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Facebook Patents Pokes-Per-Minute Limits

Posted by samzenpus on from the stop-touching-me dept.

theodp writes "The USPTO lowered the bar again on Tuesday, granting U.S. Patent No. 8,296,373 to four Facebook inventors for Automatically Managing Objectionable Behavior in a Web-based Social Network, essentially warning users or suspending their accounts when their poking, friend requesting, and wall posting is deemed annoying. From the patent: 'Actions by a user exceeding the threshold may trigger the violation module 240 to take an action. For example, the point 360, which may represent fifty occurrences of an action in a five hour period, does not violate any of the policies as illustrated. However, the point 350, which represents fifty occurrences in a two hour period, violates the poke threshold 330 and the wall post threshold 340. Thus, if point 350 represents a user's actions of either poking or wall posting, then the policy is violated.'"

24 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Well I'm going to patent this poke then. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    POKE 53281,0

    1. Re:Well I'm going to patent this poke then. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      10 POKE 16384,76
      20 POKE 16385,64
      30 POKE 16386,0
      40 SYS 16384
      RUN

    2. Re:Well I'm going to patent this poke then. by marcansoft · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm afraid you've got the wrong endianness. Next time try programming for the 6800 instead ;)

    3. Re:Well I'm going to patent this poke then. by Time_Ngler · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think you meant:

      10 POKE 16384,76
      20 POKE 16385,0
      30 POKE 16386,64
      40 SYS 16384
      RUN

      c64 is little endian

  2. Total Garbage by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Funny

    No wonder the USPTO is overloaded. If this is the garbage that qualifies as patent worthy.

    I'm going to patent ass-wiping thresholds now. Once you've wiped your ass 10 times in one sitting and you're still not clean then something has gone wrong...

    1. Re:Total Garbage by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hah, Mark "Fucking" Zuckerberg here. I've already patented ass wiping thresholds, as well as asses and assholes. In fact, since Steve "Rotting Corpse" Jobs finally bit the big one, I'm even closer to cornering the asshole patent market.

      Look and be in awe of my might patented asshole!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Total Garbage by similar_name · · Score: 3

      Every time I see your sig I picture Jesus riding down the highway on a moped.

    3. Re:Total Garbage by guttentag · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've already patented ass wiping thresholds, as well as asses and assholes. In fact, since Steve "Rotting Corpse" Jobs finally bit the big one, I'm even closer to cornering the asshole patent market.

      You can't patent asses and assholes. They're human interfaces with rounded corners. Apple would sue your ass off!

  3. Genius by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, that is some hard core stuff right there. Is there anyone frequenting Slashdot with genius-level IQ that could possibly break down this unbelievably complex, non-obvious behavior and explain it to the rest of us? This is what having billions of dollars of capital can do for you - bring the brain power to a company that is required to make these kinds of amazing discoveries. What I'm looking forward to are the physics and mathematical papers that can expand on these newly found principles and constructs. It's really the stepping-off point to marvelous things for humanity. In fact, I do believe this may even bring us a step closer to the Grand Unified Theory.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Genius by Cryacin · · Score: 3, Funny

      Thanks pal, my sarcasm meter just exploded.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    2. Re:Genius by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Funny

      Okay, then what is needed is a patent for limiting the amount of sarcasm in a commenting system. I'll lay the groundwork:

      For example, the point 360, which may represent fifty units of sarcasm in a five hour period, does not violate any of the policies as illustrated. However, the point 350, which represents fifty units of sarcasm in a two hour period, violates the sarcasm threshold 330. Thus, if point 350 represents a user's actions, then the policy is violated.

      Now it can never be said that I didn't contribute to Slashdot in a positive way after all these years.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    3. Re:Genius by TheEffigy · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think it is more likely a defensive patent, otherwise some douche will patent it first and troll them for cash.

  4. Slow down cowboy by sjames · · Score: 3, Funny

    We might know of some prior art somewhere...

  5. Limit of Pokes per minute by HockeyPuck · · Score: 5, Funny

    At what point does pokes per minute turn into a tickle fight?

  6. Finally by Herkum01 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is about time someone solved this poking problem! I am sure NASA will be licensing this technology right away!

  7. Prior Art owned by AOL by Khyber · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AOL already implemented this with rate-limiting certain actions on AIM, and beefed it up even further with the warning system.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  8. Prior Art Part 332040450... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We used to configure eggdrop bots on IRC to auto-kick users that performed X behavior X times in a time period of X. *sigh*

    1. Re:Prior Art Part 332040450... by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If I'm not mistaken, Eggdrop comes configured out of the box with rate limits. You can customize them, but you don't have to. If the bot is oped, it will defend the channel from morons by default.

      Which is even closer to the patent, apparently, where the policy it babbles about amounts to defaults.

  9. Slashdot Patent Violation Test by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Funny

    Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.
    Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.
    Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.
    Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.
    Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poke.

    Nope, Slashdot is not in violation of the patent. Investigation closed.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  10. Slow down, Cowboy by istartedi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slow down, Cowboy. You seem to have filed too many frivolous patents. Come back in 15 minutes.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  11. Blizzard was even earlier. by Pyrus.mg · · Score: 3, Funny

    Orc peons in Warcraft II had a poke limit in 1995.

  12. Fomenting disrespect by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can't do insane crap like this, like grant patents on token buckets, and then complain that people don't respect others' intellectual property. You're teaching us to despise your claims to ideas.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  13. Unfortunately this is all defensive by kawabago · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The current patent system makes it imperative that companies patent every line of code they write, so parasites like Intellectual Vultures don't come along and patent that thought and sue.

  14. Re:Guys, guys guys! Hey guys! by tragedy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The code in question is basic code, but it's basic code that loads assembly instructions into memory at 16384, 16385, and 16386, then hands the cpu over to the program inserted at 16384. The 76 is a jmp command and the next two memory addresses contain 64 (0x40) and 0 (0x00) combining to 0x4000, which translates to 16384. In other words, it's assembly code for an infinite loop.