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Webvention Demanding $80k For Rollover Images
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Webvention is demanding that websites with rollover images pay $80,000 or face a patent lawsuit based on US patent 5,251,294, which it bought from Intellectual Ventures. Webvention claims to already have licensing deals with Apple, Google, Nokia, Sears, Sony and Orbitz. Right now, they're suing Abercrombie and Fitch, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dell, Gamestop, E*Trade, Neiman Marcus, Visa and ten others in a court in east Texas."
Help me out...
An interactive information environment for accessing, controlling, and using information. Using a computer, available sources of information are accessed, and components are extracted, labeled, and formed into discrete units called contexts. A user selects and rearranges context labels and their associated contents. Contexts are selected and combined into new information structures called alternates, which are combinable with contexts into preferred situations. The preferred situations in turn are combinable with the foregoing components into meta-situations. All components have labels; labels and their associated contents are interchangeably movable and copyable at the levels of these information structures, whether they are located locally or remotely, and the information structures are combinable. While a label is invoked and manipulated, its contents or description is simultaneously displayed. Each information structure can be rearranged into one or more models which can be displayed by user selection, and models can be displayed at varying levels of detail. With built-in copyright accounting, commercial control remains with information owners, while operational use is centralized in each user.
WTF does this mean, and WTF does it have to do with rollovers?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This is a perfect example why software patents need to be invalidated across the board. They do nothing to help consumers or innovation...they're just a tool used by companies to extort money from legitimate businesses.
Problem is, reviewing wrongly-granted patents takes years - 5 years for the 1-click patent and it wasn't even invalidated, just narrowed.
In other fields, this isn't a huge problem. In pharma, or the automobile industry, a threat is met with a legal team and a counter-suit. For software, when it's small businesses or even individuals that get threatened, they don't have the time and resources to play the game. It's the old joke about the manager phoning his lawyer "Some company wants me to pay them $5K for a liccnece, do I have to pay that?" "Give me $40k and I'll review it". (That number is the cost estimate that Dan Ravicher gave for giving a client a certificate of non-infringement.)
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First, the application was filed in 1990, so prior art is going to be harder to come by than you might think.
Second, the patent was already thrown into reexamination a month ago. Check reexam 90/011,229 on PAIR for the details. The law firm that filed the reexam request is Townsend, Townsend & Crew, which is a major IP firm. The request cites multiple pieces of prior art and looks pretty well put together. One of the first things the examiner did was try to call the patent owner for an interview. The examiner couldn't get ahold of them. That's a bad sign for the patent owner.
Some of the prior art citations include HyperCard and HyperText.
Third, courts have tended to temporarily halt litigation (a procedure called a stay) while they wait for the results of a reexamination. It's quite possible that this patent is about to die in the Patent Office without the lawsuits moving forward.
Sure glad we didn't have software patents back when addition, subtraction, division, geometry, and calculus was invented.
We might have been set back centuries in advancement.
An interactive information environment for accessing, controlling, and using information.
Patent legalese for "Using a computer"
Using a computer, available sources of information are accessed, and components are extracted, labeled, and formed into discrete units called contexts.
I prefer to call them directories. But some folks like "folders".
A user selects and rearranges context labels and their associated contents. Contexts are selected and combined into new information structures called alternates, which are combinable (sic) with contexts into preferred situations.
Hmm.... View->Details. Custom Folder views....
The preferred situations in turn are combinable with the foregoing components into meta-situations. All components have labels; labels and their associated contents are interchangeably movable and copyable at the levels of these information structures, whether they are located locally or remotely, and the information structures are combinable (sic). While a label is invoked and manipulated, its contents or description is simultaneously displayed. Each information structure can be rearranged into one or more models which can be displayed by user selection, and models can be displayed at varying levels of detail. With built-in copyright accounting, commercial control remains with information owners, while operational use is centralized in each user.
Am I the only one that reads this as a file system? This has basically just described viewing & renaming multiple folders with properties and permissions. Just because one adds "meta" or "abstract" on a level of a system doesn't mean they've invented something new. As a matter of fact, it means the exact opposite. It means the designer doesn't know what the user will need, so they're trying to keep the options open. As a developer I understand this can mean a lot of work in coding, but it's nothing new. Customization != Invention, and I hope the patent office can take on this 1 rule: If your patent says "meta" or "abstract", you lose, you fail, no patent for you.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
It's not the water, it's the judges, mostly T. John Ward. He's got his own rules about patent suits and runs cases very quickly by means such as not allowing lengthy discovery (which obviously puts defendants at a substantial disadvantage).
It's also a legal tarpit, as he almost always rejects transfer motions.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Patents today run for 20 years from time of application, or 17 years from date of grant (whichever is later, although the 17 year rule only applies to patents filed quite some time ago.)
The application in this case was filed before June 8, 1995, meaning that its term is 17 years from the date of issue.
This patent is expired.
Just because a patent is expired doesn't mean one can't sue for past infringement. The statute of limitations on patent infringement is six years. 35 USC 286. So, the owner of this patent can sue for infringements that occurred as far back as October 5, 2004.
However, the equitable doctrine of laches may limit an infringement suit to more recent instances of infringement.
Isn't it true that the judge these cases often comes to has a son that works for a law firm that often represents the patent trolls
1.) Patent was filed in 1993; meaning the fraudster waited till the last possible second.
2.) Patent covers a basic part of the HTML/JS spec, which is kind of like patenting a "for" loop.
3.) Lawsuit was filed in East fucking Texas.
I read the patent, all 270 pages of it, most of which is repetitive photographs of text or drawings with slight word changes to make the "patent" apply to just about any industry they could think of 20 years ago. It uses two key words: "Contextualizing" and "Alternates". Each image usually has two adjacent boxes of text which look like outline notes. Another set of images is of display device which appears to have a screen and two knobs. The screen is divided into three sections. The upper left is and index tree, the lower left is a help section, and the right side is where information relating to the selection made in the upper left panel is displayed. Most dev tools API documentation is constructed like that, in either GUI or console format, and has been since well before the patent application date.
The example code is written in BASIC and is full of "CALL nnnn"'s as a way of controlling flow. It does not contain lines about moving a mouse icon over an HTML hotspot and have an action take place. The example code does not contain the concept of call-backs or other such coding mechanisms which would be required to respond to interrupts in an event loop.
The patent is written in such a general way that what it means is open to what ever the patent holder thinks it means, or can convince a judge and/or jury it means. The code it self could apply to selecting menu options with a mouse or by tabbing and using the Enter Key.
This "patent" is a classic example of what is wrong with patenting ideas, math formulas or coding algorithms.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!