US PTO Gives Microsoft Credit For Lotus's Homework

theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO granted Microsoft a patent for 'Email Emotiflags' despite ample evidence of a circa-1996 Lotus Notes precedent called Mood Stamps — sender-chosen emoticons that appear next to inbox messages. Among those seemingly aware of the existence of Mood Stamps is Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who appears to have fielded questions about the feature while at Lotus. While simply Googling for 'Email Emotiflags' would have turned up evidence of this prior art (including a Slashdot discussion), the USPTO came up empty after instead going with the more-upscale Google Scholar and patent databases for its search effort. Think we can count on Ozzie to do the right thing and give the USPTO a heads-up?"

Comments

verifable citations please ?

[viralMeme]

"However his employment contact with Lotus likely had clauses about how Lotus owns the ideas since he came up with them in the context of being employed by Lotus"

Excuse me but could you please produce some verifable citations for the above or are you just making it up as your go along. I mean how do we know the Space Invadors didn't invent them first :o

all your Intellectual Property belong us