Microsoft Patents 'Phone-Home' Failure Reporting 361
theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded a patent to Microsoft for its Method and system for reporting a program failure, although a much more sophisticated version of this technology has been standard on IBM mainframes for years. Maybe prior art searches will improve once the USPTO moves into the new two million square foot USPTO campus, which includes five interconnected buildings, a twelve-story atrium, a landscaped two-acre park, and a museum."
Netscape Talk Back? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps related to activation, too? (Score:2, Interesting)
Contestation period (Score:5, Interesting)
He mentioned that most of the more controversial ones, including the one-click shopping, have been contested and thrown away a long time ago. Can someone confirm this?
I'm not sure whether I should have believed everything, (mostly I think they were trying to goad the developers into thinking that software patents that were-soon-to-be reality here in Europe are a good thing), but just my two cents..
Re:I think I get it now... (Score:2, Interesting)
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
Stratus prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
Haven't read the patent, but sounds like prior art to me.
Re:Here we go again... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure you are right in every respect, but shoudn't the abstract reflect the contents of a patent in a truthful way? If all abstracts are this general how do we differentiate one patent from another in a similar field at all?
Re:There is NO prior art (Score:4, Interesting)
They have a very similar link in Event Viewer in the newer OSes. Click here to find out more about this message.
Click the link and you get taken to a page whic, as far as I can tell, just tells you that they have no further information on that error message.
Meanwhile MS are collating more and more information on what software is running on their customers' machines.
So can you dis-prove a patent?! (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not Prior Art (Score:1, Interesting)
That difference is extremely important as it defines this patent. The IBM machines didn't inform the admin of how to fix a software problem, neither do the copy machines. Netscape's error reporting didn't inform the user that a fix existed, it just stored the information on a remote repository.
Try to find some applicable prior art that implements all of the specifics. This patent is 11 pages long with 9 diagrams, not a six word Slashdot article heading, or the single paragraph summary.
Re:Netscape Talk Back? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Netscape Talk Back? (Score:2, Interesting)
HEY! Windows is able to crash AND continue??? That's a new one. Why didn't they patent this?
Re:No wonder Einstein left the USPTO (Score:1, Interesting)
From Einstein's Bio:
Then Grossmann's father tried to help Einstein get a job by recommending him to the director of the patent office in Bern. Einstein was appointed as a technical expert third class.
Einstein worked in this patent office from 1902 to 1909, holding a temporary post when he was first appointed, but by 1904 the position was made permanent and in 1906 he was promoted to technical expert second class. While in the Bern patent office he completed an astonishing range of theoretical physics publications, written in his spare time without the benefit of close contact with scientific literature or colleagues.
Did the poster read the claim ? (Score:3, Interesting)
And did anyone notice the references... that REFERENCE the IBM patents from 1983 that are used on the mainframes. Microsoft have "refined" the IBM patent and thus created their own patent that refers to but is not identical to the IBM one.
So who ever made the IBM mainframe comment didn't get very far in reviewing the application... its the first bloody reference on the page.
IBM already hold the base patent here, so the objective here is to avoid being sued by IBM by getting your own patent. The real question is what is new here.
And this
16. The system of claim 15, wherein the repository is a remote server and wherein the failure reporting executable communicates with the remote server using a web browser program module residing on the user's computer.
Could be it. IBM don't specify a web browser. But is this REALLY enough for a brand new patent ?
And should everyone be paying cash to IBM to do this anyway ?
USPTO patent review mailing list? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:the US PTO is a profit-center, not a regulator (Score:5, Interesting)
Apart from the often discussed issues of patentability of software patents, and, indeed, the whole issue of whether all intellectual property is proper, there is a significant institutional culture issue that has a strong influence on how the Office functions that took root several decades ago and has, regretfully, increased, monotonically, over time. The management attitude, in a nutshell, is that patents aren't "examined", they are "processed". The examination process is driven by production "goals"; to be rated in the key rating category of "Production Goal Achievement" as "fully successful" you must have at least 95%; less than that you are marginal; less then 90% you are "unsatisfactory", meaning your entire rating is "unsatisfactory" meaning a "90 day letter" to get it "fully successful" else you are fired. Also there are other time related requirements to meet, such as no amended application pending more than two months without an action. Persons get fired (yes, this does happen) almost always for low production or exceeding time limits for actions, almost never for improperly allowing claims.
About the only time you ever get static for improper allowance is when the management doesn't like you (not a team player, being active in the union, etc.) but your "numbers" are all good, so then they will strain and try to misinterpret stuff to make a crappy rejection (which, BTW, is another way they can ding you, if, in their judgement, your own rejections are not "justified")
I can say, from my experience, that there have been good and consciencous folks, some real turkeys (but who produce > 100% all the time and don't make blatent errors; they are mangement pets and are often groomed as future managers, making the old management culture self perpetuating); the vast majority of the working stiffs want to do a good job, the the management culture is just totally antithetical to a good, healthy and balanced work environment.
There is NO prior art cited by Microsoft. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, sure.
The patent includes a list of the prior art which was considered by the examiner during prosecution.
Here is the list from the patent:
U.S. Patent Documents 5193178 Mar., 1993 Chillarege et al. 714/25
5790780 Aug., 1998 Brichta et al. 714/46
5928369 Jul., 1999 Keyser et al. 714/47
5944839 Aug., 1999 Isenberg 714/26
5948112 Sep., 1999 Shimada et al. 714/16
5974568 Oct., 1999 McQueen 714/38
6029258 Feb., 2000 Ahmad 714/46
6357019 Mar., 2002 Blaisdell et al. 714/38
6381711 Apr., 2002 Chiang et al. 714/48
6412082 Jun., 2002 Matsuura 714/38
Just 10 prior art documents. All US patents.
Often, when only US patent documents are cited, it is the examiner who has done the searching.
What probably happened here is the attorneys at Merchant & Gould filed an application with even broader claims and NO prior art. The examiner searched the original claims and found enough prior art for a rejection. After some amendments (and some more searching) the examiner could no longer quickly find material on which to base her rejection and she was BY LAW obligated to issue the patent.
I would challenge the validity of this patent simply by the appearance of a lack of disclosure from Microsoft. There is not one technical journal, not one product description, no one non-US patent document cited by the world's largest software company considered to be "material" to the examination of this application. This is on its face not credible.
Examiners usually do a pretty good job when they have the most relevant prior art in front of them. Lack of prior art for software at the USPTO is one of the principal problems facing the USPTO.
When the world's largest software company apparently does NOTHING to aid and assist the government's examination of its applications for patent, this is not good faith. This is abuse.
New EU patent law will stop all this!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:There is NO prior art (Score:3, Interesting)
"Install our free software, send crash reports to our database automatically, and check to see if a fix is known. Join computer users, software developers, and IT professionals from around the world; working together to eliminate computer crashes."
-- <http://www.bugtoaster.com/>
Re:There is NO prior art (Score:3, Interesting)
The eServer self-management technologies enable the server to protect itself, to detect and recover from errors, to change and configure itself, and to optimize itself, in the presence of problems and changes, for maximum performance with minimum outside intervention. [My emphasis.]
Sounds to me like prior art. So, not so insightful after all, huh?
J.
Re:the US PTO is a profit-center, not a regulator (Score:3, Interesting)
Combine this with an independent free-for-all prior art submission period and it just might turn out to be something sane.
Re:I think I get it now... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, which is why most patents are obvious to someone skilled in the art. That latter phrase is a key part of the "obviousness" test, and what may well be unobvious to the lay person or the person only casually familiar with an art really is obvious to someone who has practised it for years.
Oh, and your comparison of subpixel addressing is misguided. Yes, Woz's color generation circuit per se didn't have anything to do with subpixel addressing -- except that it took advantage of the well known (to video engineers, anyway) aliasing effect of a high spatial frequency monochrome signal on the NTSC chroma signal (which is why you shouldn't wear pin-stripes on camera). Inverting that makes a direct relationship between color and specific subpixel areas that get illuminated, just as with the LCD-based subpixel addressing method. They are both a simple mapping of subpixel-area-desired -> pixel-color. The fact that the reasons it works is different for LCDs and synthesized NTSC video is irrelevant to the fact that the same method is used.