Slashdot Mirror
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."
Hint: It's Scottish!
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
"lol" hasn't meant anything close to "laughing out loud" for years. It's more like "your statement is slightly humorous, but I'm definitely not laughing".
as an IBM employee I use the "Whatis bot" all the time. It is just a chat bot on Sametime chat inside Lotus Notes that allows you to message it an abbreviation and it tells you all the meanings. This is very useful when you get an e-mail from a long time IBMer that knows every abbreviation and doesn't hesitate to use them.
What is slashdot?
Does this win some sort of stupidity award for the most ridiculous patenting of something that shouldn't be patentable? Whats next, patenting the use of punctuation in sentances?
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
There, I said it.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Incredible Bowel Movements
November 2006 Fux et al
If a patent application is found to be completely stupid one of your other patents is invalidated by random draw! *wishes*
Shh.
I've seen many websites that robotically turn ad-targetable words into hyperlinks and/or roll-overs.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
while dumbing the concept down to lol to make it seem abd, lets think about it in a practicla manner.
A system that auomatically knows what a abbreviation means withine the given context would be pretty clever.
I ahe read documents ful of initals, sometime the SAME initials just different context.
LOL, 555, mdr. all those mean the same thing.
Also LOL is a place in france, LOL is short for Lack Of Love LOL is also short for memory.
ASa side note, my kids actually say LOL sometime with pronounciation of each letter, sometime as 'Lawl'. The are 9 and 11. So expect everyone around you to be saying it soon.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
/. always words the summary of patents awarded in the stupid and most trollish way possible.
It's actually a good idea and has nothing to do with patenting LOL.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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
I do this lol all the time lol. Who will keep track of this? lol Will I lol have to keep track? lol What if I mess up lol three times lol and then get banned lol from the internet? Where do I send the money lol. I will pay to type lol, lol.
TLYO,M
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I thot it was "humble", not "honest". Use "frankly" if you want it to mean "honest".
Table-ized A.I.
I've been using these terms since 1992 for the most part, can I sue IBM now?
Om, nomnomnom...
No, it means: I my humble opinion.
Get an IBM patented thesaurus, you douche!
Apple invents it, Microsoft clones it, and IBM patents it.
Table-ized A.I.
And my friggin' keyboard ate that missing 'n'.
I probably need an IBM patented dictionary adjustment program for posting this carp.
Your
Abbreviation
Translation
May
Vary
One more example of why the patent system needs to be eliminated. Let us invalidate _all_ patents, not just one other of theirs.
Dear IBM,
FU!
- The Internet
Just paste this roll-over pop-up implementation into an HTML document to get sued:
Table-ized A.I.
If you click the graphic in the summary, you get a diagram of the translation. It takes a short economical phrase, then expands it into a longer one. What's wrong with economy? Ok, perhaps there's some vocab learning that has to take place first, but I'm still doing that with English perpetually anyway -- I'll run across a word for which I'm uncertain of the meaning and I'll look it up in an online dictionary. It's also safer to leave be, otherwise those poor parishioners at the Lord of Love church are going to have to change it's name to the Laughing Out Loud church. Completely different vibe, though I think personally I would be more inclined to attend the latter.
Loose lips lose spit.
This patent is for the word correction feature that has been in Microsoft Word for years. This isn't original. Complete bunk!
For those of you who didn't RTFA, they didn't patent LOL, but the process of using a database to tell you what LOL means, or something along those lines. Not quite as absurd, but still silly.
However, if you have ever worked for a huge company like Intel, you are swimming in a veritable alphabet soup of unrecognizable acronyms every day. They make an acronym for everything over there. So something like this database would be a godsend in an environment like that.
To explain IBM's patent schizophrenia, the corporate stance may be against silly patents, but they pay their employees handsomely for getting a patent approved. Gaming the system is both lucrative and easy, so we get shit like this.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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
and other IM's used to convert LOL, BRB, etc into faces, little signs or sounds years ago. Isn't that the same thing?
I'm sure there was some option where the short hand was translated onto the screen to its full meaning.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
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.
Since prior art counts for little, has anyone rushed to patent disemvoweling?
Its also ghetto for IMaHO
It's in the bsdgames package, and has been around for way more than the time required to qualify for prior art.
stfu, ibm. srsy, u gd bmf. afcps ur awb. ur afu.
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.
Let's lobby the patent office to create a wiki for lay man ideas. Then everyone normal that can't afford to patent every blog article that they can come up with on a daily basis can then upload their ideas to the database.
This should eliminate all patents for obvious stuff. And only the 10 or so really original ideas are still patentable.
Simple solution, maybe I should patent it...
Can't somebody just patent the filing of stupid patents?
CRAP.
> whatis CRAP
>>> IBM's CRAP:: Internally known as Consumer Research and Planning.
Hmm.... I thought LOL meant "wow, that cat sure is cute"
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
So you should say IMFO? Some people might misinterpret that as another common word that starts with F.
Indeed, although note that it's only with the Ipod that Apple made a dominant product, with the word becoming a generic term for that market.
With everything else - computers, phones - their product remained a niche, and other companies don't give a damn about trying to copy them. Yet still, despite them not being the inventors, or the first companies to do it, you have Apple fans and the media claiming that Apple "invented" or "popularised" it...
Somebody should send those IBMers a link to Let me google that for you
Back in high school, I had a notebook (which I think I still have) that had a list of emoticons and their meaning, and also the meaning of acronyms like lol or rofl or imho. I would consider that prior art if the patent merely is for a translation system.
With everything else - computers, phones - their product remained a niche, and other companies don't give a damn about trying to copy them.
I'm very far from being an Apple fanboi, and I don't like iPhone, but I can't help but notice that its design very strongly affected that of the smartphones that came after it: HTC Touch, all Android phones, Palm Pre, N900 all bear those marks.
I love the icon for this article. I wonder how their software deals with palindromic abbreviations.
WTF FTW
I always thought it looked like someone drowning. or surrendering.. you know
o/ = waving hello or goodbye
\o/ = Yay!
o7 = a snappy salute
lol = dont shoot!
Ok, I don't mean to get pedantic here, but the general layout hardware wise is almost identical to my old Palm IIIc. Thinner lighter and more seamless perhaps, but that's more a result of technology changes than any design decisions. If you are referring to the software interface I'll give you that they had some influential Ideas, but again it seems somewhat obvious given the technology used. I'm not saying that isn't unique or influential, The FSM only knows how many kludgy interfaces some people can and have come up with for various types hardware, but hardly non-obvious to anyone who is willing to put some effort in to the interface design.
What does IBM want with Little Old Ladies?
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
That trademark is already held by the Ontario Mega Finance Group:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/generic/810c/
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
There is actually a command named "wtf" in my system (via fink) that does exactly the thing you/IBM mentions. Even with "over the net" update.
http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/games/wtf/
While it is tagged as "game", it is really useful especially if you are in a ssh session and someone used a weird acronym.
If it is a co incidence that this story has "wtf" icon, it is really amazing :) The command really does exactly what IBM says.
Did you hear the names of IBM Mainframe OS utilties? Those are "light" things, which are supposed to be easy to use and remember.
Lets say, one is called "IEHPROGM"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_mainframe_utility_programs
I'm not saying that isn't unique or influential, The FSM only knows how many kludgy interfaces some people can and have come up with for various types hardware, but hardly non-obvious to anyone who is willing to put some effort in to the interface design.
If you want to paraphrase it as "Apple is the only one willing to put good effort into interface design", I'm fine with that. I do not think their designs are truly revolutionary or ground-breaking; just really well executed, particularly for casual user.
The pic of three letters given to this story reads "wts" and not "wtf". The last character is the archaic form of "s" when it is the last letter in a word.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Seriously,
How is this different from the old Galacticomm "action commands" in the chat rooms? /l You're funny turns into "Joe User laughs out loud 'You're funny'. (Done in 1992)
The commands could be customized or turned off as well, also they could change based on the person doing it.
Or how about when developers at my company turned :) into graphics for smileys in realtime web chat (in 1996).
So, what are they trying to patent?
ladies...
there, the sound of hordes of lawyers humping on you.
This IS NOT a patent on the use of abbreviations.
This IS NOT a patent on the use of a lookup table to interpret abbreviations.
This IS a patent on a specific algorithm for automatically creating multiple lookup tables for abbreviations.
This IS a patent on a specific algorithm for deciding which lookup table to use based on who's talking to whom about what.
It's far enough outside my area of expertise that I don't know if it's original enough and nonobvious enough to be patentable, but it is absolutely not an Amazon one-click situation.
Editors, please actually read the articles and pay specific attention to whether or not they even vaguely match the submitter's summary. As I mentioned before, this is not my area of expertise, and I had no trouble figuring out what was actually being patented.
The original Howling Frog is a fictional character and has no UID.
My face found it impossible to reach my palm fast enough. The reason no one else has patented it before is simple "IT'S BLOODY OBVIOUS". Unless of course you're a USPTO examiner.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
This means IBM will be able to stop people using it.
I am trolling
'Lol' is a dutch word, meaning more or less 'fun' or 'funny'. You could say it instead of laughing, almost exactly like it is internationally used now in chat. Claiming it means 'laughing out loud' may explain the meaning, but is historic anything but correct.
Way before internet existed, we used the word 'lol' in the classroom like this: we would use a simple digital calculator, hold it upside down, and while mentioning 'what you get when you add lol to lol', typed in 707 + 707 and the answer (upside down) would read 'hihi' (='haha' or 'hehe',...also in dutch).
It's funny how people claim new meanings, or even 'inventing' an abbreviating. Whereas it's true roots are in dutch ppl saying 'lol' over some (international) chat, where it got picked up by you english speaking fellows.
just fyi...
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
When submitting inventions in IBM, there used to be three possible outcomes. One was it got trashed. Another was it got filed. The third was that it would be published in the IBM Journal of Research and Development. This would protect IBM in the event of some other company filing some spurious patent, by clearly demonstrating prior art. Since I am now an ex-IBMerI don't know if this still happens these days. Would "publish" not be more appropriate for such a trivial "invention" as a look-up table, which should fail any test of obviousness?
And the background colour of your chat was See you later!an, and for some reason, no philaughing out loudogists would discuss chlorolling on the floor laughinguorcarbons in it.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
IMHO you are wrong, it is humble.
It's almost like a spellchecker, except it's not, but it is, but it's slightly different so it's not. Either way, neither should be patentable in a sane society. It's just too fucking obvious.
Dear IBM:
FOAD
Free Martian Whores!