't understand what's going on with a patent, they can find other peoples' interpretation of it over here. They're bound to understand at least one of a hundred different wordings of that patent in Slashdot's comments.

    Any ideas?

  22. Highlighting invalid characters inside text field by nkovacs · · Score: 2, Informative

    I disagree philosophically with our current legal system allowing software patents. However it never ceases to amaze me how the internets take a patent, don't read it or understand it and then complain about things that don't even make sense in regards to the patent in question.

    If you read the actual patent, it is talking about validating the text input as the characters are being typed in and highlighting the specific characters that don't match the regular expression. For example if you type in a SSN as: 1112-113-1111, then the 2 and 3 within the text field would be highlighted (e.g. highlighted red) as not matching the regular expression for a SSN. I think the key is that the error highlighting is done inside the text field. The highlighting of the text wouldn't occur until some timer expired (e.g. 200 ms without any new typing). This makes it so that the error highlights don't show up as you are typing but as soon as you stop. This is definitely more novel than the comments on this article make it out to be.

    Should this or other software algorithms be patentable? No. However companies like IBM are forced to patent because if they don't then other patent troll companies sue them and win because they have trouble proving prior art. It is not illogical for companies like IBM to simultaneously pursue patent reform and continue to patent as much as possible under the current legislation. This is just taking advantage of the broken system while talking about how broken it is.