A patent number would certainly be helpful . . . .
While a (35 U.S.C. sec.) 102 reference would be great, combining references under
section 103 (while more difficult to win on) to show obviousness to one of ordinary skill in the art seems much more likely.
E-tailers have been sending email confirmation and updates for a while, but the realtime tracking of a package by the shipper is what enables the email hyperlink tracking to which you refer. It seems obvious to email the tracking link once that has been "invented."
For those who want to actually read the Kodak patents asserted against Sony, they are 5016107; 5164831; 5493335; 6292218; 4642678; 5373322; 5382976; 4660101; 6542192; and 6573927. Go to the PTO and search for each.
I will try to pull the complaint and the patents and post them to my site later--I will post the link then. As for how you could get a patent on something that involves so many different technologies, the answer is easy--you don't have to invent every single component or element of a device or method to get a patent on it--you can get patents on improvements to what is known in the art, so long as the improvement is new, useful, and non-obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. The proverbial better mousetrap.
It seems like every newly filed hi-tech patent case brings complaints that the patent system does not work--I do patent litigation and, trust me, without studying the claims or specification of the suit patents, their prosecution histories, or the prior art, it is almost impossible to know what the patents actually cover or whether they should not have issued.
I am quite sure that Sony's patent litigation team will be all over these patents with a fine toothed-comb, and will exploit any and every prior art reference to the fullest.
Speaking of, a good week to be on Sony's U.S. patent litigation squad--Sony (and many others) were sued (last Thursday or Friday, I think) in a series of suits by Magnaquench involving patents on neodymium-iron-boron magnets which, according to the complaint, are crucial to today's CD/DVD drives. I don't see anyone ranting that these Nd-Fe-B patents or this suit.
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A patent number would certainly be helpful . . . . While a (35 U.S.C. sec.) 102 reference would be great, combining references under section 103 (while more difficult to win on) to show obviousness to one of ordinary skill in the art seems much more likely. E-tailers have been sending email confirmation and updates for a while, but the realtime tracking of a package by the shipper is what enables the email hyperlink tracking to which you refer. It seems obvious to email the tracking link once that has been "invented."
For those who want to actually read the Kodak patents asserted against Sony, they are 5016107; 5164831; 5493335; 6292218; 4642678; 5373322; 5382976; 4660101; 6542192; and 6573927. Go to the PTO and search for each.
I will try to pull the complaint and the patents and post them to my site later--I will post the link then. As for how you could get a patent on something that involves so many different technologies, the answer is easy--you don't have to invent every single component or element of a device or method to get a patent on it--you can get patents on improvements to what is known in the art, so long as the improvement is new, useful, and non-obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. The proverbial better mousetrap. It seems like every newly filed hi-tech patent case brings complaints that the patent system does not work--I do patent litigation and, trust me, without studying the claims or specification of the suit patents, their prosecution histories, or the prior art, it is almost impossible to know what the patents actually cover or whether they should not have issued. I am quite sure that Sony's patent litigation team will be all over these patents with a fine toothed-comb, and will exploit any and every prior art reference to the fullest. Speaking of, a good week to be on Sony's U.S. patent litigation squad--Sony (and many others) were sued (last Thursday or Friday, I think) in a series of suits by Magnaquench involving patents on neodymium-iron-boron magnets which, according to the complaint, are crucial to today's CD/DVD drives. I don't see anyone ranting that these Nd-Fe-B patents or this suit.