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IBM Gets a Patent On 'Out-of-Office' Email Messages -- In 2017 (arstechnica.com)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued IBM a -- what the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls -- "stupefyingly mundane" patent on e-mail technology. U.S. Patent No. 9,547,842, "Out-of-office electronic mail messaging system" was filed in 2010 and granted about six weeks ago. Ars Technica reports: The "invention" represented in the '842 patent is starkly at odds with the real history of technology, accessible in this case via a basic Google search. EFF lawyer Daniel Nazer, who wrote about the '842 patent in this month's "Stupid Patent of the Month" blog post, points to an article on a Microsoft publicity page that talks about quirky out-of-office e-mail culture dating back to the 1980s, when Microsoft marketed its Xenix e-mail system (the predecessor to today's Exchange.) IBM offers one feature that's even arguably not decades old: the ability to notify those writing to the out-of-office user some days before the set vacation dates begin. This feature, similar to "sending a postcard, not from a vacation, but to let someone know you will go on a vacation," is a "trivial change to existing systems," Nazer points out. Nazer goes on to identify some major mistakes made during the examination process. The examiner never considered whether the software claims were eligible after the Supreme Court's Alice v. CLS Bank decision, which came in 2014, and in Nazer's view, the office "did an abysmal job" of looking at the prior art. "[T]he examiner considered only patents and patent applications," notes Nazer. The office "never considered any of the many, many, existing real-world systems that pre-dated IBM's application."
Since when is IBM still an American company, they cannot seem to shed American workers fast enough. There are some jobs el Presidente Tweetie can save, convince Rometty that she really wants to hire Americans, watch her turn green.
Now prepare for an influx of IBM lawsuits to everyone that has an out-of-office messaging system.
im stunned in this foul year of our lord 2017 that out of office replies exist. part best intention, part surrogate for poor planning, and part excuse to not check the vacation calendar at work, the out of office message is truly the turd of SMTP. ive been reprimanded for not setting my out of office replies, forced to implement them in Exchange, and lambasted by puerile users who arent allowed to set them in my email environments.
nowadays I dont even offer a reason. If a user asks me to add OOO to my mail system, i reach for my trusty louisville slugger meticulously carved in the likeness of Eric Allman and Weitse Venema in a tender portrait of mutual disappointment.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Xenix e-mail system (the predecessor to today's Exchange.)
Fighting IBM's revisionism by Microsoft's revisionism?
The most funny thing is that it works, and it even seems harmless in this case.
In the 1970s I had a message system check my status and post a reply to any posts on what became email that were "addressed" to me, stating that I was out of office or whatever my status had changed to.
This was back when we used cameras to take pics of the vending machines in the basement. It was a long way to walk if there was no coke in the machine.
IBM is using my creation. And probably that of thousands of us, which means it's in Common Use and not patentable.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
... Slashdot posts a blog post which is completely ignorant of patent law. It's not just a typical out of office setup.
Shiva Ayyadurai will certainly have something to say about this!
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
My opinion of Trump would go from F to D if he rid software patents. It would stimulate a lot of small tech biz's who don't have armies of patent lawyers.
Table-ized A.I.
Asked today about EFF's criticisms of the patent, an IBM spokesperson said that "IBM has decided to dedicate the patent to the public."
So, while I absolutely think this is a stupid patent, a) I'd rather this outcome than a true patent troll get it, and b) the problem (as I see it...) is really with the patent system, NOT with IBM.
Perhaps the EFF could ask a judge to issue an injunction barring that examiner from issuing any more patents until they are properly trained.
If you can't change the system at the proper level, maybe you can change the systems using their own KPIs.
This happens all the time. People have been using a particular technique for years or decades, and the patent office still grants a patent. I once had it explained to me this way: the patent office doesn't consider public usage as prior art. The only thing they research are existing older patents that match 100% with the newly-made claim.
Remember the big patent law suit between Apple and Google over how Android automatically detects addresses and makes them clickable? You'd think that JWZ's BBDB was prior art. This is exactly what it does; in fact, that's really it's main feature. And it has been doing so since 1991. But just because people have been doing something on a desktop computer for the last 25+ years doesn't mean it couldn't be patented on a cell phone. And apparently, it's such a novel idea, it's worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
I've got first dibs on the wheel.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's like this:
Prior art is like Native American lands.
Patents are what the white settlers are granted.
People need to complain and stop this nonsense.
Well a good start will be if IBM now sue the US Patent Office for patent infringement because their email system sends out-of-office emails as I presume it probably does.
What do you mean by "public usage"? Usage of a technique is not in itself prior art, but if the usage is public in the sense that someone has documented it publicly in some way, then that documentation could be prior art.
Some detail about USPTO's criteria for deciding what "publication" qualifies: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offi...
"its Xenix e-mail system (the predecessor to today's Exchange.)"
So, sendmail, I guess? :)
One can argue, and I might well, that this is not a deep insight and that the patent system should set a higher bar. But people here who want to comment really need to decipher the claims on this or any other patent.
Correct if I am wrong, but as I understand it the patent office just rubber stamps any patent application as long as all the eyes are crossed and tees are dotted. It's up to any other party to prove that the patent should not have been granted. Which is where all the expensive lawyers come in, which is why patents have no purpose except for huge companies to fuck with each other.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
That's the real answer. First of all, IBM ranks right at the top in terms of number of patents granted, and it has for a couple decades running. With all those patents, of course they'll vary in quality and significance. Second, IBM is the first to admit that its patent strategy is primarily defensive -- to grab the patents (or to make disclosures to establish prior art, which it also does a lot) before a patent troll, or a fading technology company turning into a future patent troll, does. IBM makes surprisingly little money on patent licensing, especially given the size and significance of its patent portfolio.
Just as one example, the primary reason Linux wasn't strangled in its crib is because IBM effectively extended its IP shield over it. We know that history, because most of it is public now. IBM profited (and profits) to some extent from Linux's success, but that's single digit percentage stuff. Something approaching 99% of the financial benefits accruing from Linux go to everybody else in the industry. IBM is fine with that, since it's still a winning profit equation for them.
With a malfunctioning patent system, I'm OK with IBM -- and other players that behave like IBM -- grabbing the patents. If their business models are to secure patents for defense -- and to stick to those business models -- that's OK with me. But I still want the patent system to be fixed.
As Nazier himself points out - the main claim of the patent seems to be for the sending of a message saying "I'm GOING to be out of the office" ahead of the actual out-of-office date - not for Out-of-office per se.
I don't remember ever seeing that before, personally. It seems so obvious once suggested - and, given that fact, if no-one has actually delivered something equivalent in all of the prior art, then it's novel, and patentable. And Nazier's reaction seems more classic internet patent knee-jerk - namely outrage based on an assumption that, because the description of a patent sounds like something very familiar, the claim(s) can't possibly be novel.
It's not that some examiner in the patent office just doesn't get it, it's corruption. Someone or some group in the USPTO or in the government more broadly is giving IBM this in exchange for something else. IBM has all kinds of defense contracts etc. etc. and such contracts and the circumstances around their being awarded are always a ripe environment for all kinds of corruption, not excluding blackmail.
Moreover, the personalities in both the USPTO and IBM corporate all move in the same social circles, and both end up in yet other corporate hierarchies working together, so it could even be a highly personal, customized form of corruption between two powerful individuals involved in each other's lives.
Believe me, the USPTO knows the patent is garbage, they didn't miss that very obvious fact. People will hue and cry and then move on. That's what they're thinking and they're probably right.
We need to get the government out of the business of issuing artificial monopolies. No aspect of software development relies on patents in order motivate progress.
It's where we train the next Einstein. Patent clarks should not waste their time on Googling prior art. That kind of distraction is why we still don't have a Grand Unified Theory.
I thought they eliminated prior art as an exclusionary reason a couple of years ago?
1. Software patents should be illegal just as they are in most of the developed world.
2. Most of IBM's "patents" are just like this, obvious prior work. Some guy got his Master Inventor for this crap though you can bet.
IBM is the greatest patent troll ever. At one point, IBM got over $2 billion / year from patents. IBM patents everything to squeeze out patent money from others. Why is IBM called Big Blue? Because IBM had more lawyers (in blue suits) than engineers then. Here is one of the many times IBM sued Sun "ok, you dont infringe these seven patents, but we have many more, are you going to pay or must we find some patents that you do really infringe?"
https://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html