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Corel Sued For Software Patent Infringement
petchema writes "Corel is been sued by Advanced Software for software patent infringement.
The contention feature is the side-by-side file comparison found in Wordperfect. "
Yeah because nobody did that before.
Update: 07/07 02:50 by CT : originally this story linked through to advancedsw.com- this
company is in Colorado and has nothing to do with the Advanced Software
from California that was doin' the suin'. Sorry about the confusion.
ISFP does that too quite well ! I believe it has been done before 1986, anyway, this typicla pattern matching and I don't understand how finding matching patterns into two textes could be patented even if you add to it buzzwords
That's why I wear sandals. Better safe than sorry...
In Heinlin's "Number of the Beast" one of the alternate realities his characters explores has in its past a "Day they killed all the lawyers." I wonder how alternate it might end up being...
no one expected the spanish inquisition!
Microsoft already has a patent on distributing information over the internet to subscribers, so I don't think it would be CNN suing. (And I'm dead serious)
from infotrac searchbank:
Advanced Software, Inc.
Sunnyvale California
HQ location
San Jose, California
this matches the patent (viewable from previous posters' link)
while www.advancedsw.com does not
this is fuckin' tragic, esp with all the talks of boycotts etc.
ugh
From a quick glance, it appears that the re-issue patent is invalid. This issue is very complicated, but the principle should be very clear. One of the key conditions of a re-issue patent is that the scope of its claims should not be enlarged, if the reissue application is filed more than 2 years after the patent was issued. The original patentt, U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,182, was issued on Feb. 21, 1989. The reissue patent application Ser. No. 07/881,478, was filed May 11, 1992. Thus, the two-year bar against claim enlargement has run. This provision is strictly enforced. For example, if you change the claim language from "10 to 20 degrees" to "about 10 to 20 degrees". Such a change may not in practice change the scope of the claims (if you consider the doctrine of equivalents), but because it "literally" changed the scope of the claim, the re-issue patent will be, and has always been, held invalid, if the reissue patent was filed more than the two-year statutory grace period. This mistake is not uncommon. If we read Claim 1 of the reissue patent (because of formatting difficulties, I am using brackets to denote words deleted in the reissued claim, and double dashes to indicate words added): 1. An automated comparison system, comprising: input means for receiving commands, and for providing electronic signals representing a plurality of characters [including] --representing-- words, --short groups of words or phrases--, and sentences; memory means coupled to said input means for storing as binary representations at least first and second groups of said characters; processing means coupled to said memory means and to said input means for detecting and identifying differences between said words--, short groups of words or phrases,-- and sentences in said first and second groups of said characters --when said differences do not consist of a line of text or a group of lines of text and regardless of whether or not the text wraps around an end of a line or a plurality of lines--; display means coupled to said processing means for providing a display of said differences by --displaying the text with the differences designated within the text lines--. Because the claim uses "means plus function" language, the scope of the claim is actually much more limited in scope than it appears. However, my main problem is with the third paragraph: processing means coupled to said memory means and to said input means for detecting and identifying differences between said words--, short groups of words or phrases,-- and sentences in said first and second groups of said characters --when said differences do not consist of a line of text or a group of lines of text and regardless of whether or not the text wraps around an end of a line or a plurality of lines--; The original claim detects and identifies differences between the "words" and "sentences". However, the amended claim in the reissue patent "extended" the scope to include --short groups of words or phrases--. This matter may seem to be extremely minor. However, based on the courts' record to strictly enforce the prohibition against enlarging claim scope in a reissue patent application, it seems that the Plaintiff is doomed to lose. The above was my quick thought. When time permits, I will re-visit this issue. Corel is a good company, and we will do everything to help.
Is there a Unix that doesn't have sdiff?
I've programmed an editor to flip between two files at the press of a function key. It makes it really easy to spot changes. Astronomers use the same technique to detect new objects.
There, it's published now. Sheesh...
that's it!
Back in 1968 I thought of the idea of using the letter Q with computers... Now I'm going to sue all of you and ask the courts to make everyone to stop using the letter Q!!! It's my letter! you get away from it!!!!
I sure hope that the idiot company is getting slashdotted to hell and back. and email bombed out of existance! It's crap like this that dying little turd companies try... "Wahhhhh we did that too, and the CEO spent all the money on 2 ferrari's we need to sue to gain capitol because noone buys our crap anyways..... wahhhhhh...." be sure to submit that companies email address to several majordomo's and spammers lists...
Hell with being proactive.... It's time we all got overly re-active and got their attention in a BIG way.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
From a quick glance, it appears that the re-issue patent is invalid. This issue is very complicated, but the principle should be very clear.
One of the key conditions of a re-issue patent is that the scope of its claims cannot be enlarged, no matter how minor it may seem, if the reissue application is filed more than two years after the patent was issued.
The original patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,807,182, was issued on Feb. 21, 1989. The reissue patent application Ser. No. 07/881,478, was filed May 11, 1992. Thus, the two-year bar against claim scope enlargement has run. As a result, the re-issue patent is INVALID.
This provision strictly against claim scope enlargement is enforced. For example, if you change the claim language from "10 to 20 degrees" to "about 10 to 20 degrees". Such a change may not in practice change the scope of the claims (if you consider the doctrine of equivalents), but because it "literally" changed the scope of the claim, the re-issue patent will be, and has always been, held invalid, if the reissue patent was filed more than the two-year statutory grace period. This mistake is not uncommon.
Now, if we read Claim 1 of the reissue patent (because of formatting difficulties, I am using brackets to denote words deleted in the reissued claim, and pairs of dashes to indicate words added):
1. An automated comparison system, comprising:
input means for receiving commands, and for providing electronic signals representing a plurality of characters [including] --representing-- words, --short groups of words or phrases--, and sentences;
memory means coupled to said input means for storing as binary representations at least first and second groups of said characters;
processing means coupled to said memory means and to said input means for detecting and identifying differences between said words--, short groups of words or phrases,-- and sentences in said first and second groups of said characters --when said differences do not consist of a line of text or a group of lines of text and regardless of whether or not the text wraps around an end of a line or a plurality of lines--;
display means coupled to said processing means for providing a display of said differences by --displaying the text with the differences designated within the text lines--.
Because the claim uses "means plus function" language, the scope of the claim is actually much more limited in scope than it appears.
However, the main problem with the reissue patent is the third paragraph: processing means coupled to said memory means and to said input means for detecting and identifying differences between said words--, short groups of words or phrases,-- and sentences in said first and second groups of said characters --when said differences do not consist of a line of text or a group of lines of text and regardless of whether or not the text wraps around an end of a line or a plurality of lines--.
The original claim recites the step of detecting and identifying differences only between the "words" and "sentences". The amended claim in the reissue patent, fortunately for Corel, "extends" the scope to include --short groups of words or phrases--. This matter may seem to be extremely minor. However, based on the courts' record (case decisions abound) to strictly enforce the prohibition against enlarging claim scope in a reissue patent application after the statutory bar has run, it seems that the Plaintiff is doomed to lose. The reissue patent is invalid. The above was my quick thought. When time permits, I will re-visit this issue. Corel is a good company, and we will do everything to help.
all I gotta do is change the way that works and VOILA your patent and copywirght is INVALID!!!!
Let's do a diff on their code and corel's... I'll bet they dont match... but then judges are dumb as stumps so who cares....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Neither of the Apple/Microsoft cases "proved" the point for which they were cited here.
The Apple v. MS case involving Windows addressed a claim for copyright infringement in view of a license agreement. This had nothing to do with any patents.
Apple's patent case against Microsoft (also unrelated to this question) was settled when Steve Jobs rejoined Apple in a cash-for-stock switch.
There was a tool around in the late 80s in the UK from (I think?) the UKC toolset which did a visual diff with a split window and simultaneous scrolling &c. It might well originate pre-1986 and it looks really close to what they are claiming.
Perhaps some other UK-based person remembers the name of it?
The version I used ran on X (perhaps originally X10) but it may trace its origins to some earlier window system.
--tim
Don't domplain here. That's a waste of time. The US Patent Office has web email, phone numbers and address. Send them paper mail. They've got some nonsense at the web site how they're not equipped to handle email. Talk here is cheap. I've seen it way too many times as each submarine patent surfaces. Make the Patent Office aware that they can't live in their cozy protected little world anymore. They are the real culprits here. Even by their own poor standards this patent stinks.
Patent offices the world over have become increasingly undemocratic, granting commercial monopolies in some cases worth millions of dollars without public scrutiny. STOP TALKING, ACT! We might not be able to stop them but we can, with social censure, at least make them uncomfortable doing it. A large part of the problem is the culture at the USPTO and elsewhere. Let's change that culture. Nothing you can do? Wrong! You can:
It's up to you. Nobody else but you.
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
- Kierkegaard
ummm? no? Yes, claims 12-20 cover the method of generating diffs using hashes and all. But claim 21 seems to cover the idea of displaying 2 drafts of a document side-by-side, which may very well be the claim they say corel's infringing on, all by itself. (which would explain why it didn't occur to them before this that their nifty patent applied to WP :)
Posted by Dr. Dabbles (255.255.255.255):
Ammm, hello?
How many times have we seen the legal system BEND PEOPLE OVER? I'm sorry, but I personally think that it's time we trimmed the SCUM out of it, and return it to it's original intended state.
Just a thought.
The reverse engineering here is to extract the design docs from the source, there's nothing about going from binary to source ... no theft involved.
Posted by Ungrounded Lightning Rod:
I believe he called it "Parallel Text Face"
I'll have to dig out my old copy of
Computer Lib / Dream Machines to see if
it's there. It most certainly was in
the later Literary Machines, and perhaps
in intermediate stuff as well.
>didn't DOS come before Unix?
Yes. The first operating system to be called "DOS" was for IBM mainframes (the 360?) back in the '60s. MS couldn't even come up with an original *name* for their system.
I'm glad you've volunteered to pay the extra $10, $30, $40, $100 or whatever the cost-per-box of conducting frivolous legal battles cost now a days. I sure didn't want to.
Thanks!
Hah! So Corel is a bunch of thieves for stealing the amazing innovation of looking at two things side-by-side for comparision? It's just a smokescreen to hide from you the biggest theft of the century.
It's gorillas stealing human technology!
That's right folks. Gorillas everywhere are stealing human technology by using tires hanging from a rope to play on. I found no less than 7 patents covering the this breath-taking (and non-obvious) technological feat. But who's doing anything about it? Sure, we lock them up in places where we can keep an eye on them, but somehow they still get their grubby paws on tire and ropes to mock our impotence. Our lawyers to seem to be able to do nothing to stop them.
I say, Fight on lawyers! Take up the cudgel and lay waste to those who would steal the best ideas that generations of inventors and (their patent attorneys) have given their hearts and souls to make all our lives better. First gorillas stealing our technology, next it will be mice trying to take over the world every night.
Either that, or the patent office has completely lost is purpose.
I wonder about all these companies that sues other companies for using ideas they have had "stolen" from someone else. The whole idea goes back to Ted Nelsons paralell textface postulated in "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" back in 1974!!!
So why shouldnt T. Nelson sue Advance Software for useing his basic concept?!?!
What do you think?
An intelligent first post - what is this, Slashdot.org or something? There is no such thing as an intelligent first post.
- ---
I am thinking about sueing my parents for having 10 fingers just like me. This is a ridiculous lawsuit and should be thrown out of court for being beyond frivilous -- more like STUPID.
----------------------------------------
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
An effective strategy against something like this is to actively seek out Advanced customers and start a boycott against Advanced. If customers refuse, we spread the related negative PR against those customers.
I've been reading all sorts of things trying to make up my mind about the nature of intellectual property. One site about IP and computing is BitLaw; it has a lot articles, links, etc. offering different arguements pro and con.
One article that is similar is here. It may have been the same, I need to re-read.
Another article I'm reading is "Patents and Copyrights" by Ayn Rand, originally published in The Objectivist Newsletter (May 1964). She wrote some of the same points I've read from RMS. If you can, then find a copy of the original in the library; there have been problems with the accuracy of some reprints of her work, though not necessarily with this one.
Of course, everyone here knows where GNU is; I'm reading their arguments too.
--
Why limit the prior art to software? That'd be like claiming that my widget isn't a violation of your wadget because I made mine out of brass in stead of copper.
In that case, prior art dates back to the middle ages when monks copied (and proofed) documents by hand.
That's the problem with USPTO, they seem to think everything is new if it's done by software.
This is a fine example of why software patents should not be permitted. Now software developers will be afraid to include cool diff features in their programs for fear of being sued under this bogus patent.
Anyone got a patent on that? I'd hate to be in violation.
Emacs also had a mode for resolving diffs where it would have the two "source" documents side by side with the merged document in a third window and you'd go from change to change grabbing from one or both of the "source" documents. I used this technology in 1991 and it wasn't brand new at the time. I don't think that I have the .el files which had an edit history going back into the 80's if I recall correctly. Ah, yes, here's the copy that I have's copyright notice:
Copyright 1989, 1990, 1991 by Dale R. Worley. Do what you will with it.
Followed shortly by the following:
This is the documentation for version 4 of "emerge.el", an Emacs package that allows you to combine two versions of a file by selecting, for each place where they differ, which version of the difference you prefer. It is similar to Sun's "filemerge".
I'm not sure how old filemerge is, but if this was written to emulate it, then it must go back a ways. This tickles some neurons which tell me that I used filemerge in college right after we installed SunOS 3.5 in 1986.
After having read the patent, I think that there is enough prior art to get it tossed out if you fight it. Too bad you have to prove the patent office wrong when you get on the wrong side of these things, but that's the way it goes.
I remember using an old OS/2 program years ago
that did this kind of thing really well, using
color in both documents to show common, and
divergent parts. It then had a bar in the middle
that used color to represent the same thing, and
had nice lines going between the windows showing
what matched with what......
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
It has been suggested in various postings that the validity of software process patents, in themselves, is still in question. Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. After recent Federal Circuit cases, the validity of software inventions as patentable subject matter is no longer even an interesting legal question. The only remaining issue is whether the invention is indeed new and unobvious. For better or worse, the floodgates have been opened.
Since the 1983 Supreme Court case in Diamond v. Diehr (and in practice well before then), software patents have been issued. After recent cases in the Federal Circuit, there no longer remains any doubt from a legal perspective whether this is the case.
One case in particular, AT&T v. Excel Communications, Inc. articulates rather well and unequivocally the Federal Circuit's view on this matter. I highly recommend this case to anyone who would like to consider themselves well-educated on this subject.
The long and short of it is this:
"The Supreme Court has construed 101 broadly, noting that Congress intended statutory subject matter to 'include anything under the sun that is made by man.'"
It is now clear, for better or for worse, that any claim directed to a "practical application of a mathematical algorithm, . . . [by] produc[ing] 'a useful, concrete and tangible result'" is patentable under 35 U.S.C. section 101, provided, of course, that the claim is also directed to an invention that is new, useful and unobvious.
The Delta comparison program, in old MS-DOS (like at least 10 years old) did this too.
The old Unix diff. Described in
J.W.Hunt and M.D.McIlroy, "An Algorithm for Differential File Comparison," Comp.Sci.Tech.Rep. No. 41, Bell Laboratories (June 1976).
IIRC the old Unix diff also compared hashes -- which is why it would sometimes print "jackpot".
It seems ironic that it is the hallmark of their services!
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
and now it (mostly) isn't.
Indeed. Many companies, especially those in the computer industry, have lost large sums of money because the opposing company's legal team was able to convince an unknowing jury of something that was questionably true. This is what "reasonable doubt" is to these people. I wonder how some cases would have turned out if the jury had been comprised of more technical people.
didn't DOS come before Unix?
DOS came out in 1981 with the first IBM PC. Unix has been around since the '60's. Gates has stated on several occasions that DOS was based on Unix.
I hadn't yet got as far as this message when I had the same thought -- as a result of visiting this Advanced Software's site and noting that they are evidently a purely current-issue Microsoft-shop, even to the point of posting information for download in Word format. Also some of the language here and there sounds (to my experienced editor's ear) all too similar to certain M$ phrasings.
As to the date of this patent -- it POSTDATES WordPerfect 5.0 (released in early 1988), which I believe was the first WP version to have this particular feature in its current form, AND for this function, 5.0 was almost certainly using the same codebase as WP5.1 (first WP5.1 release I know of being late 1989, but was essentially a big bugfix to WP5.0, not a "new" program). It =may= have been in WP4.2 as well (almost two years earlier). IOW, there is a very strong suspicion in my mind, as someone else also muttered about, that this Advanced SW had probably derived =their= algorithm from reverse-engineering WP5.0.
As to why the suit came up now rather than earlier or later: if it were to succeed, what better way for M$ (by way of an "innocent" third party) to force Corel to recall the new version of WP -- at least long enough for M$'s own Office2000 to come out and take over everyone's attention.
There seems to be some confusion by some folks about the function vs the patent. Patents enter into considerition if two programs share not the evident interface (the part that most people here seem to be looking at), but the same underlying algorithm.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I think you'll find that 'windows' were invented
and patented by Bell Labs (whether the patent
now resides with AT&T or Lucent - I don't know).
I recall using the 'Blit' windowing environment
at Bell Labs in the early '80's. Certainly
before the first Mac and well before MS Windows.
It used a large (portrait) page size green screen
and a large red mouse (a Xerox invention).
As for side by side text comparison's - the 'sdiff' command has been available in Unix for
ages.
[Insert pithy quote here]
We see this sort of insanity every day. The USPTO
has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence in
the granting of patents in the areas of
electronics and software.
Obviously they need people of the calibre of
Albert Einstein.
Nope, /. has the right Advanced Software.
= =
I found the web site for the "other" Advanced Software that the previous poster mentioned, in California (http://www.advancedsp.com, if I remember right) and got this information from their "about" page:
==============================================
"Advanced Software Products, Inc., founded in 1991, is a leading developer of computer-based multimedia tutorials, and electronic performance support systems. ASP employs a talented group of instructional designers, programmers, and graphic artists.
Over 60 American and Canadian companies currently use ASP's interactive tutorials, instructional games, testing systems, and databases. Clients include:" (list not copied in the interest of brevity)
===============================================
IOW this =cannot= be the company that is suing Corel, because they didn't yet exist when the patent was issued. Also, a diff engine is not really the sort of thing their products would use, while it most certainly would be of interest to an outfit that produces a reverse-engineering tool.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You're quite right. It was from the UKC toolset, and it was called 'vdiff'. Written by one Mark 'Burt' Wheedon. Google turns up something about it.
:-(
The original version was written to a custom windowing library that had implementations for Sunview and X11.
I've only managed to turn up binaries from 1995, though
Well, Apple should have sued MS for copying their GUI in the first place. This 'Advanced Software' issue is like the thing with Theos software suing Theo de Raadt. Another stupid lawsuit. Advanced Software demands some hate mail. Click here.
My step dad was called in for jury duty, as soon as they saw that he had a PhD he didn't last very long. pretty much anything beyond a high school diploma and you are gone.
-matt
Posted by rolandpj:
... is exactly a split-pane based diff'er.
Now, when was ediff written?
Roland
> Make software to assist in software/idea "theft" and sue cause somebody "stole" your idea... Morons.
Obviously you didn't read what their product does.
It makes UML diagrams of existing C++/Java/IDL code.
This means it does absolutely squat if you don't have the code. So yes, it could be used to steal ideas from open source software, but that would be about it, and you could just steal the code anyway.
I'm not saying that the lawsuit isn't silly, but their program looks like it isn't very useful for stealing software.
Yeah, and I used such a feature in Professional
w rite-the-darned-document... :-)
Write 2 in 1988.
Back then, it was called move-the-cursor-wherever-the-hell-you-wanted-and-
Just about 7 billion versions of diff do that out there. Jeez. Lawyers.
- - -
i wouldn't be surprised to see M$ behind this. Corel has, as any self-respecting /. reader knows, a lawsuit against them that it looks promising for Corel... (of course, why it's taking this long to go to court is BEYOND me...)
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Washington,DC -- Legal experts today commended a move by the Xerox to sue the computer industry for flagrant violation of it's patent on "windows". A spokesman for Xerox stated that "We invented the basic GUI that almost all modern computers are based on." Legal experts applauded the move, and some say this could prove a serious threat to the dominant Microsoft corporation.
Slashdot has also reported being sued by CNN news, for violation of it's proprietary look and feel interface to daily news. "Slashdot has intentionally ripped off the idea of using html code to distribute news to the masses, and we will not stand by while they continue to do this."
--
Things get worse and worse every day. Pretty soon most communication between people/companies will be conducted thru lawyers. And those suckers will make sure that their profession will be involved in every aspect of human life. What really worries me is that people who seem to sit on the jury are often quite dumb. I mean, when you hear those lawyers making arguments ... come one, you need to be stupid or paid to buy this stuff ...
Is it just me, or does this make no sence.
I mean sure, there are thousands of programs that do comparisons of text(or text in non-plain-text formats) files. Wouldn't this be the patent-able bit? If so, methinks there's plenty of previous art; as it was patented in 1989...plenty of time for unix gurus to come up with something.
Splitting the screen so the compared source files are both displayed simultaneously (which is what the article implied - if I am not wrong) is just a logical extension. Is it not?
I don't know how many ideas I've come up with, with never seeing what's already been done, and then discovering that someone else has already done such a thing.
--- "If a man speaks in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?"
I wonder, out of all the programs that have "copied" "their feature," why did they choose Corel to sue?
rooooar
We should show Corel our gratefulness for supporting Linux by explaining to Advanced Software what we think about software patents in general and the patent they are suing Corel over in particular.
/etc/inetd.conf& /etc/inetd.conf
And, for a violation of the patent:
xterm -fn 6x10 -geometry 80x70+0 -e vi
xterm -fn 6x10 -geometry 80x70+515 -e less
(for a 1024x768 display
The legal system may be convoluted as hell, but it still works. Corel will defend itself with the "this isn't exactly a unique idea" argument, and any reasonable judge will dismiss the case before it gets anywhere.
This is why companies have legal departments. Bogus lawsuits are a fact of life.
This appears to be the one they mean: http://www.patents.ibm.com/detai ls?pn=US04807182__ Says it was filed on March 12, 1986. Prior art, people?
Well, considering where these guys are from, I think they can bring much more legal firepower to bear than can Canadians at Corel. I never heard of Advanced Software but I guess they are quite entrenched in the educational market...
Acutally, Xerox did sue several companies, including Apple. Theylost on the technical issue that they waited too long to sue, and thus through inaction lost their rights.
Corel introduced the "Shadow Cursor" in WP8. MS copied that in Office2K with "Click and Type". The same feature w/ a different name. Does that mean Corel can sue MS?
You can't patent a feature any more than you can patent a "look and feel". Apple vs MS proved that.
JL Culp
Chair, LPSC
"In October, Advanced Software Technologies, Inc. (ASTI) was invited to Microsoft
headquarters in Redmond, WA ( . . . ) to
assist microsoft in the release of their forthcoming
new Design Repository."
I think we can all read between the lines here.
i just want to know how long it will be before microsoft
sues the FSF
see post below
Yeah, but what if 9 years and 11 months of that 10 year development effort were spent playing Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom 2, Quake and Quake 2, and then they crammed that last month?
--
Program Intellivision!
Displaying the original version of a document, then displaying the modified version next to each other is technology? Come on, what's next? The complete stupidity of the US patent system makes me want to wretch. I think all software patents should be thrown out, unless it's an algorithm that took considerable time to make. Ie, companyX puts 10 years of research into figuring out how to store an entire song in 1 byte of data, they get a patent. companyY puts 30 seconds of thought into a new feature for a program, they get no patent. I really hope this goes before a judge who has at least one ounce of sence and realizes that it's some tiny little company trying to make a buck off of another company.
-matt
If Advanced Software wins then various companies should be able to make a lot of money of microsoft in similar cases. Look at all the stuff they've stolen:
Unix - Dos
Mac OS - Windows
Internet Explorer - Netscape
Word - Word Perfect
And that's only the beginning. That should eat up some of gate's 80 billion.
"I don't like this deep shit about crazy crap"
My V7 manual being in a box somewhere, I looked at my copy of "Unix User's Manual, Release 3.0", from June 1980, which is approximately the AT&T System III stuff. sdiff is there.
The patent lists 22 claims, in the traditional "write the software patent as if it were a hardware device patent" style of obfuscation. Some of those claims are for the diff algorithms, some are for the display stucture, and some are for the mechanism for getting from the diff to the screen.
According to the article,
"Advanced Software said a 1989 patent and 1998 patent reissue cover an invention by employee Cary Queen that offers comparison of documents in original and modified versions in split-screen format."
While that's not an explicit description of their complaint, it sounds much more like they're complaining about the display format than the diff algorithms (which aren't clearly explained in the patent claims) and there were certainly many methods for diffs by the mid 80s, most unpatented.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Actually, Xerox was trying to sell off their Star technology for more than 6 months before Apple came along and offered them some money for it. It was offered to about a dozen other companies that I know of, since I was with one of them. We were given a demo of the Star about a week before Apple, but computers weren't our line of work.
You can find the details in several of the books written about silicon valley, the best details are in book titled something like "How Xerox created and then lost the PC revolution". Apple offered them about 2 million dollars, and 175,000 shares of apple stock. Then they also grabbed a handful of engineers, which was not a nice thing, but typical in the valley. Two years later after the Mac came out, that stock made the research division of PARC the most profitable unit inside of Xerox for the year.
So you can trash this myth, apple didn't steal the Star design, they bought it entirely, for a tiny bit of money and stock.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
The old DrDos serial file transfer program, filelink, did this beautifully.
Section 101 of the Cright Act says...
"Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful
PROCESS, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter..... may obtain a patent...."
I don't like it either folks. Notwithstanding the merits of this particular claim, software patents are justified by the term 'process' where process means "art or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, compositions of matter, or material."
Case law is not going to change that language.
The trend in patent law is toward broader interpretation of process not narrower.
And I challenge any of you to justify copyright at the extent of patent. You really think copyright is better? Try a 70 yr monopoly vs. a 20 yr monopoly. That's right 70. That applies to Mickey Mouse and Mickeysoft.
What you are all really upset about are intellectual property monopolies. Guess what?
They are in Art. I of the US Constitution.
You need a strong lobby. Guess who is going to be strongest in the lobby? BG.
Lawyers did not screw this whole system up. The system did. A lawyer can sue you, a lawyer can defend you.
At a minimum the hacker community needs a rallying point on the legal front. Put yer heads together and make is so #1!
Patents on things that are not manufactured ( ie: words , algorithms , software , music etc ... )are strictly prohibited by the Act that created the Patent office ( all of these may be copyrighted , not patented ) . The Patent office has WIDELY interpreted a ruling by a court that judged that just because a company was using a computer to control the process of rubber manufacture did not mean that the patent on the PROCESS was invalid .
If you can find it at MIT ( I lost the URL and am trying to retriev it ) there is an arguement that software patents are already strictly illegal ( arguements for the removal of software patents in general ) and they go on to point out some of the unbelievably simple algorithms ( like using an XOR operation to change the color of graphics that move over one another )
have already been patented and some have even held up in court . The Patent Office is simply not staffed to recognize these algorithms for what they are .
Many of these techniques are considered by the people who program them to be so fundamental that they are not even worth documenting in publications . MIT Xfree86 is one who did not publish anything on their use of window buffering until a bit of documentation was needed at a later date . By then someone had already patented the idea of keeping , in memory , the window that was now hidden . MIT lost that one , their failure to publish those details in the documentation resulted in that method not being considered "prior art" .
The upshot of this is that big companies may be able to cross license the patents that they already own with other companies but little guys have nothing to trade , that is they have no way to use rudimentary programming techniques . This is an unbelievably unAmerican practicce that benefits NO ONE but the Lawyers . Big surprise that legal experts are hailing this , huh ?
I think that we need a supreme court ruling to restore the original Patent Laws to their original state ( covering only manufacturing methods of physicall objects ) .
I wonder , If I got to it fast enough , could I patent certain brush strokes and sue artisits ?
Brush types are manufactured .
Your Squire
Squireson
Posted by 2B||!2B:
How hypocritical that the company claiming someone stole their design is a company whose only purpose is to create tools designed exclusively for stealing designs. We should get the politicians to create legislation which makes sale of reverse engineering tools a felony, putting them out of business.
My easy solution to this fiasco is that we'll have the patent office use Advanced Software's own file comparator to find differences between their binary and Corel's. Result: the entire file. Maybe we should convince the patent office that a binary comparison between any two programs is the only reliable way to verify patent infringement (thus rendering software patents worthless; woohoo!!! Has anyone ever seen a software patent which wasn't absolutely worthless, designed only to make lawyers money?).
Old but good: what do you call a million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
Answer: (any other suggestions?)
=> A good start
This whole issue of software patents and related issues with copyright is at the heart of the GNU/FSF movement. Currently, most everyone in the Open Source movement is still playing fair so that the Free Software advocates seem overly zealous. However, in the not-so-distant future we may well be glad that some people held the torch.
-- ESH
'advanced software products' is in SAN FRANCISCO
infotrac searchbank says there are about a dozen software companies
whose name starts with the words 'advanced software'... the patent
names specific cities and "advanced software, inc" is the only
one i found that matched. maybe someone else has more info...
btw. . . maybe you should learn to read?
: Advanced Logical Software -- Beverly Hills : Advanced Productivity Software -- Atlanta GA : : : : : : :
: Advanced Software Applications Corp -- Pittsburgh PA
: Advanced Software Automation Inc. -- Santa Clara, CA (founded 1987)
: Advanced Software Concepts, Inc. -- Escondido CA : Advanced Software Designs -- Chesterfield, Mo.
: Advanced Software Development Corp. -- Houma, LA : Advanced Software Products Group, Inc. -- Naples, FL
: Advanced Software Research, Inc. -- Irvine, CA : Advanced Software Technologies Company Ltd -- Rockville MD
: Advanced Software Technologies Inc. -- Littleton CO : Advanced Software Technology -- Emeryville, CA
and finally : Advanced Software, Inc. -- founded 1986 (HQ not in san jose.. poster fucked up)
location in 1994: sunnyvale CA. (somewhat matches 1986 patent URL pasted by other poster.)
Take a a chicken scratch rough draft of a high school paper.
Put it next to a second draft of chicken scratch.
Use a hililiter to decide what needs to be revised.
Case closed.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
from OCLC's firstsearch ABI-INFORM database-- INFOWORLD article february 8 1993 reviewing "DocuComp II" -- "Intended for those who work with words, DocuComp II compares an earlier version of a document
with a subsequent version and creates a third composite version with changes noted in three ways.
First, the composite document, marked with line numbers, indicates deletions, insertions, replacements, and moves. A comparison summary
report lists the two documents' sizes, dates, lengths, and number of each type of change. A revision list shows
each change by page and line number." it also places Advanced Software Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA.
this leads me to www.prgrsoft.com/pages/relatedvendors.html which states that DocuComp was sold off to 4 or 5 different companies. Advanced Software Inc. doesnt make it anymore.
they apparently used to make alotta macintosh stuff too.
Searching dejanews for 'docucomp' will turn up similar results. Also: Esther Dyson article Forbes April 25, 1988 ABI-INFORM Abstract "DocuComp was invented by two molecular biologists and was based on the software program MicroGenie. MicroGenie is targeted for research biologists who can use the program to access a database of 15,000 gene sequences to compare with gene sequences they have created in the laboratory." summing up the abstract:
comparing genes is alot like comparing legal documents, and they ran with this idea. Apparently Cary L Queen (altavista) is worth 11mil$ now at Protein Design Labs.
i feel stupid about pissing on advancedsw.com now
Strange that this comes up right after Corel had their first large increase in stock prices in a while...
Wonder if somebody wants to buy Corel stocks really cheap...
just my paranoid 2 cents
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
- First we had some cool benchmarks that "proved" that micro$oft NT was better than linux/apache
... (yeah right) - Now they are attacking Corol with the help of some other company, that would probably get some advantages like support from micro$oft (yeah support, this means micro$oft won't sue them in the next 5 years
:-))))
You can think of it whatever you want, be that is my thought=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Belgium HyperBanner
http://belgium.hyperbanner.net
Linux hosting for $2.50/mo
As for prior art, since when had Emacs M-x ediff-buffers ? I guess this may go back to before 1989 ?
advanced software technologies inc
a very small company in colorado with a couple dozen people
reed elsevier
one of the largest multinational companies on the planet
why would asti attack reed elsevier?
Here is one link that may be of economic and societal interest with regards to Patents on Software :
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/History/history.html.old
I still have to find the MIT link , I am working on it .
evidence!
Hello? That link you have is for Advanced Software Technologies in Colorado, purveyers of UML tools but not (so far as I know) lawsuits on diff technology. The cited story refers to an Advanced Software in *California*, based on a patent granted a couple of years before the Colorado firm started. Is it just possible you have the wrong company?
We see this sort of insanity every day. The USPTO has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence in the granting of patents in the areas of electronics and software.
Once one has seen diff and any windowing environment, the notion of combining the two is obvious, and therefore should not be patentable. To earn a patent, an invention is supposed to embody something novel. A patent granted in 1989 on such a "technology" would hardly have been novel.
As lawyers have ably demonstrated their willingness to indulge in such shenanigans, and as the real victims (as always) are customers (us!) it only makes sense that we make a practice of not purchasing products from companies who practice this sort of silliness.
Advanced Software is now on my own list of companies to ignore.
--- Bill
hhahahahahahha
"Anyone can sue anyone else, at any time, for any reason."
Interesting that this is considered a feature and not a bug.
what is your problem, you are spoiling
everyones fun.
like they say in monty python 'lets not bicker
and argue about who killed who'
this means ~
Does anyone remember the old Unix utility, twin? I may still have a copy on a machine where I work. I will check on Tuesday. Basically, it displays two files side-by-side on the same display. I wonder how long *that* has been around.
While the patent rules require something be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art to qualify as patentable, evidently nothing is obvious to those who work in the PTO.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
It's designed to make reverse-engineering easier... Sheesh. Make software to assist in software/idea "theft" and sue cause somebody "stole" your idea... Morons.
These patents are not for the idea of displaying two drafts of a document side-by-side. They cover specific algorithms and methods for detecting which blocks are different between two documents, and matching up corresponding blocks between two versions of a document.
This is, as far as I can tell, sufficiently different from the working of UNIX diff that diff wouldn't constitute prior art. I don't have any experience with the offending Corel feature, so I really can't say whether it might infringe on this patent.
It's still not a very impressive patent, and I as sickened by software patents as any coder, but please try to do a little research before spreading misinformation like this (or reacting to it).
The technical details of the patent are essentially that the system uses a hash algorithm on all the lines in the documents and finds hashes which are the same in both documents, which it uses as "anchorpoints" to correlate the two texts.
It then seems to do some grouping of changed lines into words or sentences. The patent also refers to methods for displaying or printing the documents side-by-side with indicators of changes, insertions, deletions, etc.