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Man Claiming He Invented the Internet Sues
wiedzmin writes "A low-profile Chicago biologist, Michael Doyle, and his company Eola Technologies, who has once won a $521m patent lawsuit against Microsoft, claim that it was actually he and two co-inventors who invented, and patented, the "interactive web" before anyone else, back in 1993. Doyle argues that a program he created to allow doctors to view embryos over the early Internet, was the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a web browser window. He is therefore seeking royalties for the use of just about every modern interactive Internet technology, like watching videos or suggesting instant search results. Dozens of lawyers, representing the world's biggest internet companies, including Yahoo, Amazon, Google and YouTube are acting as defendants in the case, which has even seen Tim Berners-Lee testify on Tuesday."
It's come to this now? How bad does it have to get before the entire system is scrapped?
Many of the companies named has defendants have used patent laws to their advantage. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, especially since Tim Berners-Lee, who is completely against software patents, is set to testify.
We don't live in Shouldland.
Why has Al Gore gone mad? Why is he suing so many companies?
I mean... if you file your claim decades after everyone was violating your patient isn't that your fault at a certain point?
I know big companies are basically forced to defend their trademark and copyrights or else risk that other people can do it with impunity. There's some requirement that you protest when this sort of thing happens.
So... shouldn't he have protested like... forever ago?
For the sake of argument, if his claims are all valid, they should be void now because he didn't act on them until now.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This joke is sooooooo Old!
The only saving grace is that it never gets old :)
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think this is a sign of the times, because if $521 million isn't enough, I blame inflation. This troll is obviously starving and homeless because there not a bridge in existence big enough. Also, I invented the light bulb in 1995. Pay up bitches.
Again, more reasons for IP reform, IP needs to be redefined, and a good number of vauge and overly generalized patents need to be thrown out.
the review proccess for granting patents needs and overhaul, as well as restrictions and background checks on who can be a patent clerk and stingent enforcement.
Then we might see the end of frivolous tech law suits which only harm actually developers and artists.
This guy claims he "allowed users to interact with images inside of a web browser window" ?? So a web browser was invented before the web itself? Can we ask him if the chicken or egg came first?
Al Gore would probably have a better claim than this guy (if he actually made such a claim, which he didn't).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
You think that means they share a legal department and legal responsibilities?
"Internet" != "Interactive Web"
Why sensationalize this lawsuit? It's absurd enough on its own merit.
So you not only sued Microsoft, you actually won 500 million. Regardless of whether this was a dick move on your part or not, good for you, you are now set for life (or 3).
Now why on Earth would you risk it all by going into litigation again?
His patent is about as valid as 99.999% of all computer-related patents from the last 25 years. Maybe if he sues the entire planet into oblivion, someone will admit how screwed up software patents are.
Ah, how I love my afternoon fantasies...
So the circus had finally started for REAL at last ...
Read radical news here
PUH-LEEEZ /.'s only post neutral, unbiased, non-hyperbole containing headlines, summaries and links to articles that are characteristically the same way. "Patent Troll Claims Ownership of Interactive Web – And Might Win" clearly shows bias and ad hominem towards the subject of the article by the author and publisher. It's probably just me, but that offends me and hampers my ability to only read fair and balanced information on the internets.
On a practical note, since this was an 'invention' in 1993, wouldn't the patent expire next year anyway (20 year patent life?) In that case, won't somebody like IBM just tie this up in the courts and give the lawyers something to chew on until it runs out anyway?
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
If it gets tied up in court until 2013 the patents will have expired, would he still have the ability to use after that point?
I was interacting with images (masturbating to porn) on my computer way before 1993 (BBS's in 1985).
Add to that what image file format did he use.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
He may as well "let it ride" and sue everyone for everything.
Gently reply
Even if combining file transfer [ftp] and image scrolling is patent-legally considered "novel", there is the question of damages. 1993 patents ran out (in the US) in 2010, so he cannot get any ongoing damages.
Optaining "back-damages" would be highly dependant on legal procedure, but I doubt he would be entitled to [m]any if he did not inform the alleged infringers during the period of their alleged infringement. It's not like browser coders were hard to see, find or email. Just another troll.
I believe the company is actually Eolas.
You're right, oops.
Bow before me, for I am root.
Too late, that's already been done: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/07/02/australia.wheel/
Bow before me, for I am root.
And this is why universities like UC should be forbidden by law to apply for patents and required to put all discoveries in the public domain. It makes them or their former faculty pull stupid stunts like this where protecting revenue from commercial spin-offs is more important than doing science and research.
Can we ask him if the chicken or egg came first?
Or is this more like claiming the chicken omelette came before either?
Trolling so hard... it's full of stars!
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
I've been told it's Chuck Norris.
Internet != Web, sheesh. The Internet was around long before Doyle or Sir Tim or whoever invented the Web in 1993.
You'd think editors might know that by now, even here on /.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Am I understanding the patent correctly in that it requires an external application to be infringing? So that something like ActiveX or QuickTime plugin would infringe, but pure HTML5 and Javascript (because there is no Interprocess Communication) would be non-infringing?
Based on the claims in this Patent, can anyone explain how Eolas is not in the right? I mean, I get that they didn't implement anything, but this was filed in 1994. It seems like anyone supporting the patent system would have to admit defeat on this (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc). If you're generally against software patents, that seems like the only argument. I don't see anything obvious about this from 1994.
It seems like the ViolaWWW would have been prior art that nullified this patent, but apparently the claims were not clear enough?
I'm sorry but I have to inform you that I have the patent on receiving royalties at P.O. Boxes, so if you'll just remit your received royalties to me I'll allow you to continue receiving royalties to pass on to me.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
That is a direct quote from Al Gore in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on March 9, 1999. Now, his wording was off, and he later corrected himself by saying that he meant he helped promote the internet, and he pushed bills that moved the internet forward--he did not mean to claim actual credit for it's invention. However, the joke is still funny, and he DID claim it (albeit through poor wording).
Back in them Old BBS days we Had RIPScript and RIPScript 2
There was also a Graphical BBS Engine called Roboboard and its upgrade Roboboard/FX
There were systems like Prodigy, and AOL which had images...
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What I want to know is: "How did 'inventing a web browser plugin' get turned into 'invented a network that has been in place since 1969'?" Seriously, I want to stab samzenpus in the face for letting this through. What's next? Will Bill Gates be said to have invented the microchip?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Note that someone seems to be confusing the Internet with the World Wide Web, so I am not sure which he is claiming IPR on. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW) at CERN in 1989. The Internet dates at the latest to the start of the NSFNET (1985). Either way, this seems to indicate that a patent issued in 1993 may have some issues with prior art.
That is a direct quote from Al Gore
Taken out-of-context and by your own admission, not what he meant to say. That's why it tiring and not funny any more.
Wow! You must have a whole team of comedy writers behind you to come up with such original wit.
Ah, so someone shouldn't be held responsible for what they DID say, only what they MEANT to say. I'll remember that in the future.
Not what he meant to say, yes. Taken out of context, no.
He should win. Then finally it will become blatantly obvious that copyrights and patents must be abolished.
You can't handle the truth.
And so prescriptive rights should apply if the patent holder doesn't defend his/her rights for an extended period of time.
Have gnu, will travel.
Bill Gates inventing 1 and 0?
Mark Anthony Collins
he took the initiative in (acquiring funding for) creating the internet
Mark Anthony Collins
I filed for a patent on this joke in 1999, and, as soon as it is approved, I plan to sue everyone who ever used it into bankruptcy.
Hypertext had been around since the 1980's. Apple II hypercard
anyone? There were many products before that.
Berners Lee released HTML by early 1991.
no, chuck norris had the internet before it was invented.
But then, that was on ARPA NET.
He owes me royalties.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The Trojan Room Coffee Pot cam predates this by two years, though that was on a local network and didn't use a web browser. It didn't appear on the Internet until November, 1993.
The Netscape Fishcam shortly followed. I believe the first outdoor cam was at an antartic research station shortly after that.
Moving images were enabled by the "server-push" feature in Netscape's server and client. I'm assuming this used that technology, which of necessity would have pre-dated this claim. I would think the use case would be obvious.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
Anyone ever hear about Ted Nelson? He invented hypermedia in the mid-'60s - it just took another 20+ years for the wires and connections to physically realize it as the internet.
I'm sorry but I have to inform you that I have the patent on remitting received royalties so you'll have to remit your received remitted royalties to my totally not a P.O.Box.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The "patent" fig 9 discusses how to get the NCSA Mosaic 2.4 browser to display his object. He did NOT invent the Internet. He did NOT even invent NCSA Mosaic. He claims to have invented a way to view *his* 3D imaging object within a standard (at the time) browser. While there are some applicatons for viewing 3D within a browser, but I don't think they all need X-Windows protocols and the specific framework laid out in this patent to work within that particular viewing paradigm. Lets not panic just yet.
i hope he wins and keeps on suing and so does everybody suing everybody
...to "How many times can Slashdotters make the same Al Gore joke in a single article comments section? Click below to find out!"
Note that "create" is not the same as "invent."
From Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn :
No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the
Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among
people in government and the university community. But as the two people
who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the
Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a
Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to
our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his
role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the
initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have
argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover,
there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's
initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving
Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and
promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it
is timely to offer our perspective..
I know both of these gentlemen, and getting them to agree on anything is not easy. Anyone, at this late date, who thinks its funny to denigrate Al Gore in this fashion is, IMHO, an idiot.
Doesn't whoever wrote the summary know that there's a difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web? Or that the summary doesn't even make sense unless you make that distinction?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
The lawsuit was filed Oct 06th, 2009.
There are two patents on the case.
US Patent No. 5838906
Filing Date 1994-10-17
Grant Date 1998-11-17
US Patent No. 7599985
Filing Date 2002-08-09
Grant Date 2009-10-06
Clearly the second one was the one that they were waiting on to sue people over.
"One can not truly appreciate Shakespeare until you have heard it in it's original Klingon" -Star Trek
Old, yes. But, at least five moderators + me think it's funny enough to CTRL_F gore, just so we could read it.
sig: sauer
It took them this long to sue? I realize that it may not have been granted immediately, but I recall using the web in the early 90's read before 93 and viewing images and text through a web browser.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
IIRC a submarine patent is a bit more involved than that.
1. File Patent Application.
2. Wait a while.
3. Submit something that delays the Application process.
4. Repeat 2-3 until you decide its time to let your Patent be Granted.
5. Profit.
What the PTO did to combat this is starting in 1995(?) they changed it where the life of the patent is 20 years past the application date, instead of 17 years past the grant date.
"One can not truly appreciate Shakespeare until you have heard it in it's original Klingon" -Star Trek
This guy claims he "allowed users to interact with images inside of a web browser window" ?? So a web browser was invented before the web itself? Can we ask him if the chicken or egg came first?
He is a biologist. He would be the one to ask.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)
Official release 1993, pre-release versions were available in 1992.
My university was one of the first to have a "high speed" link then. IIRC, we had a dedicated DS1 which allowed those of us in the engineering school to view some of the very first pictures available on the web using pre-release Mosaic beta loads. Several of the grad students at the time were working with folks doing the primary research on surrounding technologies.
I *think* it was 1992 (my second year) when we started using it pretty heavily. A favorite passtime was downloading "questionable" pics from the various alt.xxx.pictures newsgroups and opening mosaic windows on other people's Sun workstations, so that the lab admin would kick them out... That lab admin, wasn't too sharp.
Good times, good times!
nt
Al Gore claimed to have invented the intarwebs
Jesus F. Christ, give this a rest. This wasn't funny the first time I heard this bullshit in about 1999, and it sure hasn't improved with age.
But the nerd rage that follows is always hilarious !
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why is it all these companies are based in Texas? Lax patent laws or something?
chuck norris communicates digitally by punching you in the face with his left fist for zero and right fist for one.
In November 1993 the owner of a local computer store (and a friend of mine) asked me whether it would be possible to sell computer parts over the Internet. In December 1993 that site went live and was among the first retailers on the Internet (Bottomline Computers...Discount computer parts that protect your company's bottom line!) The system was only semi-automated, as the server simply wrote the transaction to a text file, encrypted it, and emailed the encrypted file to the owner for manual processing, but that was a state-of-the-art bleeding edge concept at the time.
The site flopped and was shut down less than a year later. Back in early 1994 most people still equated online shopping with catalog shopping, with visions of dodgy JC Whitney parts and cheap knockoffs dancing in their heads. It was still an untrusted concept.
I never even thought about patenting e-commerce. I could have been rich! (of course, I seem to recall looking at a few other sites doing similar things as part of the development process, so I'm 99% sure we weren't actually the first).
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Yes...and Eolas was founded in 1994. Not to mention, Arpanet was invented in 1968 and patented in 1970, which was followed in 1986, when one LAN branched out to form a new competing network, called NSFnet (National Science Foundation Network). NSFnet first linked together the five national supercomputer centers, then every major university, and it started to replace ARPAnet (which was finally shutdown in 1990). NSFnet formed the backbone of what we call the Internet today. All of this happened before 1993...so Mr Doyle is giant douche...period.
Keywords for the NSA overthrow oppressive regime true believers marathon Manhatten the financial district blueprints I
Steve Jobs invented inventions.
A web browser can be used on an intranet/LAN without any world-wide internet existing. The Internet predates the "web" by decades. Al Gore did invent the Internet. He invented the idea of opening up the government owned and held backbone to private companies for the express purpose of reselling access to this network of networks. HTML was a creation based on earlier markup languages that wasn't novel or unique, but some Europeans tweaked previous existing markup languages until they felt it sufficiently unique to call it something else, so we let them claim they invented the web.
But yes, this guy claims that he invented interactions within a web browser window before the "web" or any browsers for the "web" existed. Insane, but no more so than 95% of patents.
Learn to love Alaska
What's next? Will Bill Gates be said to have invented the microchip?
Wasn't that Kim Jong-il?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
That's an old, tired, indulgent falsehood posing as a joke.
It irritates me not just because it's unfunny, but more because it takes a certain kind of mindset to think it's funny. You have to like beating down on others for their being dumb (whether that's actually what's going on), while simultaneously making yourself feel superior.
Basically, you have to be a bully at heart.
I find it irritating seeing bullies smugly picking on people. At least this "joke" serves a good purpose: to spotlight who's a bully.
Patents are not the threat to the Internet-- I believe that the root cause of this problem is giving the government too much power. These douchebag lawyers are simply exploiting the government's power to coerce and threaten people with violence. Minimize or abolish the government, and these problems will go away...
Unfortunately the same guy who claims he invented the internet also claims to have a patent on scrapping the patent system, so we'll never find out how bad it would have to get.
This is silly. We all know that Al Gore invented the Internet!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology
You've been reading too much Onion
http://www.theonion.com/articles/microsoft-patents-ones-zeroes,599
Chip Morningstar, call your office.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
While he has no chance in topping Kim Jong Un, the Iranian president or Assad presently president of Syria, he has high hopes of becoming the most hated person of the week. It is like telling everybody you threw the shit in the fan.
Now he could invent the sue for internet sueing.
It's not true, but it's still funny. There never was a redneck who shot his buddy when the 911 operator said "let's make sure he's dead" either, but it's still funny.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
The butthurt -- it burns, my precious, oh yes IT BURNS!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
If you look at the patent, he's not claiming to have "invented the internet". The patent is basically for use of the embed tag (which is described quite elaborately in the patent).
The patent is technically for a "Distributed Hypermedia Method For Automatically Invoking External Application Providing Interaction And Display Of Embedded Objects Within A Hypermedia Document".
Free unix account: freeshell.org
Granted there were plenty of hypertext languages before HTML, you cannot get all pissy because someone else created a better, much more robust language & accompanying protocol.
Ummm... correct me if I'm wrong, but ("$521m lawsuit" + "current lawsuit" = "low profile") seems to be the logical equivilent of a divide by zero error.
I am saddened that a Slashdot user made that mistake.
Daniel Bell (a sociologist) coined the term 'post-industrial'. And in this book on that subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Post-Industrial-Society-Venture-Forecasting/dp/0465097138/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2
he made the assertion that post-industrial society would need a worldwide network to connect individuals and organizations.
The book was first published in 1976.
Impossible to work. On the first bit you will kill the modem, the carrier and the PC on the other side of the line
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
With this "first to file" silliness vs. "first to invent" -- does prior art still apply? I worked for a company around that time that remoted their entire GUI over the network, including distributed interactive applications and a hypertext system called "HyperWeb".
I also remember a service available to "Agri-Business" in the mid 1980's that used a specialized set-top terminal to provide services to farmers. You could get weather reports and look at market values, etc., and interact with several other utilities that I don't remember. It supposedly had more success in Canada than in the U.S. I only knew about it because a friend of mine was the originator of the "Agri-Business" style morning news program, which was a big deal at the time. His program sold these things. He gave me his terminal as a novelty when the service died due to the internet. It had a built-in 1200-baud modem and reasonably functional terminal software, in addition to the specialized firmware.
It also seems that several of the Prodigy patents would apply. Some were filed as early as 1988. This one: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,347,632.PN.&OS=PN/5,347,632&RS=PN/5,347,632 , which got broken apart, with this one: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=14&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=filepp.INNM.&OS=IN/filepp&RS=IN/filepp being the one I was remembering as being applicable.
It's like a sick joke - for it to be a broadly known and utilised fact that courts are clearly inconsistent as to how they handle cases from place to place, and nothing being done about it.
I mean, can't they implement some sort of moderation (and meta-moderation) system for judges and start tossing out the ones who fail?
FGD 135
Actually he did get elected President. He won the popular vote and a study by the New York Times and several other press organizations found that a full recount of the Florida votes would have given the state and thus the Presidency to him. But the Supreme Court stepped in circumvented the normal process and installed Bush .
Unfortunately "first to file" means your honest, hard-won invention that benefits all mammalkind will be stolen by an eeval corpra$hun.
Only if an employee of said evil corporation invented a product or process equivalent to "your honest, hard-won invention" but filed a patent before you published it. You see, first to file doesn't scrap the requirement of novelty; it affects only patent vs. patent disputes. Defensive publication of how to build your invention remains a viable way to get your prior art on the record and preclude any patents. So "git" your source code out there.
Patent trolls, dentists... and guns.
99% Invisible-46- Vulcanite Dentures
well worth a listen.
*sarcasm on*
Well, everything looks to be in order. I say he wins. The only question now is how much to award him. Zuckerberg is getting $5 billion for creating a single company (that creates nothing). So, for creating the entire multimedia Internet ... I guess $5 trillion should be about right.
*sarcasm off*
Sorry, guys. Our global financial system is broken.
Mostly because the Internet - and the world wide web - existed prior to 1993. In fact, in 1990 the amateur radio operators in the Puget Sound area used a tcp/ip over 2-meter network that was linked to the Internet through one ham's occupation at a major industrial corporation in the area. Most of us weren't using a GUI web browser but we were using Lynx ( http://people.cc.ku.edu/~grobe/early-lynx.html ).
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Kodak! The innovation is the interactive way he used his hand to move the images around.
As a third-party observer, the funny part is watching people fall all over themselves to be the first to correct the OP's statement.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
What's next? Will Bill Gates be said to have invented the microchip?
Wasn't that Kim Jong-il?
You're thinking of the cure for cancer.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Oh Al ! Say it aint so ! Don't worry, you'll always be the inventor to me !
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Sorry, this ain't gonna fly. The NeXT system was including video (and spreadsheets, and audio, and other stuff) in documents of all kinds including NextMail years before, and Tim Berners Lee was inspired by and based his WorldWideWeb program on the NeXT's comprehensive object-based system that made that easy. I used to have a copy of WorldWideWeb running on a NeXT, and I think it had video in it even then.
Back in 1990-1991 I also worked as a product manager for a product called PaperSight(tm) (surprise - it's still around, and now works on many platforms!) that provided network-based document management including change control, annotations, audio and video notes, access control, scanning, OCR and vectorizing, and many other features. (PaperSight, by the way, is also prior art for two of the patents that Microsoft is trying to enforce against Barnes and Noble).
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
One thing you can be sure about, is that eggs existed millions of years before chickens.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds -- Albert Einstein
I really get tired of hearing that the Supremes gave Bush Florida:
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000/ disagrees with your statement that Gore won. The only scenario that would have possibly given Gore the victory was counting "overvotes" (multiple candidates marked on a single ballot) statewide. Gore did NOT request this scenario in court, and besides counting multiple candidates on a single ballot would be ridiculous. So the legal decision by the US Supreme Court was consistent with the vote.
Don't even start with calling factcheck.org a right wing mouthpiece.
NON-geek Linux user since 1998
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
I don't dispute factcheck but the shenanigans of Harris put the whole thing in doubt. With all the problems you'd have to say statistically it was a tie.
...the plaintiff wins.
its not as if the defendant companies are innocent here. they are all patent trolls too.
what's good for the goose...
It is still funny if you knew the full story.
After that claim he came out and said he meant to said he did it for the commercialization of the Internet, when that was shown to be false the then came out that it was putting the government on the Internet, which he did lead a group on.
Al's remark is recorded by video. He was clearly taking credit "I took the initiative in creating the Internet" for something. He had a perfect opportunity to respond to criticism and explain what he really meant in his so-called debate with Bill Bradley (it was an Al Gore promotion, not a real debate), which I heard. Bradley said that Al was making a joke when he said he created the internet. Al allowed that to stand. _His_ response to the uproar was to joke about it. The complicated rebuttal provided above (and in Wikipedia) given by people who are not Al wasn't formed until later.
In sum, Al was trying to take credit for creating something he only supported after the creation. Politicians do this all the time. To my mind, it showed how unacquainted he was with the internet. He didn't realize how important it is.
By the way, I'm NOT a Republican, and I support some ideas Al supports, but I'm not going to excuse him of that stupidity.
(||) Nehmo (||)
Gore always gets an unfair kicking over his clumsy Internet claims. However I actually remember the first time I ever heard of Gore in 1992 (I'm in the UK - he was unknown here then) when he was explicitly characterised (in a mocking way) as someone constantly evangelicising about how the coming Net was going to revolutionise everything. To put this in context I was playing chess "online" via Telnet and an ASCII board on a VT-100 or FTP-ing The Anarchists Cookbook. I know he's a wooden hypocritical blowhard with a carbon footprint the size of Bigfoot but he was genuinely extremely prescient about the Internet.
Hm, i remember, way back, before 1993, i was developing BBS Doors where a user with a 'browser' (terminal) could interact with images (ansi art), i hereby claim to have invented the interactive web. now gimme some money!
Vint Cerf is obstructing the truth a little, I think, because the real story would give him less praise. The real issue is that most people at the time who had multi-site network access didn't want that access to be available to the public. For example, I visited someone at Tektronix who was intensely against making it public; he said that everyone with access with whom he had talked agreed with him.
Al Gore insisted that multi-site network access be publicly available, and made that happen using his power as a public servant to get money and government approval. He did that back when CEOs didn't know how to type. That service became the internet as we know it today. By that measure Al Gore did "create" the the public utility we call the internet.
My understanding, which may be wrong, is that Vint Cerf did nothing to make the internet a public utility. He didn't express an opinion. He didn't help promote the internet as a public utility until Al Gore made that possible and somewhat popular.
Before Al Gore's involvement, multi-site network access was available to those with U.S. government contracts, which restricted it to universities and corporations like Tektronix. Remember that in the U.S. the initial drive to network sites together was by DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is part of the U.S. government's ongoing drive to find more efficient ways of killing people and destroying property. There was, initially, no intent to do anything for anyone but the U.S. military. As the Wikipedia article says, "The Mansfield Amendment of 1973 expressly limited appropriations for defense research (through ARPA/DARPA) to projects with direct military application."
It's difficult now for technically knowledeable people to understand how technically backward most people were back then. Al Gore both knew about network technology and recognized its importance.
It seems reasonable to observe that the reason Vint Cerf's defense of Al Gore over the years has been expressed in tangled language is because he didn't want all the credit for the public utility to go to Al Gore.
Wasn't that Kim Jong-il?
Not exactly, he was the internet expert.
I believe he should use the immunity the Queen granted him as a Knight of the Web, and slay this fucking troll.
It is a requirement that patents be non obvious to one ordinarily skilled in the art; However, the patent system has very little in the way of a test for obviousness. Instead, it seems that any idea that hasn't been patented previously can be patented -- They can barely be trusted to search their own damn databases for prior art.
The USPTO's opinion is: If you want a weak patent its fine by us, but don't expect it to hold up in court. This places the obviousness testing burden on the court systems, which actually do not employ folks skilled in any patentable arts...
The proof of independent invention should be all that is required to prove the "innovation" is actually obvious, even if non trivial. Of course, if this sort of independent invention == (obvious & non patentable), then Alexander G. Bell wouldn't have been able to patent the telephone. However, both Bell & Elisha Gray would still have been allowed to manufacture and sell the devices, along with anyone else... Perhaps Gray would have been able to make money selling his product instead of finding himself in the poor house. Additionally, Less monopolies mean lower prices for consumers. Furthermore, "Genius" is so common today that I actually can't afford to innovate with my Virtual Machine Software & Languages because I risk all of my "brilliant" independent inventions earning me patent disputes. No one scans the patent database looking for something to steal, we all are just so damn "innovative" that all of our locally unique inventions unknowingly intersect.
I often hear the argument: "Without patents no one would innovate because they wouldn't be able to monetise their investment in research & development." This ignores the R&D costs lost by independent inventors such as Elisha Gray, or myself.
Honestly, I was surprised a comment such as this had not been independently invented above...
Thanks for posting, Al.
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Prediction is not invention.
That means it was in development for a long time before, and so someone else was the inventor of the interactive web.
Motion for summary judgment should go well for the defendants.
Mod. Parent. Up.
Another example of prior art exists, and I quote from the IEEE article
One of the major improvements of Telidon over first generation videotex systems is its high-quality graphic capability. High resolution colour drawings, intricate shapes, even photographs are all possible through Telidon technology.
This was in 1981. In 1985 I did some work for a small Toronto based company, where they were developing both Telidon content and technology. I wrote a NAPLSP decoder/encoder written using C, lex and yacc. Everything was coded using a machine readable instruction set. Since everything was done using dialup modems, and 2400 baud was considered fast.
I also did a standalone NAPLSP server and browser that would display content. This was delivered to Xerox when they had their own retail stores in Toronto. It was commercialized to a certain degree.
There were several dozen public terminals in malls and other public areas in the city. It was a prime example of a technology that was a solution looking for a problem. Lack of bandwidth, and a lack of critical mass in terms of a wide spread adoption doomed it to failure. It was fun while it lasted.
It is regrettable that Michael Doyle had Microsoft settle with him. By settling with him, it gave him the war chest to proceed with further litigation. The concepts that he is claiming as his own, written up by Ted Nelson in Computer Lib (1974), and then became reality with Telidon (1981). Michaels patent is dated 1993. It is the interest of everyone to refute the patent by presenting prior art. Perhaps a Telidon terminal demonstration would be in order.
Research is what I doing when I don't know what I am doing - Werner von Braun
No problem. I'll put up another journal.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Jury sends Doyle packing!
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/interactive-web-patent/
Aha. And which system do you use in Germany?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
All that matters is where the electoral college votes went. Popular vote is not required in the US, and as soon as the electoral college votes, it is all over. If you believe anything else, you don't understand the presidential election procedures of the USA.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
So, you believe that Jeff Foxworthy shouldn't be on TV, that any joke that makes fun of someone shouldn't exist, and that you are the ultimate arbiter of humor?
Sorry, I can't swallow that. Humor is an individual thing, and MANY people still find that joke hilarious. Get over yourself.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm sorry, I have the patent on monetary transactions, please send me all your money, and we will call it even.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Can't all the companies get out of it by pointing out that Hypermedia is a meaningless word, and that they don't do anything with Hypermedia documents or Hypermedia methods? :)
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
prior art - "Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web together with Robert Cailliau, built the first working prototype in late 1990 and early 1991. That first prototype consisted of a web browser for the NeXTStep operating system. This first web browser, which was named "WorldWideWeb," had a graphical user interface and would be recognizable to most people today as a web browser. However, WorldWideWeb did not support graphics embedded in pages when it was first released. "
I believe that's called checkmate!
haha.
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