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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.
FTFA:
Asked about EFF's criticisms of the patent, an IBM spokesperson said that "IBM has decided to dedicate the patent to the public." The company notified USPTO today that it will forego its rights to the patent.
Which means that even IBM realizes that trying to enforce this patent would be a PR nightmare.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Be sure not to leave an "I'm out of the office, returning..." message on your VM.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
completely ignorant of patent law
Perhaps. But patent law is so terribly broken that we can still afford ourselves a hearty laugh before the consequences of this fiasco comes back to bite innovators in the ass.
From TFA:
But the examiner considered only patents and patent applications. The Patent Office spent years going back-and-forth on whether IBMâ(TM)s claims where new compared to a particular 2006 patent application. But it never considered any of the many, many, existing real-world systems that pre-dated IBMâ(TM)s application.
Based on this logic, I could be granted a patent on the wheel.
F*'d up characters intentionally left in. Because it's $current_year and about time for Slashdot to get its act together.
Have gnu, will travel.
and part excuse to not check the vacation calendar at work
OOO notification makes sense because not everyone who can e-mail me has access to my companies calendar system. They can't because it contains potentially sensitive information.
Have gnu, will travel.
Or, it could have been preemptive in nature, securing the obvious so that someone ... say .. Microsoft or Google tried to patent the same.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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.