Can Lotus Notes R3 Prior Art Save The Browser?

theodp writes "Apparently stunned by the implications of Eolas vs Microsoft, Ray Ozzie of Lotus Notes and Groove fame offers up Notes R3 as prior art for the notorious Eolas patent. To bolster his argument, Ozzie used the Notes R3 feature set to recreate a scenario close to what was described in the patent. After the hard part of putting together a Notes R3 computing environment that included MS-DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and a circa-1993 copy of Excel 5.0 obtained from eBay, it only took Ozzie about 15 minutes to knock out a demo without any programming using the out-of-the-box UI of Notes and Excel."

Trial is over

[anagama]

Only in a limited number of circumstances would a case be re-opened to present newly discovered evidence. The fact finding stage of this case is over. I doubt this information will be of any use now.

Re:Trial is over

[rdean400]

And this should be one of those circumstances. If newly discovered evidence clearly undermines the core of the plaintiff's case, then it must be reconsidered.

Re:not very good "prior art"

[MisterFancypants]

You don't understand the issue, do you? I guess the people who modded you up don't either.

The whole patent was based around the idea of plugins. His methodology was to build a plugin, exactly as described in the patent, that fits into Notes architecture. He didn't modify the Notes base-code at all. This is perfectly legitimate.

Re:Trial is over

[MisterFancypants]

Only in a limited number of circumstances would a case be re-opened to present newly discovered evidence. The fact finding stage of this case is over. I doubt this information will be of any use now.

You clearly forgot the IANAL part. This is a civil case, Microsoft can easily appeal. This isn't a criminal murder case...

Re:Frivolous McDonald's lawsuit WASN'T

[Phong]

I had a similar initial reaction to the hot-coffee suit (especially given the media coverage), but when I looked deeper, I discovered that there was more to the case than someone winning a "frivolous lawsuit". Summary: the coffee wasn't just hot (like we'd make it at home) it was so scalding hot that it caused 3rd degree burns. McDonalds knew that people had suffered 3rd degree burns before, and had refused to do anything about it (and yes, they required their restaurants to maintain the coffee at 185 degrees F). Also, the lady involved attempted to settle the case for a very reasonable sum (given the hospitalization and skin grafting), but McDonalds said no.

For a good summary of the case, check out this page [lectlaw.com]. Read the whole thing for a good summary of all the mitigating facts that make this a totally non-frivolous lawsuit.

Re:not very good "prior art"

[qtp]

if a copy of a Notes app that used that particular technique way back when could be found, it'd be a different story.

That is exactly what he did:

After the hard part of putting together a Notes R3 computing environment that included MS-DOS 6.22, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and a circa-1993 copy of Excel 5.0 obtained from eBay, it only took Ozzie about 15 minutes to knock out a demo without any programming using the out-of-the-box UI of Notes and Excel.

and from Mr. Ozzie's article:

First, let me describe the environment that we recreated. Since the filing date on the patent is October 17, 1994, I sought to obtain software that was clearly shipping to end-users before that date. I set about to assemble the following software to assist in the demonstration: Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22, Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Microsoft Excel 5.0, and Lotus Notes 3.0. In my personal archives, I happened to be in possession of DOS, Windows, and a freshly shrink-wrapped copy of Notes. I selected Microsoft Excel 5 because information on the Web indicated that it shipped 12/14/93, and I easily obtained a shrink-wrapped copy via eBay in a matter of days.

I first used VMware Workstation 4 to create a virtual machine environment roughly comparable to that of the era. Then, I installed MS-DOS 6.22 within that virtual machine, as well as Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Finally, I installed Excel 5.0 and Notes 3.0. I chose WFW because I felt it to be very important to create a configuration that could be used as a "client/server" network environment between multiple virtual machines. As such, I installed both the Notes 3.0 client and server programs, and set about to creating the demonstration herein.

I strongly dislike software patents (I dislike patents, period), but that's no excuse to be sloppy in attacking one.

I too dislike sloppy refutation of unfair claims, although I don't believe in the "baby out w/bathwater" school of dealing with the current patent crisis (it is a crisis), and as long as I'm dealing in cliche's today, I also think that one should follow one's own advice.

expiration

[vlad_petric]

The only good thing about such patents is that they expire in 20 years, and you only have 1 year after you publish the idea to apply for a patent. So ancient stuff is fortunately rulled out.

Re:I agree

[dvdeug]

Let's kill all these plugins, and have support for open standards within the browser. If SVG, DOM, and CSS2 were implemented fully and perfectly, we wouldn't need proprietary formats like Flash at all, and accessibility would be improved.

Have you ever heard of DjVu? It's a graphics format for scanned documents, that does amazing levels of compression - 10 Megapixel B&W scans in 30k, for example. It's not something that everyone needs, or that has been around long enough for it to be hardcoded into everyone's browser. But there's no way you can replicate it using "proper standards". So those of us who want to use it, can, without worrying about it being a "proper standard" or built-in to every browser on Earth.

Re:Wrong (think PDF)

[afidel]

The pdf standard is completely free and open. Adobe does not charge any fees or in any way restrict you from using pdf, not only that but they have the complete spec available for download on their site (as well as all of the past iterations of the standard!) That is why Ghostscript ps2pdf and all those other tools are allowed to exist.

Re:Sad

[Ieshan]

I actually went to highschool with his son. He's married and things.

Here is how to kill flash under Windows:

[Snaller]

Obviously it won't help you see pages what REQUIRE you to use Flash, but if you use MSIE and don't wanna see all those Flash commercials all over the place, this bit will prevent Flash from loading.
tart regedit, find

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Software
Microsoft
Interne t Explorer
ActiveX Compatibility
{D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-4445535400 00}

And add as a dword:

"Compatibility Flags"= 1024

This sets the "Kill bit" for Flash, meaning that MSIE won't install it if it isn't installed, and wont load it if it already is installed.
(if you don't have the {D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000} bit, then add it - but be sure to get all the numbers right. One digit wrong and you are casting a curse on something else)

If you don't trust the magic of others, don't click the button Luke *G*

Usual caveats reply; if you machine blows up, your harddrive fries, your wife leaves you... tough luck buddy ;)

Would be the same in a criminal case

[Sycraft-fu]

The defense ALWAYS has the right to bring up exculpatory evidence. If you are convicted of murder and sentenced to life, and 35 years later physical evidence turns up showing you to be innocent, you and your lawyer can use that in an appeal. Doesn't matter that it is years later and you've probably appealed many times before. Only the prosecution is restricted from later bringing new evidence. Once the jury says the words "not guilty" they are done. They can never charge you for that same crime again, even if they find irrefutable evidence. Of course they might charge you with another crime, or you might face a civil suit from teh victims (that's what happened to OJ), but you'll never again face criminal prosecution for that crime.

The difference with a civil case is that both the plantiff and the respondant can appeal, and there is a limit to how many appeals will be entertained. However it also depends on the kind of appeal. You can, and most large lawsuits do, appeal simply based on the ground they don't like the judgement. Sometimes both the winner and the looser appeal on those grounds at the same time. Well in the event of new evidence on either side, espically if it is a first appeal, there is almost no way that the appeal wouldn't be heard.

Re:I agree

[Dachannien]

While a nice, extremely far-fetched thought that would work in theory, when you figure out how to replicate the content of Homestar Runner in text, let me know!

This is completely beside the point of what he was saying. The point is that people aren't just using Flash for content presentation, but they use it for all of the navigation on a site as well. And even worse, some people use Flash for a small widget off in the corner that provides neither content nor navigation functionality, but they *require* that you have Flash installed in order to view the website (and somehow you have to find a URL deeper into the site in order to view the actual content).

Re:I agree

[Josuah]

Plugins have made browsers worse, rather than better. [snip] Plugins are like offering 'plugin upgrades' for cars. When your car gets slow, plug in a 'turbo' upgrade.. sure, it makes the car fast again, but your engine was busted up anyway, and you should just get a new one.

Plug-ins are much more like software patches. When a plug-in software system identifies a plug-in, it loads it into memory and installs a hook that forces code to follow one path instead of another. Very similar to how you might tell your print manager to print to a Postscript printer instead of a document on your hard disk.

Plug-ins have absolutely nothing to do with open standards versus closed standards. You are simply making that association yourself. Adobe Photoshop might use a plug-in to support SVG. Mozilla might use a plug-in to support the display of Excel spreadsheets. The software I wrote might talk to UPS via XML when using one plug-in, or FedEx via HTTP GET using another.

Re:Let's look at Patent Law !

[udippel]

I didn't try to sell it. You seem to think that either I intended to defend the patent or had any grudges against Ozzie ? No, he has done a good job. Most patent applicants don't.

What I was hinting at: Patents are granted irrespective of the amount of work involved. Irrespective of programming yes or no. They are rather granted on a notion, if someone actually *did* and *documented* this before or not.
Which exactly is why Software Patents are so bad ! You are the first to use a diagonal scroll-bar - a million lines of code or zero - and file for it. Diagonal Scroll-Bar is out of reach for anyone else.
Let's look at this diagonal scroll-bar: For the grant, the question if this diagonal scroll-bar was created by serious effort is irrelevant. The only thing that counts: Is there any literature publicly available or any program proposing exactly a diagonal scroll-bar or not. Only this would be considered 'destroying' the claim.

Though you might consider this as 'lecture', I add, though, that even a document suggesting a scroll-bar neither horizontally nor vertically oriented would probably not considered sufficient, because 'the individual always destroys the general'. Full stop. If their attorney has some brain left, he'll argue that 'neither horizontally nor vertically' doesn't imply diagonal at all. And this would probably pass.
Don't forget, the auspicious 'Man Skilled in the Art' (what a bloody expression !), has zero imagination ! So the patent examiner refusing on these grounds will ultimately fail: Diagonal instead of horizontal or vertical would have to be rejected on grounds of not being expressedly stated in the Prior Art.

And we're getting worse here: "So for them to demonstrate the functionality that they claim in the patent, they would have to go to the same effort as Ozzie did." There is no real need at all to demonstrate that anything that you apply for actually *works* !

To your last paragraph: For sure, "the patent office stating "well you had to create that document to do what was described in the patent, and therefore, it can't be considered" will happen ! As long as you don't find any literature published before the filing date doing something like what Ozzie did, you / we will fail.
Ozzie's approach - sorry, I appreciate it, just try to explain ! - is flawed seriously with respect to one aspect: He *proves* that it *could* have been done using R3, Excel 5, etc. This is - sorry again - completely irrelevant. The question: *Has* it been done ?? If we wanted to help the cause, we'd have to find that publicly available document that suggested this before the filing (Priority) date.

Since I have started lecturing, I permit myself to continue. Think of 'Invention of the wheel'. Someone files for it. Granted. Azzie comes about and proves that chisel, hammer, chainsaw, B&D, etc. had been available at date of filing. Only, nobody actually *cut* a tree into slices and drilled a central hole. Could have been done in 15 minutes. Right ! The Patent Office would ask: *Did* someone, actually do it ? No ? Granted !

A last point (sorry, I don't have the material around and am too lazy to look its formulation up on the web): There is one aspect to it that says something like: If you happen to get an unforeseeable, unexpected result from known settings / setups, these will be considered patentable. Only exclusion: 'natural laws', like gravity, etc.

Don't buy this, if you're not convinced. If only I could convince you that the Patent System - specially software patents - is highly debatable, I'll be happy !

Have a nice day !

Re:I agree

[Zeinfeld]

The idiot judge was in the wrong because Pei Wei published his browser over a year before Doyle purports to have invented the same idea.

Furthermore Pei Wei was not subject to any duty of assignability simply by virtue of the fact he was a student. Nor was he the only person who came up with the same invention.

The idea was not merely obvious, it was and is trivial.