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Microsoft Applies For Patent On Tufte's Sparklines
jenkin sear writes "Data visualization guru Edward Tufte developed Sparklines, a great way to display condensed data as an inline graphic. Excel's new version has incorporated the design element — and Microsoft has applied for a patent on them — without so much as a by-your-leave from Tufte."
The patent is obviously bad. As the summary states, there is plenty of prior art. If you read the patent, it's also trivial - it's just making graphs smaller.
Will the USPTO reject it?
Maybe.
But even if they do, we also need to ask:
Will anyone at Microsoft be fined or imprisoned for applying for this bogus patent?
Unfortunately, not.
Ok, so if I have to push a button to update it, it's not covered? If I don't embed it but, say, just have an external application retrieve data from a spreadsheet, it's not covered?
Yes, I'm hanging on technicalities. But when you look at it closely, the whole software patent BS is about technicalities and not much more. We're talking about (usually) so obvious applications that a 5 year old wouldn't only get the idea but actually say "duh" when you present it to him.
Maybe that would be a good metric. The patent clerc should tell his 5 year old about the idea. If he says "duh", it's not patentable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How are Sparklines even patentable? They're just a graph, scaled down. I don't even see an innovation here, either my Microsoft or Tufte.
I hate printers.
Sorry, but taking an existing invention and just taking on "in Excel" or "using a computer" does not make it a new invention. That seems to be the way the USPTO treats those magic words, though.
I wouldn't complain about Microsoft's activity when you link to Wikipedia rather than the author's own page on sparklines.
This is just a synthesis of existing technologies.
Spreadsheet software already automatically updates graphs and charts based on changes in the spreadsheet.
A sparkline is nothing more than a graph reduced in size and placed in-line within the text.
It follows that a combination of the existing graph technology, with the reduction in size, automatically leads to a sparkline that automatically updates.
Nothing new or novel is accomplished by the combination, so the synthesis isn't an invention.
Sparklines on PC have existed since the 1990s for financial, memory management, cpu graphing, calculators and medical statistics. They even go back farther in the field statistics and physics itself. Neither Microsoft, nor Tufte have invented anything here.
The examiner will almost certainly come back with multiple rejections based on obviousness [....]
You're saying this about the patent system that approved the patents on swinging on a swing and using a laser pointer as a cat toy?
Well, golly, I've got a very small chart in a spreadsheet. And you're suggesting that I could dynamically update that chart? Wow! I would never have thought of that! Truly a breakthrough that must have taken years of research and is totally worth a patent.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
It's not just "stupid and obvious", there is plenty of prior art, and it follows from standard engineering principles.
Point is, it's not an attempt on something already claimed by someone.
Yes, it is. If sparklines are public domain and updating graphs dynamically is public domain, then so is the (obvious) combination. The technique belongs to all of us.
So, Microsoft isn't just stealing from another inventor here, they are stealing from all of us, which is even worse.
It's a little too early to fault the USPTO, since Microsoft as only applied for the patent, it hasn't been granted yet.
MRSH-Recording device, corned beef sandwich with kraut, seafaring bird, and the foamy top of a beverage.
That's pretty interesting. If I remember correctly, there is a LaTeX package for creating sparklines, it uses data that can be embedded in the document, it takes additional parameters that influence the look of the sparkline, and if you change the data a re-run latex, the sparkline changes to reflect the new data, while preserving the look given by the additional parameters. Add to it a system that watches your file and rerun latex every time to see a change in order to generate a preview (I believe I have seen at least one such editor), and it seems to me exactly like what they are describing. I don't quite understand what they mean by "matrix of points proportional to the associated location in the document". If that is the only difference, it really seems too little to deserve a patent.
AccountKiller
Well, see, there you go. That's the kind of prior art worth submitting to the patent office, assuming the examiner doesn't find it.
Plus, I'm not sure why you emphasize open source implementations that predate it. Did you really mean to imply that if I had a closed source implementation that predated it, it would not be prior art ?
No, I didn't mean to imply that at all. I just didn't realize Excel was capable of doing in-cell charting through VB or a plug-in, so I assumed a prior art implementation would most likely come from Open Office, gnumeric, etc.
updating a graph is not patentable, spreadsheets already do it.
It's a legal rule that in an obviousness analysis you have to consider the claims as a whole. You can't dissect the claims into individual, obvious elements. It's the combination of all of the elements that must be found obvious.
I'm not saying that dynamically updating sparklines in a spreadsheet isn't obvious, just that the argument you made isn't a legally valid one.
So they patent putting it in a single cell? How obvious is that? Putting something else than text in a cell? No matter what, it's a graph, it's line art, an image, images and lines have been rendered by computers for decades, no matter if it's in a cell of a spread sheet or in a window or in whatever else, no matter if the image is synchronized with some numbers from somewhere else and what not, I fail to see any innovation at all, it's just plotting of a graph based on numbers.
Sure, the patent application may not go through, most likely because of the non-obvious/inventive step requirement (even if you find something looking like prior art, it may not look like it to a lawyer).
It doesn't make the (american) patent system any less stupid though:
Microsoft obviously thought the chances were good enough (> 0%) to spend some money filing a patent. It would (almost) be business malpractice if they didn't. Similar patents have been granted before (progress bars, one click shopping etc) and M$ would get a significant advantage if the patent was allowed (great marketing feature and by preventing interoperability of spreadsheets once again).
As long as design/software patents are allowed, you have to live with the consequences. Next time, vote on someone who cares.
We're talking about (usually) so obvious applications that a 5 year old wouldn't only get the idea but actually say "duh" when you present it to him.
The 5 year may "get" the idea.
That doesn't mean he can produce the machine or device or program that puts the idea to work in new and interesting ways.
To the patent examiner, "obvious" has to mean more than "twenty-twenty hindsight."
If the "sparkline" is so obvious and useful an idea and so easily implemented in your spreadsheet program why isn't it there now?
Am I really the only person looking at this and thinking 'it's a graph'?
The rest is all visual design and auto-updating.
So what is the argument really about? If these charts are so prevalent, what is Tufte complaining for? As anyone knows who's been following Tufte for as long as I have knows that his real contribution to the field of graphics is his minimalist approach - his crusade to remove the graphics of the world from "chartjunk". His goal is to present the user with the most amount of information using the least amount of features. So, aside from a nifty name, to what exactly is Tufte laying claim? The same could also be asked of Microsoft - are they claiming a specific layout, color combination, or feature set? Or are they just trying to capitalize on the name "Sparklines". If the former, I don't think anyone has a case. If the latter, that does seem fairly reprehensible.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
That is a load of dingo's kidneys, because nobody had to manually generate sparklines, either. There are already numerous systems which dynamically generate them as needed, for example a drupal module. This is a ridiculous patent, as completely insane as any "business method" patent, except instead of taking a common business model and adding "on the internet", it's taking an already-accepted practice and adding "in excel". By any reasonable standard, this is a bad patent application.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There seems to be an anti-lawyer bias among some here at slashdot, but lawyers are like programmers: some are competent, some not. Some are ethical, some not. Here's a true (albeit slightly offtopic) story that illustrates a good lawyer.
I was drinking with my friend Amy, and as I was too drunk suggested we walk home from the bar. She'd not been there as long as me and offered to drive me. There were two things we didn't know: my tail lights had gone out, and her license had been suspended for non-payment of child support; she had just moved and the letter informing her hadn't reached her.
We were pulled over, the cop ran her license, saw it was suspended, and put her in handcuffs and drove her away. I called another frined to drive my car the rest of the way home.
Amy was back at my house an hour later; they'd let her out on OR (whatever that means). She went to court and was fined $300. She couldn't come up with the money, and this past Monday went back to court. The judge gave no one there any extensions and said anybody who didn't pay up by 9:00 am Friday (today) was going to jail. No extensions, no community service. "Hang 'em!" (I hope he's elected rather than appointed so I can vote against him next election). She faced six days in the pokey.
The night before last she called her ex-husband's attorney, a criminal lawyer (her ex-husbans is a criminal who spent time in prison for brutally beating her).
He told her not to worry, he'd be there to represent her and she was NOT going to jail.
Good lawyer, terrible judge. Ray Beckerman (/.'s NYCL) fights the RIAA. I owe a debt of gratitude to the two lawyers who handled my divorce and bankruptcy. I can't figure out why there is such an anti-lawyer bias; they're like medical doctors. When you need one, you NEED one.
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How can anyone patent a graph ?
I don't care how small it is, or whether it has axis labels, or what, it's a damned graph (or chart, which ever word you prefer)