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Google Patents Browser Highlight All Button
An anonymous reader writes "Google has picked up another patent on a technology that you might think basic to the web: the highlight all button for searches in browsers. The patent will backdate to 1999 and presents an interesting problem for such software as the Firefox browser and FeedDemon RSS reader. And, in an interesting twist, Microsoft uses a similar mechanism in Windows Explorer. But Microsoft itself said that browser technology can't be separated from the operating system. Does that mean the company owes a royalty to Google for all those copies of Windows?"
No, it means software patents are shitty.
Can we just find every single patent that mentions "on a computer" or "in a browser" and have a bonfire?
But then Hitler stole it and broke my spelchecker.
...would be for Google to litigate via this patent to force dissociation of IE from the rest of Windows.
...though, ironically enough, that's sort of the same thing that ChromeOS is supposed to accomplish, isn't it?
We all win, with that one; the IE/OS intermingling has caused entirely too many security problems for the Windows OS over the years.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
Wasn't there ever a clause in patents SOMEWHERE, which said you couldn't patent something which an 'average expert in the field' could come up with?
Because there are quite a few 5 year olds who could have thought this up.
it is high-lighting all terms in all documents received from an internet search. How is that the same as a "highlight all button?" Whatever the case, highlighted searches have existed for a while, so why should this be patentable just because they batch the highlighting to all search results in a "network search"?
The PTO only really searches though the patent database for prior art. This is why all patents ought to be on public display for a year (as in Europe) before being granted.
At least, the 1999 filing date is correct, this will expire in 2019, if it's not struck down before then.
-Dave Haynie
Is that what you do when your LCD's backlight is flickering or something, hit the thing? I'm confused.
I'm seeing more and more dumb patents being filed in the past few weeks. It seems like this is only a beginning to an IP war.
What I want to know is, how is this different than highlighting searched words in word processors and other types of editors? This is something that has been around since computers were the size of deep freezers.
Proverbs 21:19
> How can existing ideas be legally patented? They can't, right? So unless you're a patent troll, then why bother?
try debating that 75 years from now when the actual details are sketchy, no one is around to remember and the patent details become 'fact'.
Shut the fuck up, quit giving them ideas!
FC Closer
Actually, ideas aren't patentable, though methods or processes can be.
"Existing" inventions may still be patentable if they only exist in secret, for example; and the question of *when* the invention exists is relevant, too. For example, the summary suggests the relevant date here is 1999. So the question would be whether it existed, or was obvious, in 1999. (It gets more complicated, but that's the basic idea.) Merely because other people have developed the same invention since the patent application was filed doesn't mean the patent is invalid or pre-existing.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Please fix the title of this article, typos are annoying. Thank you.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
FTFPatent: "Filed: October 18, 2004"
That would only fit a rather expansive definition of "the past few weeks."
Whatever happened to "don't be evil?"
Wouldn't a retroactive patent be, by its very nature, either pointless or irrelevant? I mean, if there's anything in the past that could infringe on the backdated patent, then it should invalidate that very patent. And if there's nothing historical, then what's the point of backdating? Just say "your term is ten years shorter" and call it a day.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
This is a patent for a lightbulb appearing over your head indicating how tall you are.
meep
what about this patent?
No, it means y'all need to read the fucking patent. It doesn't patent anything going on in the browser. It patents the feature in Google search where it alters the document to highlight certain words, and then pass that modified document back to the client.
> am I missing something?
Yes. Deep pockets.
Not CTRL-A, reread description. It's more like grep.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
The term "technology" nowadays means "a few trivial lines of code."
Both Lynx terminal sofware(1992), and Skylink custom terminal software(AKA skyterm) for BBS's had a 'highlight all' button. This has literally no legs to stand on.
Om, nomnomnom...
Patents usually cover the implementation. that is the method for doing something. But the question is what is the something. For example, perhaps google is patenting a method for highlighting words (e.g. applying colors via html tags). That would probably not be an amazingly troublesome patent as it would be easy to evade, and would be patentable if no one had thought of the method they used. But maybe the something is more basic. Perhaps it's the very idea of allowing a user to find the words he searched for quickly by means of highlighting. That would be troubling. And also seemingly idiotic since word highligting in search has been around for ever: for example man pages in unix. The idea of extending it to the web is not original.
So my guess is that it's a particular method for doing the highlighting. Maybe it's some AJAX protocol or something specific. Or some step in a giant map reduce that allows scaled delivery of colorized web pages..
I tried reading the patent but the boiler plate made me think that they are trying to make this a general and patenting the idea of highlighting. But there's too much prior art for that to hold.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Much as I dislike the patent, they did apply for the patent in Dec 1999, and it would have been available on the patent office database since then. I don't think you can claim good faith by ignoring an existing, published, patent claim.
Windows 98 (but not 95 or 95 OSR2) has this feature in the system Help (winhelp.exe). I have every old version of Windows in VMware, in their default install state with auto-revert.
Just load a fresh Win98 install, press F1, and go to the Search tab. Whatever you search for is highlighted in blue in the help topic that appears on the right side.
The Options button at the top can disable this if you select "Highlighting Off" and you can turn it back on by selecting "Highlighting On"
winhelp.exe is dated May 11, 1998. Must be prior art.
Morphing Software
Whatever happened to "don't be evil?"
it turns out we have been reading that slogan wrong. it should read "don't beevil" but no one is quite sure what the word "beevil" means. But they definitely try not to beevil at google.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The authors of vim know they copied Google's highlight all idea. I hope they do the honorable thing.
Which still seems pretty obvious, even circa 1999. However since MS has been shaking down Android manufacturers with similarly questionable patents lately, I have a hard time getting upset about this. If Google were to go on some kind of suing spree an actually went after Mozilla, then that would be pretty upsetting. Being granted the patent does seems very dumb and it puts the problems of patenting software in stark relief (some may say it highlights them ;) ). But if it's some kind of defense versus MS, then I won't lose any sleep.
meep
That only makes the crime of Patents even worse.
It means that every imbecile that is applying for a Patent is suppressing the free flow of ideas, without even having been awarded a Patent and its protection.
Theoretically, this means that you might not have rolled out some software because someone has applied for a Patent, the applicant fails to be granted the monopoly protection of the State, and then all the years that the software has been less than what it could have been are lost forever, including all the cumulative iterations and user feedback etc etc. that you would have gained had you put the idea in the builds. This is not the way things should be. People should not have to be constantly looking over their shoulders or worrying that one day, years down the line they will be sued by some behemoth.
Complete insanity. No doubt about it.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
It's only evil if they start suing. Otherwise, the more defensive patents they have, the better (for them).
It'd be nice if Google made an Open Source patent pledge like IBM (kind of) did.
All I want for [holiday of your choice] is for you to not be evil.
In fishing (yes with an f) there is movement called catch and release. The idea is to go out and fish, take pictures of what you catch, and then release them back into the environment.
I would love for some of these software companies to start practicing catch and release with some of these obvious patents. Fine, get them issued so no one else can troll with them, but then release them to the general public.
Don't get me wrong, software patents are stupid, especially for generic trivial ideas, but if they are going to hang around we need to encourage good stewardship.
-Xanthos
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
Wait, hasn't emacs and unix's "man" pages been doing this forever? In emacs I can type ctrl-s and then a search term and all instances are highlighted. In man I can type /searchterm and all instances are highlighted.
And both of these existed LONG before 1999. How the hell did this get a patent?
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
I wish they would stop this stupid shit. Seriously. It's getting beyond ridiculous.... sigh
Sig?! Sig?! We don't need no stinking sig!!
the whole Patent debacle is an excrescence of the predatory and mafia like state; the sooner we are rid of it the better.
In a single moment, when the State is removed, the Software Patent regime will cease to exist
Death to the State and its evil Patents!
So...
I should overthrow my government because a broken patent system?
They need to go away, or be changed.
About 50 years ago they made sense.
But in this day and age, we're progressing to fast, and these patents do nothing but line pockets, stifle progress, and cause tons of BS lawsuits.
Is this somehow different than "Select All" that has been around for decades?
In a single moment, when the State is removed, the Software Patent regime will cease to exist, and all the benefits we can expect (as detailed in 'Against Intelectual Monopoly') will begin to emerge, starting with the new software that will start to flow freely, unencumbered by the monopolies granted by criminal and inherently violent governments. Medicine will be cheaper, engines more efficient; everything will improve and the pace of innovation will increase by orders of magnitude.
In a single moment, when the State is removed, the Software Patent regime will cease to exist, and all the benefits we can expect (as witnessed during the French Revolution) will begin to emerge, starting with new leaders that will start the blood to flow freely, unencumbered by conscience. Medicine will be cheaper until the supplies are exhausted, engines will be available if you grease the right palms, everything will degrade and innovation will be the least of your concerns as your wealth will decrease by orders of magnitude.
But hey, at least we got rid of those lousy software patents.
Ever heard of the baby and the bathwater?
No? How about the frying pan and the fire?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If I were in the same position, I would be patenting everything I could afford to just as these companies are. The reason would NOT be to sue others, but rather to avoid having my company being sued by the patent trolls.
Keep moving, nothing to see. If Google should ever sue anyone, especially Microsoft, and particularly when it's done in retaliation, then we can finally lay the "do no evil" motto to rest.
So you have sit on the product that includes a similar feature for 11 years?!?
For 11 years, you have no way of knowing if it's valid and the fact that it wasn't granted "quickly" would normally be a dead giveaway that it's crap. It's a completely unworkable system.
Claim 1:
...provide a tool bar within a web browser application window, the tool bar including a button, for activating a highlighting operation...
Yep, they're patenting a browser feature. Three slight variations (claims 1, 7, 12), but all browser features.
It appears they're patenting a browser button that will highlight the things you searched for, in any page. I don't use Google Toolbar, but it appears to be already implemented.
With no browser additions, the user has to search for something with Google, go to a page, then open find and search for the exact same terms to find where the relevant information is on the page. With this patented idea implemented, one only has to search for pages, go to one, then click a single button to go to the information on the page.
The summary is, as usual, misleading. To my knowledge, Windows itself has no such feature, nor any other program I've seen for that matter.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Computer Library did this circa 1993, and I seriously doubt they were the first.
I'm sorry you misunderstood. What I meant is all software patents are shitty not just this one in particular.
A device, comprising: a memory to store instructions; and a processor to execute the instructions in the memory to: provide a tool bar within a web browser application window, the tool bar including a button, for activating a highlighting operation, and an input box, present a document within the web browser application window, receive a search term within the input box of the tool bar after presenting the document within the web browser application window, receive selection of the button to activate the highlighting operation after receiving the search term within the input box, change, without user intervention and in response to receiving the selection of the button, a characteristic of the search term in the document, presented within the web browser application window, to form a modified document, and present the modified document, where an occurrence of the search term, within the modified document, has the changed characteristic.
All that text, with just one period.
Want your patent granted? Just write a mind-numbingly long description (with one large run-on sentence) that sounds intelligent and unique.
I should patent that technique.
A patent application, comprising: a sentence to store commas; and an unintelligibly simple concept to: be placed within the description of the patent, including words of such quality which, when read by common English-speakers, produce the numbing of minds, a characteristic of confusingly long sentences, for feigning the appearance of intelligence, wherewith to produce uniqueness, in an illusion of the mind, rather than the reality of ubiquity, to procure the granting of the patent, where the USPTO, within the scope of software patents, has not as of yet, hired grammar trolls.
But Google is patenting them in YELLOW, Microsoft did it in BLUE. Clearly not the same thing.
With no browser additions, the user has to search for something with Google, go to a page, then open find and search for the exact same terms to find where the relevant information is on the page. With this patented idea implemented, one only has to search for pages, go to one, then click a single button to go to the information on the page.
That might be in some of the dependent claims, though they're unclear. The independent claims are all quite specific - the browser displays a document, then you type some search terms into a text entry field and press a button, then the browser visually highlights those terms in that document. No cleverness involving search results pages is required to infringe the patent.
And you need to remember how Windows help did exactly what you're describing since (at least) Windows 98. A 12 year old features getting patented now seems to support the 'software patents are shitty' theory.
Securing a patent is not evil.
The use of the protection afforded by the patent may or may not be evil.
it's not like the browser making the occurrences of a word a different color when you search for something. it sounds more like it modifies actual documents (like those on a network share) and modifies those documents before sending them back to to the user.
In accordance with the purpose of the invention as embodied and broadly described herein, a system highlights search terms in documents distributed over a network. The system generates a search query that includes a search term and, in response to the search query, receives a list of one or more references to documents in the network. The system receives selection of one of the references and retrieves a document that corresponds to the selected reference. The system then highlights the search term in the retrieved document.
In another implementation consistent with the present invention, a web browser includes instructions for obtaining a search term; instructions for generating a search query from the search term; and instructions for obtaining a list of one or more references to documents distributed over a network using the search query. The web browser further includes instructions for retrieving a document corresponding to one of the one or more references; instructions for highlighting each occurrence of the search term in the retrieved document; and instructions for displaying the highlighted document to a user
Hasn't forum software had this for years? I'm not sure how well this would hold up against a REAL defense.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Actually, in this case, the earliest publication was the issuance of the patent on the parent application in January 2005, and the claims in that patent are different from the ones in the most recent one. Automatic publication of applications at 18 months after the effective filing date didn't start until late 2001.
Curious as to how this affects plugins like FireFox's SearchWP that has been around since Feb 2004
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/376/versions/
And how did Google get it back dated to 1999? That was before Chrome even existed and we were in the Internet Explorer 4.0 days and Netscape.
Am I the only one who when they first found out that google's motto was "Don't be evil" they immediately suspected them of actually being evil?
I read the patent and WebSeeker from Blue Squirrel appears to me to be prior art.
It was developed in 1994 and released in 1995. It is a meta search tool that pre-dates the patent and pre-dates Google. It is web and browser based. It has a toolbar that allows you to enter a search term. The pages are modified to highlight the search terms in the browser. While it was never patented, it is prior and appears to be the same thing as the patent claims.
It was developed at a time when every search engine such as Lycos, HotBot, AltaVista, etc. had a portion of the web indexed. WebSeeker searched them all simultaneously, and combined the results into a single list while removing duplicates. The "Filter Find" feature of WebSeeker would downloaded every page, re-index, and display the pages with your keyword highlighted in an embedded IE browser instance.
WebSeeker still exists, still sells, but does not have the market that it once did. Ironically, the dominance of Google meant that searching using multiple search engines wasn't needed anymore. It still works great to keep on top of a specific narrow search term because it remembers what you've seen and monitors for new pages. Still useful for research or competitive analysis in a narrow field.
I was one of the original developers on the project.
Forum software before 1999, perhaps... but not browsers. Patents are very specific. "Like X, but on a browser!" is a valid claim, if X only claims the feature for forum software.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The US is the only country in the world where you can patent software or business methods. In the rest of the world, only original inventions solving a technical problem are patentable, software, mathematical algorithms, numbers, letters, etc. are not patentable. It would be possible for a foreign company to ignore US software patents if they didn't do any business in the US. I personally think the US patent system is all about protectionism, not about protecting intellectual property. Having software patents may prevent foreign companies from introducing products to the US market, eventually leading to the US being a second-tier country.
If you really want to read some stupid patents, look at some of the business methods. I read one about a method for using pictures to instruct non-english speaking workers how to do cleaning. It's number is US Patent: 5,851,117 dated Dec. 22, 1998, "Building Block Training Systems and Training Methods"
The summary is, as usual, misleading. To my knowledge, Windows itself has no such feature, nor any other program I've seen for that matter.
0_o Opera had that feature for years ...
if you do inline search (by pressing . or , and typing what to look for) it will highlight every occurence of what ever you're searching for real time. (all it's missing support for regexp )
so yes, it is shitty.
The concept that a feature in another piece of software is somehow novel and doesn't constitute prior art is absurd.
I'm not an emacs user, but I figure it included both a web browser and the 'highlight all' feature well before 1999. This prior art should at least make the feature patent-free if you were to implement it as a checkbox instead of a button, which is (imho) the better way to do it anyway. I'm sure there's other prior art out there as well.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
The PTO only really searches though the patent database for prior art.
Isn't there some requirement that the patent be non-obvious as well? Highlighting the matches in the search of a document seems not only obvious but in fact about they only way there is of doing a search. It would be a pretty useless search if all it did was say "yes, this 400 page PDF matches your search criteria" and then let you hunt down where.
The patent will backdate to 1999
And so be valid for only 5 more years? What happens when it starts taking >=17 years to review and grant a patent?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Could you highlight all the patents you think are shitty?
You actually typed "y'all." Ugh.
Safari's search field already darkens the page and highlights all search results in yellow. I'm certain other applications on various platforms have done this as well.
I think that software patents should be banned. Is anyone with me on this?
Er... sorry, my mistake - pre-grant publications started 29 November 2000, not in late 2001.
It makes perfect sense. Patents grant a monopoly on a particular technology for a length of time ideally long enough for a competent inventor-turned-businessman to recoup their investment and be rewarded for their idea.
It does take a significant amount of thought to take an existing idea and adapt it to another use. A forum is composed mainly of flat threads and very clearly-defined and well-regulated content. Webpages are far more complex, with some elements hidden, and no clean determination of what's meaningful and what isn't. There's an investment in the adaptation, and the patent reflects that by granting the monopoly, but only among browsers. If the forum idea were patented, it'd need to be included by reference.
Even if the new patent did cover a pre-existing idea, it needs to be patented to be clear-cut prior art. Without a well-defined patent, slight variations can and should be patented as novel non-obvious improvements.
Patents do not imply "I thought of this first", they imply "I'm did it exactly like this first."
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I pressed Ctrl+A, and my printer spitted out a royalty bill.
Table-ized A.I.
Google patents "not being evil"
I don't want to learn hieroglyphs.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Look it up. It's a plural form of "you" that English otherwise lacks. And I might point out, you typed "Ugh."
Why, yes. It's quite simple actually.
SELECT * FROM patents WHERE method LIKE '%software%'
Google is generally against software patents:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Google
That site lists no known offensive patent litigation, and a quote of over 50 patent lawsuits against Google.
In this particular case, it is really quite simple:
- If the patent is granted, it means the USPTO thinks it is patentable.
- If Google did not patent it, someone else would, and they'd be suing Google right now.
- Successfully defending a patent suit is more expensive than getting a patent, and losing a patent suit can cost massive amounts.
Like this: Windows Help Search, but on the internets.
loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
Better yet, patent it in white, since white contains all the colors. Then you've got it covered. Wait - almost everything is highlighted in white! You could sue everybody!
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I should overthrow my government because a broken patent system?
Yes. And your sentence missing a verb.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I should overthrow my government because a broken patent system?
Yes. And your sentence missing a verb.
If you are going to be a grammar snob, learn about grammar first. "Overthrow" is a verb, the missing "of" is a preposition in this sentence. "Of" can be a verb when it is paired off with an auxiliary verb, but that is not the case with this sentence. A verb being added to the dependent clause at the end could 'fix' the sentence I guess, but I can't think of a verb to add that would in any way preserve the meaning of the the original thought. I am not sure if you are a prescriptive or descriptive linguist, but I am descriptive. If you were to ask one of my linguistics professors how necessary the "of" is to the meaning of that sentence they would tell you that it is a syntactic morpheme that has more to do with the inflectional morphology of the language then the actual meaning of the sentence.
Basically, you are nitpicking over a typo, you obviously understood the meaning of the sentence. Which means you had nothing better to rebuke my comment with.
However, if your point was to point out that I need to proof-read my posts better? Than point made, point taken, and your right. I will try harder to match the high standards set by internet message boards in the future.