Software Installation/Update via Internet Patented

RKBA writes "My wife just handed me an article from the Wednesday, October 22, 2003 issue of the Wall Street Journal about a tiny Austin, TX company called Bluecurrent that has been awarded patent No. 6,636,857 covering the Internet installation of any software or settings on new computers. The patent was granted by the USPTO on October 21, 2003. It will be interesting to see if it can be enforced. I think it's time for someone to file a patent on Earth, Fire, and Water. ;-)"

GO USA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't American Citizens ASHAMED of the US Patent Office? I know I would be.

Then people think about the USA = stupid stereotype and wonder where it comes from. It's not just GWB.

This should be in the European press.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any of you readers who live in europe should be writing letters or whatever else is necessary to get your local media in some way to report this and other stories like this.

You need for the Great Washed, the computer-uninformed persons of europe, to become aware that if software patents go forward in Europe, this is the sort of thing you have to look forward to.

They need to understand that software patents will not help the innovators. They will simply mean that by some kind of strange lottery system, the first person to successfully get through a bs application describing something that is already an obvious, common practice will suddenly "own" that practice.

They need to understand that software patents help nobody who actually makes a profit, and will only help vultures like this Austin company who have never made a product anyone noticed; at the one end, it causes the small companies to do a strange dance around concepts that they thought of but turned out to already be patented; at the other end, it causes the large companies to obsessively spend time, money, and effort tossing all their obvious ideas they can think of at the patent system in hopes that enough of them will be granted they can generate a strong "patent shield".

-- Super Ugly Ultraman

Re:RTFA, this patent is quite specific!

[Timesprout]

This is getting ridiculous. Articles are being more frequently posted that are seriously inaccurate, or based on pure conjecture a la recent furore over Apple not updating their older OS's. Can we see some more intelligent editor intervention in assertaining the actual facts before the article gets posted.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[corebreech]

Poll: 75% of Palestinians support Haifa restaurant attack:

Sig-lines like this should warrant posts automatically being modded down as off-topic or troll.

Only covers updates via the "World Wide Web"

[slyfox]

This patent specifically covers using the World Wide Web to update a computer; it does not cover all possible ways to update software via the Internet (the web is just the subset of the internet that uses HTTP and HTML). Thus, if you perform automatic updates without using HTTP or HTML (say, XML and SCP), this patent does not affect you. In essence, this patent is easy to work around, so it should have much of a long-term effect on the world as we know it.

I suspect the only reason this patent was issued was due to this specific nature of the claims; however, in the short-run this pattent still might cause some big headaches if the lawyers get really over eager (which always seems to happen...)

It doesn't seem that broad

[HardCase]

After reading the patent, the claims that are made don't appear to support updating or installing software over the Internet. They do seem to support maintaining a database of system settings that can be updated at a given workstation by a technician, then accessed by the same, or different technician, in order to account for existing user settings and to maintain a list of installed hardware and software so that when a software installation is performed, the technician can rely on this database to make sure that the software is installed to the user's satisfaction. It really seems to me that all that is really claimed is a way to utilize a remote database to maintain records of a particular computer's software and hardware configuration. The things that we write down on paper are now contained in a database. The critical part of the patent appears to be that the database is relational, maintained at a different location from the computer under examination and is accessed via the Internet.

There aren't any claims about installing software or software updates. Perhaps a case could be made that an online software installation/update system that copies a computer's configuration from the computer to a remote system via the Internet could be infringing, but as far as I can tell software installers/updaters simply send an installer program that examines what's on the computer, then requests the appropriate files from the remote server. And it seems to me that that's how it should be done, anyway.

Nonetheless, this still does not seem like anything particularly novel. The idea of maintaining a database of settings is certainly nothing new. Making that database accessible over the Internet doesn't seem like a particularly significant improvement. In fact, what is (critically) missing is automation. The claims that are made in the patent specifically call for the intervention of a technician in the process, to interpret the settings reported from the remote database. Regardless of the novelty of the idea, it doesn't seem to be as broadly applicable as the title of the /. summary makes it appear. I'm sure that the company can try to sue to enforce the patent against others delivering software updates over the Internet, but the claims that the patent makes (at least the novel claims) are so narrow that I don't think that they will enjoy too much success.

And it seems that if anybody wants to look at an existing system that might infringe, Red Hat's RHN system may be just the thing. But I think that it's been around since well before 2002.

-h-

OMFG what about the apt system

[aws4y]

Does this mean I have to pay $10 to $25 when I use apt. I mean it seems pretty clear to me that apt goes through the method of the patent. I think the USPTO has gone to far.

Re:It Gets Worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you please explain to me how apt-get depends on the web?

The patent is specific to the web.

Re:RTFA!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake up retard, there's still a huge volume of prior art and NO it's NOT ACCEPTABLE to make money off others by enforcing this patent. Your tax dollars are paying to support this scamming of the system you schmuck.

When will we start exterminating lawyers, spammers, politicians and other human effluent? These people just waste space on earth and consume valuable resources all the while producing only negative contributions to society. I'm serious, when did we become inured to this bullshit? Doesn't anyone care anymore?

Re:RTFA!

[ergo98]

Indeed, it is a blanket statement. A process between computers, or with given technical criteria (such as a minimizing throughput over a network connection) is actually credible material for patenting, however most patents including the terms mentioned add nothing technically to the mix, but simply take a standard process (such as backing up and restoring preferences), put the world "Internet" in it, and call it patentable - in any other field that is nothing more than a nuance of implementation, but in the computer field it is considered unique (which is harmful).

Re:It Gets Worse

[Prof.Phreak]

Wouldn't DHCP be "updating settings over the network"???

Re:RTFA, this patent is quite specific!

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, but it was not doing that via the web. Therein lies the difference.

So what? What is the difference between doing it over the web or a local LAN? This is hardly something worth patent protection.

Re:It Gets Worse

[MillionthMonkey]

Of course, coming up with prior art should be no problem

You mean, coming up with a prior patent should be no problem- and it will be a problem in this case because apparently there was no prior patent or the USPTO wouldn't have granted this one.

The USPTO definition of prior art is a prior patent. If nobody has filed a patent on something, there is no prior art and they consider it patentable.

yes, you need to know.

[twitter]

But do we really need to have a story every day about every new piece of evidence that the patent system is screwed up?

If you don't care about internet software updating and maintaning that has a database, you don't care about this. That would mean you don't have a system like apt, up2date, ports or any other software version atomation on any of your computers. If that's the case, Slashdot does not have much to offer you and you should point your licensed copy of IE someplace else. If you care about free software, stupid software patents bother you because that's how propriatory software makers intend to kill their competition.

Re:It Gets Worse

[the_2nd_coming]

false. prior art means that the idea has been in common use for a while.

Apt has been around for a long time. since the mid 90's

this is mot going to be enforceable. I doubt the Patent officer looked farther than his windows machine.

Re:It Gets Worse

[MillionthMonkey]

false. prior art means that the idea has been in common use for a while.

I phrased it badly- I meant "there is no prior art" as far as the USPTO is concerned when they grant the patent. They do a search through their database, and if they don't find anything, they grant the patent and pocket the fees.

Why waste time doing a Google search? It might find something, and then they don't get the fee. If there's unpatented prior art out there, let the courts sort it out!

Re:Why?

[corebreech]

The hope was not to turn this into a forum on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, something your sig clearly tries to do.

If you are so desperate to defend the indefensible, perhaps you should take it to a forum that wants to talk about that subject.

There are any number of "facts" about this conflict, not the least of which is that the number of Palestinian dead exceeds the number of Israeli dead by a factor of three.

I am quite sure if I were to put that in my sig that I would be modded off-topic or troll here, as I should, since this is /., and not a forum for Jewish Supremacists like yourself.

Re:It Gets Worse

[BrokenHalo]

Agreed. IANAL and all that, but common sense would dictate that the first time these guys attempt to collect on their patent, the overwhelming evidence that this is not their invention should get the case thrown out of court.

So they will have wasted their money, and it serves them right.

Re:RTFA!

[hkmwbz]

The problem is that the patent madness is a hindrance to the development of software. Rather than focus on making good software, companies that want to try to make a living in the software industry has to hire an army of lawyers to make sure they aren't infringing on anyone's patents, or they can ignore it and hope that they aren't, and that no one will find anything and sue them.

Maybe these ridiculous patent applications weaken the patent system, but real companies are having real problems with this today. Maybe a lot of people in the /. crowd work in the software industry, and are therefore concerned about their jobs.

This is good!

[AstroDrabb]

Maybe this crazy patent will wake some peopel up? This patent is a joke and there are litterally thousands of applications that use this method. Adobe Acrobat checks for new versions, Windows update, Red Hat up2date, apt-get, Norton, Symantec, ZoneAlarm, etc. You name it, most software has some online update feature. Finding prior art in this case will be very easy. However, I bet this company will go after the "small fish" companies who cannot afford to fight the court battle and just pay the license fees. You gotta love the current implementation of Capitalism in the USA!

Re:Also:

[LearnToSpell]

You know, like how the Palestinian suicide bombers and infiltrators specifically targets civilians, whilst the Israeli military does not?

Gimme a fucking break. You don't honestly believe that, do you? Say that again the next time Israel levels an entire neighbourhood because there may or may not have been some 'terrorists' hiding there.

Re:It Gets Worse

[bahamat]

Actually, the pattent specifically and repeatedly says "World Wide Web". Contrary to popular belief, the WWW is NOT the Internet. The WWW is a subset of the Internet. DHCP would not apply, since it's not part of the WWW. FTP would not apply. NNTP, SCP, UUCP, RCP, SMTP, or any protocol other than HTTP would be outside the scope of this patent.

Also, this patent is only for transferring one's files/settings from one computer to a new computer. Before you all go moaning and groaning, RTFP. This thing is written very specifically. So specifically, I don't see how it could possibly affect any other service currently in place that I am aware of. Of course, IANAL, but it seems to me that this was intended to be so specific to only cover precicely and exactly the service Bluecurrent offers, or whoever wrote it is moronic enough to think that the "World Wide Web" is all there is to the Internet. Either way, I don't think this will ever affect my life again.

Re:It Gets Worse

[harlows_monkeys]

Sounds like trouble for users of Micro$oft's Windows Update. Or for the *NIX users of apt-get and similar utilities.

Uhm...how so? Neither Windows Update nor apt-get do anything remotely (no pun intended) like what is covered by this patent.

Go read the claims of the patent.

Learn something before you start lecturing others.

[werdna]

As the parent noted, as would anybody who actually took the time to read the patent abstract (which apparently does NOT the original poster), this patent is for using the web as a place to migrate settings and data from one computer to another.

Anybody who reads an abstract and draws conclusions about the scope of the document deserves everything they get. Someone with a clue [gpo.gov] would know that the abstract, by regulation "will not be used for interpreting the scope of the claims."

Please, don't give us this horseshit by "reading the abstract." The claims define the patent, and the claims are informed by careful reading of the specification and the relevant prosecution history. Seriously, the legal advice offered here is absolutely hopeless.

Time will tell what is the scope of the patent -- but no fair reading of the claims may conclude that this patent covers a scope of behavior as broad as that set forth in the parent. No reading credibly informed by a review of the specification will reach that conclusion.

Just stop it, guys! If you aren't really going to bother to learn what these claims are, don't whine about them. It makes us all look silly, and takes away from those of us who ARE interested in limiting the scope of bad patents.

Re:It Gets Worse

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFP?!? Are you serious?!? I tried to read the said patent but all the said talk about moving said data from said computer across said internet gave me said headache.

Re:It Gets Worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Well as long as the UPSO is not responsible an liable for patents delivered that do not stick, it's in their best interest to even let people patent the wheel. And what prior art studies is concerned it's a mojor hoax. They do a study alright. But a thorough study for prior art could take quite some time, if done properly. Time they usually rather invest in collect the greenback. Anyhow the prior art research they do is generally very narrowsighted. ie. If they don't find a literal copy of what you claim, you're practically in the clear. Even though your claim may be a lot more general.
Start making the UPSO liable and we should see a better natural balance kick in. That and a public prior art database.

So i can patent snail-mail ...

[gotan]

... if i specify that it has to be put in a yellow envelope?