Topic awaiting preservation: opinions on this patent grab?

The patent--issued on Valentine's Day--covers all rich-media technology implementations, including Flash, Flex, Java, Ajax, and XAML, when the rich-media application is accessed on any device over the Internet, according to the patent holders.

Any chance this will be granted and trickle down? If so how far's the trickle? Will a big corp buy the patent and try to cash in? If so how would they?

And if anyone's reeeeeeeally good with legalese, how about translating the patent for me to see exactly what it covers? I mean patenting AJAX?!?! That can't be possible now can it?

The US patent 7,000,180 is issued. As you can see if you search for its title in the Quick Search of the issued patents.

My first reactions when I saw that last week were : WTF?! ... I need a Tshirt saying 'I violated the patent 7,000,180 before it was filed'.

I haven't had the energy to read the full description of the patent. But if their definition of 'component' ( as they use it in the abstract ) is broad enough, then the patent could cover AJAX-like applications/sites. If this is true, and according to this other article it is, then that's one more example of how incompetent the USPTO is regarding software patents. Because there was some AJAX-like application way before 2001.



(Edited by poi on 02-26-2006 22:58)

so scary then? Sounds like you'd say scary

I'm just trying to figure out if it's actually going to be possible to sue me for building, in aprticular, an AJAX app that uses php ecmascript xml to do the whole asynchronous bit?!?! That just seems ludicrous to me. It sounds as if it may be laying more claim to the delivery of "rich media" like Flash and video but it also looks like it could almost 'patent' the AJAX "idea". Speaking of which, whatever happened to the folks that laid claim to object/embed/activeX whatever the hell it was that was suppose to affect every piece of Flash on the web?

I'd expect the patent to be purchased by a big player if it's enforceable/profitable on any scale but have no idea what the big player would do with it. I mean, how's it going to affect me/us folks that have built web apps that employ AJAX somewhere?

I'm all for patenting original stuff and giving credit where it's due but this stuff that can be done retroactively and come back to bite innocents in the ass at some later date is just insane isn't it?

I'm hoping this will just kinda go away but I remeber the GIF thing all too well. Not that I ever developed an app that had problems with compuserve but long about now I could definitely see this being a problem in the not-too-distant future for myself and I'd imagine quite a few others in this industry.

This seems to be the sort of thing that you hear about once and then never again.

The GIF thing was a little different, I thought, since Compuserve actually *did* design it themselves.

Hey... not a problem folks. If I'm not mistaken Al Gore holds the patent on the internet and as soon as Al gets a whiff of this he'll be slappin' some serious butt I'm sure.


But seriously... I can't see this ever being enforceable.

Didn't someone try to do this with mouse clicks or something silly like that?

I think I'll go patent a nifty new invention I like to call "breathing." You all better be prepared to fork over the big bucks.

___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org | Cell 270 | Sig Rotator | the Fellowship of Sup

I think it will probably get tossed out like the one for plug-in architecture. From what I can tell, its not a patent on AJAX, Flash, etc, but rather a patent on developing a certain type of web app that can contain those technologies. Basically, its a patent on doing stuff like on his website http://www.balthaser.com/ (check out Mobius8 in the gallery, its kinda cool), dynamically creating rich media.

Here is the abstract for the patent:

quote:

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A host computer, containing processes for creating rich-media applications, is accessed from a remote user computer system via an Internet connection. User account information and rich-media component specifications are uploaded over the Internet for a specific user account. Rich-media applications are created, deleted, or modified in a user account, with rich-media components added to, modified in, or deleted from the rich-media application based on information contained in a user request. After creation, the rich-media application is viewed or saved on the host computer system, or downloaded to the user computer system over the Internet.

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From the patent's definitions section:

quote:

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Rich-media components include 3D graphics, video clips, animation, special effects (including, but not limited to, zooms, wipes, fades, and spinning text), sound effects, and stereo music. Rich-media components may include WAV sound files, MP3 sound files, MPEG movie files, JPEG graphic files, GIF graphic files, SWF Shockwave Flash® files, and Java® applets.

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The patent was filed in 2000. I remember using online applications to create 3D text banners, spinning text, etc back around 1996. I'm sure most of you remember those as well. I also know of many services that created Flash for you online from around the late 90's. Now those are very basic examples, and his patent is basically on bringing lots of stuff like that together. I don't think it will affect people who use AJAX to make web apps function more like desktop apps.

quote:

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Slime said:

This seems to be the sort of thing that you hear about once and then never again.The GIF thing was a little different, I thought, since Compuserve actually *did* design it themselves.

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that's certainly what I'm hoping

I'll paraphrase a sereis of responses I received via e-mail to a similar discussion:

quote:

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As far as I can tell, the patent covers Balthaser's Flash-based, Flash applet builder, and not much else. They applied for a patent on an applet that helps other people make flaming logo applets in their browser. Nothing much more than that.

The terms specifically apply to developing "rich media applications" and "rich media components." This is in reference to Balthaser's specific components defined in the claims: An online editor that does what you can do with Macromedia Flash. A Web site hosted program that allows you to do very specific things while building an applet that you can then deploy on other sites.

I can't see this applying to AJAX. AJAX is a label applied a process used to build responsive Web pages with capabilities similar to the capabilities we've come to expect from programs runnung on an Operating System.

The patent is for a set of techniques for using Flash-like "rich media" hosted on a Web site to build Flash-like "rich media" applets, in a manner quite specific to Balthaser's applet. It is an interesting way to do things, if you feel, as Balthaser seems to, that this sort of thing is better done via a ramped up Web applet rather than via a OS native program.

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Keep in mind that none of the people involved in the above discussion is a lawyer.

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-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.