Our mission statement in the UK used to be to (IIRC) "grant patents with a high degree of validity".
I was always conscious that our main customer was the Crown and that our responsiblity in granting patents was both to ensure a high quality disclosure and a valid well defined monopoly as a reward for that disclosure.
A patent examiner should grant patents that will stand up in court.
For many corporations they probably couldn't care a toss if the patent was valid - they just want to say "we'll swap our 2k patents in field Y with your 2k patents in field X". When I worked in the computing field (ecla:G06F) HP were advertising with the number of patent applications (!) they'd made... most of the ones I saw were fishing expeditions of low quality as I recall. The patent attorneys (in the US) probably prefer a lot of invalid patents to as I suspect they make for more lawsuits.
>>> "In the case of software patents, outside certain complex algorithmic areas like digital signal processing, almost everything is inherently obvious if the problem is stated clearly."
I think it was Socrates who did a gedanken into how any idiot knew everything. You just break down the problem in to very basic elements and lead them through it... your comments reminded me of that.
That aside, I think that recognising and clearly stating a problem can be a very innovative process. The problem I had as a (UK) patent examiner with obviousness arguments was that in any argument for obviousness the applicant can always respond with "if it's obvious why hasn't it been done before". Which is actually a good argument - finding dated documentary evidence for software patents has been difficult; not sure about the current state of play. Several times I thought "this must have been done". But it turns out I should have been working in electronics R&D because even spending twice as long on researching as I should I couldn't find any details about it.
In software there's a problem of extreme complexity and lack of experts.
It's not exactly about Penrose tiling but it's a response to the parent that said:
>>> "The peak of that Islamic civilisation seems to have been the Kingdom of Granada in Spain, which had an advanced society, religious tolerance (not only were Jews and Christians welcome, but a Hebrew prayer book for women has been discovered there) and advanced technology."
Yeah the only apparent difference between the Jihadists and the Crusaders was that the former raped the women as well as killing them along with the menfolk.
Mind you there are tales of Crusaders that cannibalised their victims - however I suspect that's a perversion of the misunderstanding that was held against the early Christians as being cannabils (because they eat and drink Jesus "flesh" at the communion table).
the Koran: sura 9, verse 29 (Ahmed Ali's translation of the Koran, published in 1994 by Princeton University Press)
"Fight those people of the Book [i.e., Jews and Christians] who do not believe in God and the Last Day, who do not prohibit what God and His Apostle [i.e., Muhammad] have forbidden, nor accept divine law, until all of them pay protective tax in submission."
Sounds like that would be just lovely. So tolerant. Why I'm sure that any group of people would love to live under such a tolerant regime. Oh and remember that the followers of Mohammed don't have a new testament telling them that they've misunderstood god and that in fact he rather prefers "treat your neighbours like your self" than "an eye for an eye".
Copyright infringement against MySpace and users
on
Ethics of Proxy Servers?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
>>> "In terms of legality, you're in the clear for that express purpose only (visiting MySpace.) "
I think you're way off here. IANAL either but I used to work in intellectual property (patents not copyright however).
You're taking a published work (myspace pages) and creating a derivative of it (myspace pages with your ads instead of theirs). You're undoubtedly opening yourself up to a lawsuit here.
In addition, myspace (I gather) now have agreements to compensate original rights holders for bootleg material on the site, I'm assuming you don't have similar agreements!?
Someone later in this thread (#18050774) says:
>>> "You're supposing that the things that these schools are trying to block access to are not learning."
MySpace??!? There is probably a lot of learning there but I wouldn't think it's key for the majority of high-school students when balanced against the procrastination factor.... they better block slashdot too;0)>
>>> "we have no way to assure that the culture of such a small population in isolation could survive"
Nor a large one for that.
I'm sure there are several instances of populations of under 1000 surviving nearly independently on small islands, in remote forest or mountain regions (&c.) before the advent of time efficient long distance travel.
I think you'd better go "communist"
on
Interstellar Ark
·
· Score: 1
... or at least socialist.
Otherwise one guy will hijack the oxygen supply and sell it off in exchange for the rest of the parts of the ship. He'll need to let most of the population die first to get his price up though.
We were in Ikea about 10 days ago and our lad Jakob (19months) enjoyed a few minutes playing a memory game on a touchscreen system with a boy of about 5-6 looking on and butting in occasionally (as did I!).
I selected the game from the on-screen 2-level picture menu showed him how to touch it with his hand to turn over the "cards" and reveal the different items and let him play. He wasn't very good at matching the pairs but our little friend (the other boy) kept jumping in to do that for us.
It seemed a usable and useful system.
I can imagine teaching things with such a system more effectively than an other method - like maybe animal noises. I try to do a good range but I don't know my pine marten from my porcupine! Not vital but imitation by a child helps linguistic development.
Aside from that, being able to handle a menu and interact with a basic computer are pretty key skills for kids now.
I'm poor, according to the UK news we live below the poverty line (we're poor, they're wrong!).
We eat rice and pasta and sometimes potatoes. A sack of pasta is quite cheap.
For protein it's alternating bouts of mince beef and turkey - we buy large packs and eat it over 2-3 days.
We splash out on fruit (melon is good value at the moment, apples have gone up now winters here, citrus are quite cheap but very tart).
We could save money (eg on fruit) by shopping in town and at the market but at a considerable cost of time which we don't have as we're looking after our son or working (or both) or occassionally sleeping(!) - oh, and posting on slashdot.
Our nutrition would be better if we had more money to spend on fresh fruit and veg. But I suspect (at least in the UK and probably in the US) that "poor" people spend their money on junk food (which we simply can't afford - a McDo meal costs our food bill for the day for all of us) and microwave convenience foods (more expensive than making your own). Tesco Value is our saviour to a certain extent: Tinned tomatoes go with turkey and mince and cost 19p/400g. Brown and white bread cost the same, often you can get multigrain or granary bread for the same price on offer. Uni taught me something - how to make a two course meal for 5 male students for £5.
We do get to binge sometimes thanks to visiting relatives and credit cards and we grow some of our own food (garlic, rhubarb, potatoes, onions).
I think you're joking. But just in case, in BSL at least, sign language relies on nuance to form different words - like lip shapes, facial expressions, etc.. For example you can do a sign for "lemonade" and for "to f***" (in the sexual sense, not in the fsck sense) that differ only in the facial expression.
Deaf kid (signing): Mom, don't forget to buy lemonade for Dad
>>> What field of science you want to enter determines what level of math prowess you must have.
Huh. If you're not a scientist, don't attempt to get a job doing science. You don't have to be working in science to be a scientist, I imagine it's like not being an editor but still being a grammar nazi.
Oh and if you just show up at the lectures for an undergrad course everyone will probably think you're a visiting professor assessing the doctoral teaching staff. Could be fun.
Incidentally what is your field? When I was about 12 I decided I wanted to be a particle physicist; to be honest that's still the unfulfilled passion in my life but it turned out I wasn't dedicated enough at studying and probably (though I hate to admit this, being as I got the best A-levels in my entire town) not bright enough.
The priority date is from a 1999 application, so by US rules on priority (IIRC) the invention could have been first made public in '98. It may have been invented much sooner but not have been evidenced to have been created any sooner.
Anyhow, the first claim (unamended in the '138 application) reads:
+++ 1. A course-based system for providing to an educational community of users access to a plurality of online courses, comprising: a) a plurality of user computers, with each user computer being associated with a user of the system and with each user being capable of having predefined characteristics indicative of multiple predetermined roles in the system, each role providing a level of access to a plurality of data files associated with a particular course and a level of control over the data files associated with the course with the multiple predetermined user roles comprising at least two user's predetermined roles selected from the group consisting of a student role in one or more course associated with a student user, an instructor role in one or more courses associated with an instructor user and an administrator role associated with an administrator user, and b) a server computer in communication with each of the user computers over a network, the server computer comprising: means for storing a plurality of data files associated with a course, means for assigning a level of access to and control of each data file based on a user of the system's predetermined role in a course; means for determining whether access to a data file associated with the course is authorized; means for allowing access to and control of the data file associated with the course if authorization is granted based on the access level of the user of the system. +++
They may have had to amend it for grant, has it been granted yet(?), in which case this may no longer bear true as to the "invention". Usually amendments take the form of including matter from subsequent claims that distinguishes the claimed invention from the "prior art" (the body of evidence presented for previous works). Reading down the claims the details are for subsequent elements of a hypertext based assessment system which includes provision of [access protected] course materials, creation of tests and marking of student tests and finally (in claim 35) to having a webpage with links to email (asynchronous) and a chat session (synchronous) [all integrated in the context of an assessment system]. From what I can recall back in 1999 when I was a 2nd year undergrad this would have been quite novel [in the vague non-patent sense].
You don't mention the taking of tests, grading of test nor the synchronous communications. As I'm assuming you were an expert in the field at the time it seems they could write claims to a novel invention based on the patent - or if they can't then someone could.
Disclaimer: I _used_to_ examine patents in the G06F classification area so I don't know anything anymore!!
Incidentally their summary of interpreting patents at http://www.blackboard.com/patent/FAQ2 is really good and should be required reading for slashdotters.
Looking at 20060168233 A1 - all but one claim has been deleted, number 47(!)
+++ 47. A system for providing to a community of users access to a plurality of online courses, comprising: a server computer in communication with each of a plurality of user computers over a network, the server computer comprising: means for storing a plurality of data files associated with a course, means for assigning a level of access to and control of each data file based on a user of the system's predetermined role in a course; means for determining whether access to a data file associated with the course is authorized; means for allowing access to and control of the data file associated with the course if authorization is granted based on the access level of the user of the system; wherein each user of the system being capable of having pre
>>> Customers being wrong or stupid doesn't mean it's sound business to have rude people staffing support
What about for non-customers, ie those not directly paying a fee to consume your resources? Surely if it looks like the potential customer (signed up initially and used the free service) has moved on (stopped logging in even and so clearly doesn't value the service) then being rude is ideal. You've not broken any contract and they leave and waste someone elses resources!
You: You're right, it's only really the clever people that can use Linux. Try this Kubuntu.
[1 week later]
Them: Hey I thought you said it was hard to use Linux, I must be a genius.
--- I know he specifically mentioned a guy that thought Kubuntu was hard to use. Perhaps I've been using too long but I thought it was pretty easy. Course if you've got dodgy hardware...
>>> "It would be a massively over complex and expensive IT solution to a problem that is fixable by other means."
That's what the experiment aimed to test. The issue is that there is widespread vehicle tax evasion. The idea (I think) was that all vehicle taxes (including those currently taken through petrol tax and congestion charges) would be rolled in to one. Also the premise of the experiment was that this is in a future in which nearly all cars have a satellite tracking system factory fitted (new luxury cars are getting these).
Also no one said that the tax purse wouldn't get more revenue... just not from me!
>>> "create a counter petition in favour of the plans"
Often those on one side of an argument are more zealous. I wasn't about to go out spamming people to get votes. Also, those viewing one petition and it's arguments wouldn't necessarily consume the counter arguments. So I think an automated "anti-petition" or "nosign" would be a better solution.
How many understood the petition they signed? 600,000?
I got an email that was trying to pass off a dated road tax experiment as about-to-be-implemented public policy - see my journal for my full response: http://yro.slashdot.org/~pbhj/journal/160052
When I looked in to it I actually liked the sound of reduced council tax in favour of direct mileage taxation *instead* of vehicle based duty.
Unfortunately there was no "nosign" option. So 600k may have signed but what if 700k that looked at the petition didn't?
However, the first two archived pages are error messages so it's not clear if this was being used for an email service. If this was a registered trade mark then it wouldn't matter as the Nice Classification for marks is Telecoms (which surely encompasses websites) - I'm not sure how it works with unregistered marks though.
http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline from OHIM (the European TM registry) shows the earliest registration of "gmail" to be by Google Inc. 14/Apr/2004.
As I understand it though, at least in Europe, you have to protect a mark (to maintain it as an designation of origin of goods or service) otherwise you lose your rights to it.
>>> "I really don't understand why they are bothering to put DRM on it"
Didn't you hear? The DG of the BBC is getting kickbacks from Billy G ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ I mean, he's collaborating with MS and if he happens to get a very high paid job with MS Europe later in his career then it's purely coincidental.
Disclaimer - this post is an ironic comedic remark containing no truth and as such is not a representation of the character of any person real or imaginary that might be being overpaid as a boss in the BBC.
Slashdot Mirror
Our mission statement in the UK used to be to (IIRC) "grant patents with a high degree of validity".
... most of the ones I saw were fishing expeditions of low quality as I recall. The patent attorneys (in the US) probably prefer a lot of invalid patents to as I suspect they make for more lawsuits.
I was always conscious that our main customer was the Crown and that our responsiblity in granting patents was both to ensure a high quality disclosure and a valid well defined monopoly as a reward for that disclosure.
A patent examiner should grant patents that will stand up in court.
For many corporations they probably couldn't care a toss if the patent was valid - they just want to say "we'll swap our 2k patents in field Y with your 2k patents in field X". When I worked in the computing field (ecla:G06F) HP were advertising with the number of patent applications (!) they'd made
>>> "In the case of software patents, outside certain complex algorithmic areas like digital signal processing, almost everything is inherently obvious if the problem is stated clearly."
... your comments reminded me of that.
I think it was Socrates who did a gedanken into how any idiot knew everything. You just break down the problem in to very basic elements and lead them through it
That aside, I think that recognising and clearly stating a problem can be a very innovative process. The problem I had as a (UK) patent examiner with obviousness arguments was that in any argument for obviousness the applicant can always respond with "if it's obvious why hasn't it been done before". Which is actually a good argument - finding dated documentary evidence for software patents has been difficult; not sure about the current state of play. Several times I thought "this must have been done". But it turns out I should have been working in electronics R&D because even spending twice as long on researching as I should I couldn't find any details about it.
In software there's a problem of extreme complexity and lack of experts.
Off-topic?
It's not exactly about Penrose tiling but it's a response to the parent that said:
>>> "The peak of that Islamic civilisation seems to have been the Kingdom of Granada in Spain, which had an advanced society, religious tolerance (not only were Jews and Christians welcome, but a Hebrew prayer book for women has been discovered there) and advanced technology."
You may have noticed that there are still Christians in Iraq.
Also Iraq has been under a tyrannical dictatorship and not subject to Sharia.
So you're saying the Sura is wrong when it tells the followers of the Koran to fight, they just ignored it.
... but I'm sure Mr AC you'll explain for me.
Oh, and protective tax under submission doesn't sound like regular taxation of equal citizens to me
Yeah the only apparent difference between the Jihadists and the Crusaders was that the former raped the women as well as killing them along with the menfolk.
Mind you there are tales of Crusaders that cannibalised their victims - however I suspect that's a perversion of the misunderstanding that was held against the early Christians as being cannabils (because they eat and drink Jesus "flesh" at the communion table).
the Koran: sura 9, verse 29 (Ahmed Ali's translation of the Koran, published in 1994 by Princeton University Press)
"Fight those people of the Book [i.e., Jews and Christians] who do not believe in God and the Last Day, who do not prohibit what God and His Apostle [i.e., Muhammad] have forbidden, nor accept divine law, until all of them pay protective tax in submission."
Sounds like that would be just lovely. So tolerant. Why I'm sure that any group of people would love to live under such a tolerant regime. Oh and remember that the followers of Mohammed don't have a new testament telling them that they've misunderstood god and that in fact he rather prefers "treat your neighbours like your self" than "an eye for an eye".
>>> "In terms of legality, you're in the clear for that express purpose only (visiting MySpace.) "
.... they better block slashdot too ;0)>
I think you're way off here. IANAL either but I used to work in intellectual property (patents not copyright however).
You're taking a published work (myspace pages) and creating a derivative of it (myspace pages with your ads instead of theirs). You're undoubtedly opening yourself up to a lawsuit here.
In addition, myspace (I gather) now have agreements to compensate original rights holders for bootleg material on the site, I'm assuming you don't have similar agreements!?
Someone later in this thread (#18050774) says:
>>> "You're supposing that the things that these schools are trying to block access to are not learning."
MySpace??!? There is probably a lot of learning there but I wouldn't think it's key for the majority of high-school students when balanced against the procrastination factor
>>> "we have no way to assure that the culture of such a small population in isolation could survive"
Nor a large one for that.
I'm sure there are several instances of populations of under 1000 surviving nearly independently on small islands, in remote forest or mountain regions (&c.) before the advent of time efficient long distance travel.
... or at least socialist.
Otherwise one guy will hijack the oxygen supply and sell it off in exchange for the rest of the parts of the ship. He'll need to let most of the population die first to get his price up though.
We were in Ikea about 10 days ago and our lad Jakob (19months) enjoyed a few minutes playing a memory game on a touchscreen system with a boy of about 5-6 looking on and butting in occasionally (as did I!).
I selected the game from the on-screen 2-level picture menu showed him how to touch it with his hand to turn over the "cards" and reveal the different items and let him play. He wasn't very good at matching the pairs but our little friend (the other boy) kept jumping in to do that for us.
It seemed a usable and useful system.
I can imagine teaching things with such a system more effectively than an other method - like maybe animal noises. I try to do a good range but I don't know my pine marten from my porcupine! Not vital but imitation by a child helps linguistic development.
Aside from that, being able to handle a menu and interact with a basic computer are pretty key skills for kids now.
The voice of Comic-book[store]-guy from the Simpsons came to me saying "pictures people, we need pictures" in response to your post .... so ....
I'm poor, according to the UK news we live below the poverty line (we're poor, they're wrong!).
We eat rice and pasta and sometimes potatoes. A sack of pasta is quite cheap.
For protein it's alternating bouts of mince beef and turkey - we buy large packs and eat it over 2-3 days.
We splash out on fruit (melon is good value at the moment, apples have gone up now winters here, citrus are quite cheap but very tart).
We could save money (eg on fruit) by shopping in town and at the market but at a considerable cost of time which we don't have as we're looking after our son or working (or both) or occassionally sleeping(!) - oh, and posting on slashdot.
Our nutrition would be better if we had more money to spend on fresh fruit and veg. But I suspect (at least in the UK and probably in the US) that "poor" people spend their money on junk food (which we simply can't afford - a McDo meal costs our food bill for the day for all of us) and microwave convenience foods (more expensive than making your own). Tesco Value is our saviour to a certain extent: Tinned tomatoes go with turkey and mince and cost 19p/400g. Brown and white bread cost the same, often you can get multigrain or granary bread for the same price on offer. Uni taught me something - how to make a two course meal for 5 male students for £5.
We do get to binge sometimes thanks to visiting relatives and credit cards and we grow some of our own food (garlic, rhubarb, potatoes, onions).
Caching _is_ Copyright infringement: Law simply can't keep pace with tech, especially international law.
I think you're joking. But just in case, in BSL at least, sign language relies on nuance to form different words - like lip shapes, facial expressions, etc.. For example you can do a sign for "lemonade" and for "to f***" (in the sexual sense, not in the fsck sense) that differ only in the facial expression.
Deaf kid (signing): Mom, don't forget to buy lemonade for Dad
Mom: Wait till I get home you dirty little brat!
How about you hang a painting on your front door. That's protected by copyright and not an architectural feature. Can't you sue for damages?
... obscenity laws apply?
And, aren't there laws about photographing juveniles without permission?
What if you write an obscene statement across your house
How about if you libel someone and they publish it?
Seems like there's a whole heap of money for lawyers in all of this.
>>> What field of science you want to enter determines what level of math prowess you must have.
Huh. If you're not a scientist, don't attempt to get a job doing science. You don't have to be working in science to be a scientist, I imagine it's like not being an editor but still being a grammar nazi.
Oh and if you just show up at the lectures for an undergrad course everyone will probably think you're a visiting professor assessing the doctoral teaching staff. Could be fun.
Incidentally what is your field? When I was about 12 I decided I wanted to be a particle physicist; to be honest that's still the unfulfilled passion in my life but it turned out I wasn't dedicated enough at studying and probably (though I hate to admit this, being as I got the best A-levels in my entire town) not bright enough.
The priority date is from a 1999 application, so by US rules on priority (IIRC) the invention could have been first made public in '98. It may have been invented much sooner but not have been evidenced to have been created any sooner.
Anyhow, the first claim (unamended in the '138 application) reads:
+++
1. A course-based system for providing to an educational community of users access to a plurality of online courses, comprising: a) a plurality of user computers, with each user computer being associated with a user of the system and with each user being capable of having predefined characteristics indicative of multiple predetermined roles in the system, each role providing a level of access to a plurality of data files associated with a particular course and a level of control over the data files associated with the course with the multiple predetermined user roles comprising at least two user's predetermined roles selected from the group consisting of a student role in one or more course associated with a student user, an instructor role in one or more courses associated with an instructor user and an administrator role associated with an administrator user, and b) a server computer in communication with each of the user computers over a network, the server computer comprising: means for storing a plurality of data files associated with a course, means for assigning a level of access to and control of each data file based on a user of the system's predetermined role in a course; means for determining whether access to a data file associated with the course is authorized; means for allowing access to and control of the data file associated with the course if authorization is granted based on the access level of the user of the system.
+++
They may have had to amend it for grant, has it been granted yet(?), in which case this may no longer bear true as to the "invention". Usually amendments take the form of including matter from subsequent claims that distinguishes the claimed invention from the "prior art" (the body of evidence presented for previous works). Reading down the claims the details are for subsequent elements of a hypertext based assessment system which includes provision of [access protected] course materials, creation of tests and marking of student tests and finally (in claim 35) to having a webpage with links to email (asynchronous) and a chat session (synchronous) [all integrated in the context of an assessment system]. From what I can recall back in 1999 when I was a 2nd year undergrad this would have been quite novel [in the vague non-patent sense].
You don't mention the taking of tests, grading of test nor the synchronous communications. As I'm assuming you were an expert in the field at the time it seems they could write claims to a novel invention based on the patent - or if they can't then someone could.
Disclaimer: I _used_to_ examine patents in the G06F classification area so I don't know anything anymore!!
Incidentally their summary of interpreting patents at http://www.blackboard.com/patent/FAQ2 is really good and should be required reading for slashdotters.
Looking at 20060168233 A1 - all but one claim has been deleted, number 47(!)
+++
47. A system for providing to a community of users access to a plurality of online courses, comprising: a server computer in communication with each of a plurality of user computers over a network, the server computer comprising: means for storing a plurality of data files associated with a course, means for assigning a level of access to and control of each data file based on a user of the system's predetermined role in a course; means for determining whether access to a data file associated with the course is authorized; means for allowing access to and control of the data file associated with the course if authorization is granted based on the access level of the user of the system; wherein each user of the system being capable of having pre
>>> Customers being wrong or stupid doesn't mean it's sound business to have rude people staffing support
What about for non-customers, ie those not directly paying a fee to consume your resources? Surely if it looks like the potential customer (signed up initially and used the free service) has moved on (stopped logging in even and so clearly doesn't value the service) then being rude is ideal. You've not broken any contract and they leave and waste someone elses resources!
I know, holey.
Them: It's harder than Windows
...
You: You're right, it's only really the clever people that can use Linux. Try this Kubuntu.
[1 week later]
Them: Hey I thought you said it was hard to use Linux, I must be a genius.
---
I know he specifically mentioned a guy that thought Kubuntu was hard to use. Perhaps I've been using too long but I thought it was pretty easy. Course if you've got dodgy hardware
>>> I'll have made things worse for myself than before
*shrugs* democracy sucks, eh!
>>> "It would be a massively over complex and expensive IT solution to a problem that is fixable by other means."
... just not from me!
That's what the experiment aimed to test. The issue is that there is widespread vehicle tax evasion. The idea (I think) was that all vehicle taxes (including those currently taken through petrol tax and congestion charges) would be rolled in to one. Also the premise of the experiment was that this is in a future in which nearly all cars have a satellite tracking system factory fitted (new luxury cars are getting these).
Also no one said that the tax purse wouldn't get more revenue
>>> "create a counter petition in favour of the plans"
Often those on one side of an argument are more zealous. I wasn't about to go out spamming people to get votes. Also, those viewing one petition and it's arguments wouldn't necessarily consume the counter arguments. So I think an automated "anti-petition" or "nosign" would be a better solution.
How many understood the petition they signed? 600,000?
I got an email that was trying to pass off a dated road tax experiment as about-to-be-implemented public policy - see my journal for my full response: http://yro.slashdot.org/~pbhj/journal/160052
When I looked in to it I actually liked the sound of reduced council tax in favour of direct mileage taxation *instead* of vehicle based duty.
Unfortunately there was no "nosign" option. So 600k may have signed but what if 700k that looked at the petition didn't?
The domain appears to have been extent prior to 25 Feb 2004.
... a bit more info please.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://gmail.de
However, the first two archived pages are error messages so it's not clear if this was being used for an email service. If this was a registered trade mark then it wouldn't matter as the Nice Classification for marks is Telecoms (which surely encompasses websites) - I'm not sure how it works with unregistered marks though.
http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline from OHIM (the European TM registry) shows the earliest registration of "gmail" to be by Google Inc. 14/Apr/2004.
As I understand it though, at least in Europe, you have to protect a mark (to maintain it as an designation of origin of goods or service) otherwise you lose your rights to it.
In summary
>>> "I really don't understand why they are bothering to put DRM on it"
Didn't you hear? The DG of the BBC is getting kickbacks from Billy G ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ I mean, he's collaborating with MS and if he happens to get a very high paid job with MS Europe later in his career then it's purely coincidental.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5390000.stm
Disclaimer - this post is an ironic comedic remark containing no truth and as such is not a representation of the character of any person real or imaginary that might be being overpaid as a boss in the BBC.