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Prior Art to Pinpoint vs. Amazon, from 1980's?

Posted by timothy on Sat Jul 19, 2003 03:08 PM
from the first-person-singular dept.
Patents
Gary Robinson writes "I'm in a fairly unique position with regard to the Pinpoint vs. Amazon case since I built a system in the mid-1980's which is commonly regarded as the first active service based on collaborative filtering. It was a voice-mail-based dating service called 212-ROMANCE. I still have the 8-inch CP/M source code disks as insurance against CF-related patent lawsuits. Today I've posted a discussion of the Pinpoint vs. Amazon case in the context of that prior art as well other prior art from the 1980's."
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  • 8" floppy media? (Score:5, Funny)

    by TWX (665546) on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:10PM (#6480139)
    I hope that you made some backups. That form of media doesn't exactly have an infinite shelf life.

    • Re:8" floppy media? (Score:5, Informative)

      by cyb97 (520582) <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:19PM (#6480198) Homepage Journal
      I guess submitting it to USPTO would count as a pretty good backup...
      Patent # 5,884,282 [uspto.gov]
      Patent # 5,790,426 [uspto.gov]
      Both held by Gary B. Robinson aka. the poster of this story ;-)
      • Well, then, if his work in the 1980s counts as published prior art for the Pinpoint patent, then they also invalidate his own patents from 1998 and 1999.

        In any case, collaborative filtering goes back a long way; I doubt any of these patents are valid, and it doesn't take Robinson's work to invalidate them.
          • If you don't publish your invention in some form, it doesn't count as prior art for the purposes of the patent system; if it did, it would undermine the whole purpose of the patent system, which is to get people to document and publish their inventions.
      • Just reading the abstract of Patent # 5,884,282 [uspto.gov] shows how fucked up the US patent system is. And US is pressurizing EU to introduce similar patent practices. Yuck!

    • Re:8" floppy media? (Score:5, Funny)

      by tds67 (670584) on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:44PM (#6480376)
      Any man with an 8" floppy should consider himself very lucky.
    • Yeah, actually I copied it to 3.5-inch mac floppies at some point as well as to DAT. And I probably have it somewhere on my hard disk on the laptop I'm typing this from as well.
    • Yup...a backup copy on another 8" floppy. It's over there on the file cabinet, being held up by that magnet :)

      I have a box of 5.25" disks I need to get some stuff off of. If I don't get a drive in my machine and do it soon, I may be out of luck.
    • The sad thing is, those 8" Floppies are probably still more reliable than a brand new 3.5" I bought from the store yesterday. They just don't build them like they used to.
      • Ain't that the truth.

        I dropped a few (3.5) two feet onto carpeted floor, the result being they were unusable, could not even be formatted.
        But, after I beat on one for a while, they tend to last. Basically, I'm seeing over a 20% failure rate with various brands. These are cheap, lightweight, and I'm happy if over %50 work these days.

  • It's interesting that he still has the source code floating around. Normally you'd not hang on to something like that; but, I don't think it's going to help them out.

    Now, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you need to file patent suits ASAP, or you lose your ability to do so. And, Amazon has been using this tech for a while.

    Hey, but he should post the source! Then we could see it!

    • Did you read the article ?
      especially the last paragraph called "full disclosure" (or something to that effect), where the writer "discloses" that he is the holder of Patent # 5,884,282 and Patent # 5,790,426... So I guess he got there before Amazon....
    • but then caldera would throw it in their kernel, and prior versions thereof, and accuse him of piracy.

      If you do sorting with CP/M and don't pay them money, you're a common thief!
    • Now, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you need to file patent suits ASAP, or you lose your ability to do so.

      Nope, you're thinking of Trademarks, which are "defend or lose".

      Patent suits can be filed at any time during the life of the patent, and can even be selectively enforced if the patent holder wishes (meaning they can sue one person for infringement and ignore another).

  • Ah -- collaborative filtering, now where else is that used [slashdot.org]?

    Anyway, the Pinpoint patents are obviously not worth the paper they're printed on. The Firefly collaborative music recommendation system was widely published out of MIT in '94, and should be the easiest stick with which to L.A.R.T. the Pinpoint bozos.

    But gee, a telephon date line running under CP/M from the 80's, now there's some extra points for overwhelming geekitude. Who needs Firefly when you've got 212-ROMANCE?

    • "RINGO" (Score:3, Informative)

      by js7a (579872) *
      s/Firefly/RINGO [jolomo.net]/
    • I created one of Amazon's collaborative filtering systems (not the shopping cart one, the other big one). In my opinion, a collaborative filtering system in a domain like dating is unlikely to take away from a patent for collaborative filtering in an area like shopping.

      Why? Because while you may have similar sources of data in both areas, namely personal profiles or "shopping" transactions, there is no guarantee that the data has the same properties in these different domains, and so there is no guarantee

      • Oh come on. That there is no guarantee that the same algorithms will work with different data won't mean squat to a jury if, in fact, the algorithms do work with the different data sets.

        Don't try to convince me that there is anything fundamental going on here beyond sparce matrix distance metric theory. Trying to recommend dates is essentially similar in Joe Random Juror's mind to trying to recommend music and books. Even if one algorithm is entirely unsupervised and the other depends on a huge preferenc

  • Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by AntiOrganic (650691) on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:15PM (#6480175) Homepage
    "That project used techniques that do not seem fundamentally not unlike some of the basic principles used in the Pinpoint patents." Do not seem fundamentally not unlike? What the fuck?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by jonman_d (465049) <<ten.enilnotpo> <ta> <ralimen>> on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:30PM (#6480279) Homepage Journal
      Whenever you even discuss patents, you have to use obfusticated speech. How else do you patent using a laser to play with a cat [uspto.gov], but with language like:
      "directing an intense coherent beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus to produce a bright highly-focused pattern of light at the intersection of the beam and an opaque surface, said pattern being of visual interest to a cat;"?

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cyb97 (520582) <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:41PM (#6480354) Homepage Journal
        In the old days, the patent office used to be staffed with various engineers that between themselves knew "everything" and could decide whether a patent was in conflict with "prior art" or if it was too general/generally known...
        Today patenting is a legal business and therefore putting things in legalese would stop the engineers form seeing straight through the patent and stamping REFUSED on things like "using a laser to play with a cat" before even reading the patentapplication... Putting it in legalese would make anything seem "new" and radically different from everything...
      • If you look at the patents that reference patent 5,443,036, you'll see several people have already built upon the concept. What's sad isn't the concepts that people patent but the extents to which a corporation will go purely for extortion. Maybe they need a new department that will determine the generality of a patent and decide if it needs to be public domain/free. Yay more government. :p
    • You've gotta be careful about using double negatives, but triple negatives are OK.
    • The project also uses techniques that are fundamentally similar to the basic principles of running a (book)store... You recommend customers other titles in hope that they'll buy more products from your store. Experience will allow you to recommend titles based on what (other) customers buy, or in otherwords exactly what these patents cover...

  • Wow, the patent office has fessed up! (Score:3, Funny)

    by macshune (628296) on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:21PM (#6480221) Journal
    From the article:" Last fall, the head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office admitted that many business method patents had been wrongfully awarded in the past."

    This line could be a slashdot story in and of itself!:)

  • Business Plan (Score:5, Insightful)

    by serutan (259622) <doug&geekazon,com> on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:39PM (#6480345) Homepage
    1. Patent something fairly obvious but non-trivial.
    2. Wait until other people do the actual work.
    3. Sue one of the largest ones, settling for a license fee they can easily afford and which is far cheaper than litigation.
    4. Sue the smaller ones on the strength of the first suit.
    5. PROFIT!
    • It makes me wonder what other things we could patent. Maybe a system of purchasing goods over an integrated network by depressing a button on a point and click input device.

      /me prepares for many lawsuits

      • Re:Business Plan (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Click patents are so nineties. My patent pending mouse gesture shopping concept will be all the hype soon.
    • Actually I think you got steps 3 and 4 mixed up. Lots of people who do the kind of thing you have outlined in your "business plan" go after small companies first. Since they can't afford to fight it (in most cases) they just settle. Then they go after the big companies and use those other cases as precidence.
  • > It is possible to keep an invention secret for
    > years after an actual reduction to practice and
    > before filing a patent application, and still keep
    > the date of conception as the date of the
    > invention, as long as the patent is applied for
    > within one year of the invention becoming public.

    Not true. Look up "diligence".
    • You're incorrect. The diligence is required between the date of conception and the actual reduction to practice. After that, you are merely required not to "abandon" the invention. Abandonment does not occur if you even have an intention of working on it again.

    • Re:Diligence (Score:4, Informative)

      by garyrob (606786) on Saturday July 19 2003, @05:07PM (#6480838) Homepage
      One other aspect, since we're discussing these legal technicalities... if you create an actual reduction to practice, and then use the invention publicly, you have one year to file a patent application or your own public use becomes prior art. So if you want to wait years, you have to keep it totally under wraps, but have solid proof of the relevant dates.

  • Why has he waited so long? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kleine18 (675867) on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:52PM (#6480419) Homepage
    Why did he wait so long. Hasnt Amazon and others been using this for quite a while now? He just new decides to do something about this.
    • Basic rule of logic, It is impossible to prove a negative.

      • Urban legend (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Theatetus (521747) on Saturday July 19 2003, @04:51PM (#6480744) Journal

        That's hardly a "basic rule of logic"; reductio ad absurdam is one of the most basic kinds of proof.

        Remember geometry in high school? You probably proved that no triangle has interior angles greater than 180 degrees. Proof of a negative. Where did the ridiculous claim "you can't prove a negative" come from, anyways?

        • actually, Reductio ad Absurdum is a method of indirect proof where one seeks to prove a statement by proving that accepting or rejecting the statement is absurd. Now we both agree that flying monkeys are absurd. But can you prove that there has been no prior art for a patent with the same logic?
        • No, you can't even prove that. The basic supposition of logic is that facts will tend to point to a correct answer. This is why you can't prove a negative, because your non-event has no facts associated with it. Your monkey doesn't exist, therefore there are no facts that lead to the conclusion that he doesn't exist, therefore there is nothing to base a decision on.

          I realize that is a bit theoretical in this absurd case, but, goto Mexico and prove you *didn't* commit a crime you're charged with, and yo

          • How about, an object with mass cannot move at the speed of light. Doing so would take infinite energy.
              • 'Scientifically' say it? There's alot of theoretical proof that this is the case. As well as some observed results of time dilation. Not only has it not been observed, but it would also be impossible to observe. (The act of observing disturbs the observed!) If you accept the premise that light speed travel would require infinite energy, then it's obvious that it is impossible based on the definition of infinite. So, the only way to refute the claim is to prove mass dilation false. Go for it!
              • I have a disk with a program on it. My program can look at any program and the input you want to give it. It will then tell you whether that program will ever terminate, or if it will run forever.

                Turing proved that the above paragraph is a fabrication. Such a disk cannot exist; Google for "halting problem". This is an example of proving non-existence.

    • Patents still serve a purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Meat Blaster (578650) on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:24PM (#6480239)
      Obtaining a patent is already a lengthy and expensive process. Door-to-door inquiries are only going to make it costlier.

      Look, there are still things that are patent worthy. I was just watching on the news where some kid and his dad made a device that would kill mosquito larvae using sound waves through water -- no chemicals. I question the overall usefulness of such a device (getting rid of standing water around your house may be smarter, although I suppose this would be helpful if you had a small pond) but it seemed pretty unique and clever.

      The process of proving prior art should be more streamlined, perhaps, and the level of interest at the patent office of yanking improperly issued patents definitely needs to be increased, but doing away with this system is only going to punish the small inventor as illustrated above.

    • Re:One should have to prove "no prior art"! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ivan256 (17499) * on Saturday July 19 2003, @03:45PM (#6480387)
      One should have to prove "no prior art"!

      The way it works is exactly the opposite of that. Prior art does not invalidate a patent, it just make the patent dependent on having the rights to the prior art as well.

      Unless your patent is exactly what the prior art is (hardly anything is exactly something else (!)) or some subset of it, finding prior art will not prevent the granting of a patent. Also, many patents that are flaged as outrageous by armchair lawyers on slashdot are not as broad of scope as they seem due to the prior art that is listed in the patent.

      The process may be broken, but not as badly as you'd think from all the postings you see around here.
      • The process may be broken, but not as badly as you'd think from all the postings you see around here.

        The process is, however, very badly broken from the perspective of the people actually having to spend enormous amounts of money on filing the patents in order to make their patent portfolio sufficiently thick for trading, or getting sued over bogus patents on decades old technology. And plenty of people on Slashdot have been in either or both situations (myself included). For that, it doesn't take "armch
        • Can you be close to the prior art but add something that goes the extra mile? If so, patentable. If not, you're in the dustbin.

          I've read this a few times now, and it seems like you're saying the same thing I said.

          Prior art by definition isn't secret stuff- that comment would imply

          I don't understand how I could be implying that prior art is secret when I specifically say it's disclosed right in the application...

          Prior art is used to prove that an 'invention' has not taken an inventive step, meaning s

    • Re:One should have to prove "no prior art"! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by alangmead (109702) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:34PM (#6481233)

      Patent examimers are supposed to do a check for prior art. Unfortunately, their usual body of work to check from is other patents. From their point of view, useful items are patented, so examining other patent filings is the best place to find already existing inventions.

      The problem is, there patent office refused patents on software until forced to by the Supreme Court in the 1981 case Diamond v. Diehr [bitlaw.com] The software industry developed without any consideration to patents, and now the patent office is missing decades of the basic building blocks needed for determing the novel from the mundane.

        • Re:And thank Jesus it took this long for it to sta (Score:4, Insightful)

          by alangmead (109702) on Sunday July 20 2003, @11:09AM (#6484620)

          If patents on systems implemented in software were granted from day one, the software industry would be very different than it is today. Other industries, electronics for example, deal with patents and licensing on a day to day basis and the state of the art keeps advancing. One could argue whether it would be better or worse, but at least it would be consistent. What we have today is the worst of both worlds. We have a patent office accepting patents while they have no concept of the state of the art or prior art.

          Personally, I feel what the patent office is missing is the idea that computers are designed to be infinitely configurable machines, and that software just sets the machine to a particular configuration. Being able to patent software is like being able to patent a particular Lego layout.

          But just to let you know, if it would have been possible to patent Hello World, and if the patent to it had coincided with the publication of the first edition of the book The C Programming Language [bell-labs.com] (long after string output had implemented in software), then the patent would have expired by now.

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