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USPTO Awards LOL Patent To IBM
theodp writes "Among the last batch of patents granted in 2009 was one for IBM's Resolution of Abbreviated Text in an Electronic Communications System. The invention of four IBMers addresses the hitherto unsolvable problem of translating abbreviations to their full meaning — e.g., 'IMHO' means 'In My Humble Opinion' — and vice versa. From the patent: 'One particularly useful application of the invention is to interpret the meaning of shorthand terms ... For example, one database may define the shorthand term "LOL" to mean "laughing out loud."' USPTO records indicate the patent filing was made more than a year after Big Blue called on the industry to stop what it called 'bad behavior' by companies who seek patents for unoriginal work. Yet another example of what USPTO Chief David Kappos called IBM's apparent schizophrenia on patent policy back when he managed Big Blue's IP portfolio."
Incredible Bowel Movements
They've patented a dictionary? That's what it looks like to me.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I do those translations in my head. My memory is the database. Does that mean I owe IBM royalties?
I can't believe they just patented the lookup table, albeit in a very specific context.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
See? I bet you thought the W was for WebSphere! (I know I did, until I checked it before posting.)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
With this rule, companies will be motivated to submit as many semi-stupid patents as possible. That way, when the examiner decides that a patent is completely stupid, the other invalidated patent is likely to be a useless one that was created just as patent fodder.
Or maybe incorporate a bunch of shell corporations, and have each of those corporations apply for a single patent at a time. If it is completely stupid, there is no other patent to strike down. If it is granted, the shell corporation will sell it to the real corporation.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Wasn't it " In my Hesitating Opinion"?
Unless of course the messages deals with the "International Medical Health Organisation"
Don't blame IBM. They're not "schizophrenic". They are merely in the game playing by the rules as they are written, because that's what everyone else on the field is doing. What if a football team suddenly decided throwing passes was dishonorable, and they wished other people wouldn't do it? They'd get hammered. They'd lose all over the place.
Same for IBM. They can wish for change and still play a mean game. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact - the more the merrier, says I. Why? Because the more idiot patents like this that get granted, the sooner this mess will end. For two reasons.
First reason - the dumber a patent is, and the more obvious it is that you are merely patenting something someone else came up with - the more likely it is that a judge somewhere will get that clue we've all been waiting for.
Second reason - World War I.
How did WWI start? The assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria. A single death. That's all it took. All of the alliances and counter-alliances of the time made an extremely unstable system. All it took was the right nudge, a single assassination, and all those alliances got called up. Countries picked sides and it was off to war. Where 15 million people died. Imagine that. Fifteen million people all killed, and it all traces to a single assassination.
Remind you of anything?
All of these companies today have these IP portfolios, and an uneasy truce in between them that says "you nail us and we'll nail you". Strategic partnerships, licensed IP - a tangled web of legal rights. Just like the tangled web of alliances pre-WWI.
All it will take is our Ferdinand.
Remember the hubub over the FAT file system, how MS holds the patent on it? Why aren't they suing everyone for their legally due royalties? They could nail everyone from Samsung to Nokia. So why not do it? Because everyone would nail MS for other trivial things they are in violation of. It would be Patent WW I.
So let these companies patent trivial crap like LOL. Why not? It will make the crater bigger when The Big One happens. And nobody wants that because in this case it won't be soldiers dying, it will be money evaporating. IP portfolios are insanely overpriced. If PWI happens, the courts will be *swamped*. The only fix will be to invalidate software/process patents or spend every single minute of court time available until 2142 sorting out the mess. And that means those portfolios will suddenly be useless. As will all the license agreements. That's a lot of money to go *poof*. It'll make the housing market bubble of 2008 look like a hiccup. We're talking many many billions of dollars here.
So let the current cold war continue. Go ahead. Patent LOL. Patent emoticons. Patent tying your right shoe before your left - I don't care.
Just know that it's going to end, it's going to end soon, and it's going to end badly. And there will be blame enough to go around for everyone. In fact, the end may be beginning right now. We may have had our Ferdinand just recently.
It's going to be a hell of a ride when this whole mess hits the fan.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
acrinum? are you retarded?
Actually the way it goes is:
1. Some obscure one-man start-up invents it, unsuccessfully tries to productize it (bad marketing, rough edges etc), fails, and is bought up by bigger fish.
2. A number of companies sell it for a few years, with so-so results.
3. Apple "borrows" the idea and creates a product which is exactly the same, except that its name starts with "i", it is white, and it replaces all buttons with a single "just do it" one in the shape of an Apple logo. Several million are sold in the first year of sales. The name of the Apple device instantly becomes a genericized word for this whole class of devices.
4. The same companies that were selling such devices before "re-invent" them, cloning Apple new design (not very successfully; for some reason, no-one else can quite make it work with a single button) and leaving everything else intact. These are advertised as "i$Whatever killers". Sales go up a little bit, but Apple still pwns everyone.
5. Apple releases a new version - it's exactly the same as old one, only colored black, and costs $50 more. Several million more are sold in the first year of sales.
6. After several years, Microsoft wakes up to see the new market, and promptly announces the development its own product. It will run WinCE, be programmable via XNA, and require a PC with Vista or higher. Available colors are brown and puke green. Sales... wait, there are sales?
7. After one more year, IBM announces that it had the patent for the fundamental idea of the device all along, and OMGPROFITs.
From the filed doc:
...a group of databases may be provided that each define one or more shorthand terms. These definitions may be structured in the database as shorthand terms paired with longhand terms. For example, one database may define the shorthand term "LOL" to mean "laughing out loud." Another database may instead define "LOL" to mean "lots of laughs." A database may also include multiple definitions for a given term. For example, a user's personal database may have two entries for the shorthand term "OMW" including "on my way" and "oh my word"
IOW, they have managed to patent a dictionary? Prior art, anyone?
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
I already have prior art to this from at least 9 years ago. Used to do it with mIRC script in irc channels where people insisted on using abbreviations.
In fact:
on ^*:text:*:#:{
echo $color(text) -trn $target $replace($1-,lol,laugh out loud,imho,in my humble opinion)
haltdef
}
Come and get me IBM.
I would almost consider this +5 Insightful over +5 Funny due to how true this is.
The telegraph did this a hundred years ago. Semaphore telegraphs did it two hundred years ago. The fact that the translation of the codes is now being done by a computer program instead of a person or a mechanical device is not a novel matter.
On a development project we banned LOL and insisted on the more accurate LIMH - laughing in my head. No one LOLs online.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
It might be obvious to add into a messaging device, but the USPTO would need to find a couple of prior art references that contain all the features and then show a reason to combine them. The PTO doesn't get to just say, "it would be obvious to do that, kneener kneener kneeeener"
Actually, the Patent Office can do that, but they don't. This is what leads to incredibly broad patents.
Originally, a patent was designed to cover a specific method for achieving a result. Today, we have IBM essentially patenting "using a database to automatically look up words in messages received on a computer". Don't think so? The text speaks for itself:
My e-mail client is a "recipient messaging device", and your e-mail client is a "sender messaging device". The text of the patent specifically mentions e-mail. So, pretty much any system that defines "shorthand terms" in an e-mail, text message, HTML page, or any other form of electronic communcation would likely infringe on this patent.
For example, Google or wiktionary.org probably infringe, as you can enter a "text message" like "IMHO" into their search box and have the same result as the IBM patent. And, since neither Google nor anyone else was doing this before 2006 (when the patent was filed), <sarcasm>IBM obviously thought of it first</sarcasm>.
I think IBM should use their tool to look up "BS".