I didn't read the whole patent either, I'm saving it for nap time...
From the abstract and the many of the claims though I would suggest that Terminal Services and Flash aren't related.
Terminal Services doesn't provide the capability of remote content creation in the same sense that the patent would seem to cover. Sure it would let you use the thick client remotely but I don't think that you could successfully argue that as prior art in this context.
I don't recall Flash 2.0 having tools that worked from browser. You could view them in a browser but didn't you use a local (thick client) tool for the creation of the content?
The patent doesn't seem to cover the display of the content, it's after the creation of it.
While I don't disagree with the general silliness of this particular patent and the broken nature of the PTO I think people are overstating the ease with which this patent can be dismissed based on prior art.
To my reading the patent is not about display of rich media it is about the creation of rich media through a web application. This is where the relevance to CMS systems and some of the more recent technologies that were claimed comes in. I would be hard pressed to name a tool that worked over the internet for the creation of rich media prior to 2001. I would be hard pressed to name one that does it now (well anyway). It's the content development tools that this will give fits and if Balthasar is smart they will figure out what the legal fees of challenging it will be and set their licence fee at that less 10%. If they are greedy they'll get to try their luck in court.
Big companies, especialy, will opt for the easier path in these cases and all law suites have risk ask noted in many of the more colorful posts. Who knows whether a court would decide that the leap between desktop based media development tools and an internet based one is obvious? Balthasar certainly could make a case that the construction of the two is completely different.
Google is a business. It has obligations to be a good corporate citizen of the global economy, but it is not obligated to try and fix the evil in the world. It just shouldn't add to it. Bottom line is they are a business and they are going to make decisions that benefit their stock holders. China is a huge opportunity and they were bound to do something to enable their penetration of that market.
Google being available in China is good for the Chinese people. I would expect that the vast majority of queries in China will have nothing to do with repression. Serving up that information is hugely valuable to educating and helping elevate the awareness of those 100M web surfers.
That said I would have prefered to see Google arrive at a slightly different solution... why not just block the query completely. The part that galls me is that they are not just censoring the results but that they are actually redirecting to government propoganda. It would seem much better to just reject the query and say "Nothing to see here, move along." or something in official approved language.
Of course, Google may have tried that and the gov't wouldn't allow it. Nothing makes people want to go somwhere like a "do not enter, important stuff hidden here" sign.
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From the abstract and the many of the claims though I would suggest that Terminal Services and Flash aren't related.
Terminal Services doesn't provide the capability of remote content creation in the same sense that the patent would seem to cover. Sure it would let you use the thick client remotely but I don't think that you could successfully argue that as prior art in this context.
I don't recall Flash 2.0 having tools that worked from browser. You could view them in a browser but didn't you use a local (thick client) tool for the creation of the content?
The patent doesn't seem to cover the display of the content, it's after the creation of it.
To my reading the patent is not about display of rich media it is about the creation of rich media through a web application. This is where the relevance to CMS systems and some of the more recent technologies that were claimed comes in. I would be hard pressed to name a tool that worked over the internet for the creation of rich media prior to 2001. I would be hard pressed to name one that does it now (well anyway). It's the content development tools that this will give fits and if Balthasar is smart they will figure out what the legal fees of challenging it will be and set their licence fee at that less 10%. If they are greedy they'll get to try their luck in court.
Big companies, especialy, will opt for the easier path in these cases and all law suites have risk ask noted in many of the more colorful posts. Who knows whether a court would decide that the leap between desktop based media development tools and an internet based one is obvious? Balthasar certainly could make a case that the construction of the two is completely different.
Google is a business. It has obligations to be a good corporate citizen of the global economy, but it is not obligated to try and fix the evil in the world. It just shouldn't add to it. Bottom line is they are a business and they are going to make decisions that benefit their stock holders. China is a huge opportunity and they were bound to do something to enable their penetration of that market.
Google being available in China is good for the Chinese people. I would expect that the vast majority of queries in China will have nothing to do with repression. Serving up that information is hugely valuable to educating and helping elevate the awareness of those 100M web surfers.
That said I would have prefered to see Google arrive at a slightly different solution... why not just block the query completely. The part that galls me is that they are not just censoring the results but that they are actually redirecting to government propoganda. It would seem much better to just reject the query and say "Nothing to see here, move along." or something in official approved language.
Of course, Google may have tried that and the gov't wouldn't allow it. Nothing makes people want to go somwhere like a "do not enter, important stuff hidden here" sign.