Yahoo Patents Dynamic Page Generator

ecampbel writes "This patent should scare many, many different sites. Their specific invention is that they store the live data used to fill in their site?s templates in shared memory that the sub-processes that actually generate the page have access to. This method cuts down on the time it takes to generate their page since quering another server or process isn't necessary. What does Slashdot and the readers of Slashdot think of this new patent?" Thats it! Nobody is allowed to cache data in shared memory space any more! Slashdot actually runs really close to this, although I cache the custom Slashboxes in httpd child memory space, not in shared memory owned by the parent Apache (hey, is there a shared memory module for perl? :) The abstract is attached below, anyone have any opinions on this one?

Here is the abstract of their patent: United States Patent 5,983,227 (Nov. 9, 1999)

Dynamic page generator

Abstract

A custom page server is provided with user preferences organized into templates stored in compact data structures and the live data used to fill the templates stored local to the page server which is handing user requests for custom pages. One process is executed on the page server for every request. The process is provided a user template for the user making the request, where the user template is either generated from user preferences or retrieved from a cache of recently used user templates. Each user process is provided access to a large region of shared memory which contains all of the live data needed to fill any user template. Typically, the pages served are news pages, giving the user a custom selection of stock quotes, news headlines, sports scores, weather, and the like. With the live data stored in a local, shared memory, any custom page can be built within the page server, eliminating the need to make requests from other servers for portions of the live data. While the shared memory might include RAM (random access memory) and disk storage, in many computer systems, it is faster to store all the live data in RAM.

Comments

Standard module

[Matts]

IPC::Shareable can (and is) used for this technique on mod_perl sites. I've used it myself. I haven't read the patent yet, I guess I'll go check it out.

See the modperl archives for many other people using this method for caching data (templates and other stuff). I guess it could be argued that anything using a <perl> section or startup.pl in modperl is using a similar technique.

Yeek

[Pascal Q. Porcupine]

Hm. In trying to find the patent in question, I did a search on 'yahoo' in the IBM patent database... US patent 05896132 is even more unbelievable than this one. Apparently IBM tried and succeeded patenting using the word 'more' for flipping through multiple pages of text:

Scroll bars conventionally used in a graphical user interface are replaced with "more" bars at each edge of a display bordering a direction in which more information is available for viewing. Actuation of a cursor on one of the more bars scrolls the display in the direction of the more bar. The more bars provide an intuitive mechanism for controlling the display of graphical user interface.

That does it, I'm nuking the USPTO...
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

Standard reply to patents...

[mindslip]

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, not that it would make much impact.

Any idea or expression which can be thought by more than one person by sheer coincidence should never be allowed to be protected.
Expression is not an entity to be hoarded. Implementation may have its merits in the varying methods used, but the thought processes which led to those methods are ultimately responsible, and come from varying sources of inspiration which law can neither protect, enslave, or induce.

Research which truly *is* research, could be protected, certainly, as one protects the fruit of any labour (although for moral reasons, medicine, science, etc. they often shouldn't be). But clever programming tricks, methods that are already taken for granted, or legal wording of common-place procedures written and submitted for the purpose of making a buck... that's not justice, that's not even moral.

Patents fall under law, law is imposed to promote justice, and a capitalistic greedy move like this on the part of a bunch of Yahoo's does no justice to anyone.

mindslip

Here's a Link

[Anonymous Coward]

the full patent is here

Microsoft ASP engine does this and has for years

[1010011010]

ASP's Session and Application objects have done this for years. I use it to cache weather, stock quotes, news items, etc. Microsoft might do something good and sue the crap out of yahoo for this...

new /. topic

[werd life]

rob, you should add

http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=ludicrous_pa tents

but what would the logo be?