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Patent on P3P - W3 Seek Prior Art
Mindphunk wrote to say " Just saw this request for prior art over at the W3C.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today announced that it is investigating the
status of a patent claim which threatens open access to privacy protection
technology known as the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). To aid in its investigative efforts,
W3C is calling on the Web Community for help in locating "prior art,"
technology whose existence could be relevant to the validity of the
patent.
"
There are growing incompatibilities between patents and open standards;
the trend towards filing patents in areas where standards are already underway
is cause for both concern and action," stated Daniel J. Weitzner, Technology and Society Domain Leader of
W3C. "The Web and developer communities can be instrumental in providing the
evidence required to render questionable patents invalid, thereby maintaining
an open Web. "
OK Folks, we're looking for stuff that fulfills this:
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A network system or architecture where a client (such as a browser) and a server exchange information using a control structure defined by metadata (e.g. expressed in XML) which describes
how to transfer updated information from the server to the client
how to transfer feedback information, and updates to that information, from the client to the server, and
how to process the exchanged information by reference to the control structure.
Additionally, the receiving device must be able to process the metadata using instructions external to the control structure.
---
Off the very top of my head, capability testing apparatuses(such as telnet uses to transmit everything from default username to screen dimensions) would fulfill some of these requirements. This is important, not because telnet is prior art, but that there are sure to be systems, particularly "advanced languages" that never made it big, that attempted to expand on what telent began. Some places to research:
1) Expired patents. Always nice, go to the IBM patent server.
2) History. As far as I know, "tokens" that allow one-to-one marketing thousands of years ago have been successfully used to fight those patents that appear to place ownership on the majority of uses of cookies.
3) Computer Languages. Yes, I'm repeating this--it's very likely that a number of languages could be argued to implement features of these styles. I'd poke around specifically for languages that advertised the ability to interface with other languages.
4) Electronic Commerce Systems. Remember, there have been literally hundreds if not thousands of methods for representing the flow of products and monies. Middleware for converting the protocols of one data flow to another have been around for ages. Lets find specific examples. This is rather powerful, if you ask me. If I remember right, there was a massive move by the industry--DCE?--to move to a standard e-commerce solution. Any solution of this style would have left a wake of protocol conversion software, much of which written by companies as a matter of course. This goes even farther to prove that the systems described by the patent are "obvious to any master of the field".
That's my "off the top of the head" response to Yet Another Preposterous Patent Situation.
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
While general art discussing the technology may be useful, the killer reference will be one describing each and every limitation of the claims of the patent. Accordingly, care should be taken not to paraphrase too much the claim language. One illustrative claim is Claim 20, defining:
A computer-based communication system comprising:
said metadata including data exchange metadata associating a process for controlling the transfer of feedback information,
to said provider memory;
transfer means for transferring said information, including said metadata defining said control structure, from said provider memory to said consumer memory;
feedback transfer means for transferring said feedback information from said consumer memory to said provider memory; and
processing means for executing instructions external to said control structure to perform said processes to control communications of said information.
To infringe this patent claim, one must practice each and every element and limitation reciting in the invention, either directly or equivalently. The absence of even one element or limitation would result in a noninfringement.
Invalidation of a patent works the same way. To invalidate the claim, a reference should recite or teach each and every element and limitation recited above, either directly or inherently. Such killer art is rare for any patent, whose claims are usually drafted precisely to distinguish the prior art by adding some limitation not present there. On the other hand, two or more references may sometimes be combined to "fill in the gaps," provided that the references have a hint that teaches or suggests the combination.
If you have something close, by all means report it, because close (while no cigar) often leads to closer. However, you should all know for what you are looking.
For the same reason that someone practicing TCP/IP, without more, clearly wouldn't infringe the claims of this patent, TCP/IP would not stand, by itself, as invalidating prior art.
In answer to the qustion, the meaning of a phrase in a patent claim is determined first by the plain language of the claim itself AND by the definition given to that term in the specification. If the plain meaning is not clear and there is no express definition in the spec, the spec is used as a reference to help to understand (construe) the claims.
The meaning of the patent and its claims simply cannot be understood without first studying the specification. You can find the specification for any modern patent at this page of the USPTO web site. There you can also get free printable tiff images of the patent.
So much of this patent's claim langauge cannot be understood merely by examining the claim -- you must also read, at least, the specification. For many claim elements, particularly those written in the form of "means plus function" or "function means" language, the meaning of the claim element is DEFINED by the corresponding portions of the specification.
But this doesn't end the inquiry. Taking a single element out of context, say, the "control object," and noting that there existed a control object in another program or protocol isn't enough. The referenced control object must also meet each and every other limitation set forth in the claim and be used in the context described in the claim.
We nerds are notorious for being way too informal and uninformed about asserting the invalidity of patents. Accordingly, our whinings about the system are generally ignored by the mainstream patent community. It is critical that before we begin to flame on about a particular patent, that we make sure we really have the goods. To do that, we need to read the claims and the specification, and then, and only then, if we really have it licked, use the example to slam the patent and the system.
This patent may be valid, or it may not be valid. If it is valid, live with it and move on to another. If not, slam the sucker and use it to point out weaknesses in the system. Meanwhile, as a community we can help enormously by assisting in these prior art searches.
But we do ourselves no good at all, and a fair amount of harm, merely by waving our hands. It is not enough merely to belittle the claimed invention. The question was asked: "Perhaps some intellectual property lawyer can explain to me what make's Intermind's stuff so new and unique."
But AC's question merely begs the question: No patentable invention needs to be "so new and unique," but merely new, useful and unobvious. No spark of genius is necessary. No fundamental contribution.
Mere novelty suffices -- and that can be done merely by distinguishing the prior art with subtle limitations. If no reference contains the limitations, the device is novel for patent purposes -- that's all that is required. If the prior art is a chair, a claim directed to a chair with arcuate rockers attached to the bottom distinguishes the art, even though a rocking chair is still a chair. Indeed, the vast majority of patent claims begin by reciting prior art structure, adding specialized limitations as improvements.
Obviousness simply refers to a "backstop" to avoid granting patents for minor or trivial new limitations, and applies mostly where the differences between the old art and the new combination are such that those differences could be reconstructed from the prior art by a person of ordinary skill in the art. In the rocking chair example, a rocking stool might well be invalidating prior art under the obviousness standard, even though the refernence does not disclose the structure that distinguishes a stool from a chair (probably just the back), provided that the reference is taken together with a reference describing the structure of a chair and it would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill to combine the references.