WordLogic Patented the Predictive Interface 173
Packetl055 writes "Have any of you heard anything about this company, WordLogic, with a soon to be granted/issued patent with 117 claims for predictability software? They recently received a patent approval/allowance letter from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Their patent application was submitted in March 2000. If I read this correctly, any software that gives you any prediction after you type something is infringing on their patent — e.g. vehicle navigation systems, cellular telephones, PDA's, Google with their 'Did You Mean' when using Google for a search, the new Apple I-Phone, Blackberry, Sony Playstation-3, etc., etc. If true, this is going to be huge: lawsuits after lawsuits." Their stock trend over the last few days suggests that somebody was paying attention to the the USPTO news from August 9. WordLogic makes products (assistive input software) and doesn't seem to be merely a patent troll.
Shouldn't be granted (Score:5, Insightful)
If I read this correctly (Score:2, Insightful)
Par for the course....
yawn
Re:Hello, incremental search anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
bad links (Score:5, Insightful)
Cell Phones... gadgets... (Score:4, Insightful)
Cell phone input (T9 & iTap circa 1995)
PDA writing interfaces (Newton?)
Shell command line completion. (bash, ksh)
Visual Studio 6...
Emacs
Windows 3.1 tablet edition
Automatic spell checking correction ( MS word 95, possibly before)
I'm sure there's tons more here... but wiring a dictionary up to an input is obvious prior art, no matter how you spin it.
Does anybody know.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Shouldn't be granted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hello, incremental search anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't you just love our court system here in the U.S.?
Re:Hello, incremental search anyone? (Score:1, Insightful)
And then they will sue, or threaten to sue, or offer to "license" the technology with as BROAD an interpretation as possible
Re:Yet another reason why software patents are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
So I would say that the GP contributes very little of value to the current discussion. On top of that he injects this questionable revisionist history. Now, I'm willing to believe that the New Deal wasn't all roses and lolly-pops. It's possible that the GP has a point. The article he links to is a troll.
This is from the article:
So considering that his post had little of interest except this non-sequitor reference to FDR, and considering that his reference to FDR is likely to be inflammatory and is based on a silly article written in 1995, I'd say that it's pretty fair to label it a troll.
Re:Hello, incremental search anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I always hate it when people use that expression. Another way of interpreting that statement is, hundreds of people too selfish, greedy or stupid to perform their civic DUTY, often prevents the system from working properly. But then these hundreds will go off complain how broken the system is. Its kind of like throwing lit matches around ones home while pointing out how every day items around the house tends to be flamable. So who is really the stupid one?
IMO, there are three serious problems with the current legal system. One, most any moron can be a judge. Judges are not even required to be knowledgable or communicate with a subject matter expert for issues on which they rule. Two, too many laws are writen by lawyers which only benefit lawyers; serving only to generate more billable hours. Three, people try hard to break the legal system by avoiding their civic duty, thereby insuring the "dumb ones", by in large, are on juries. So we have idiot judges ruling on topics well outside of their expertise, often for laws which make no sense, running a trial for jurries too stupid to get out of their duty because the people that should be there lied their way out of it.