IBM Wants Patent For Lotus Notes-Free Meetings

theodp writes "Over at IBM, the Lotus Notes team has 'invented' preventing the use of their own product during meetings. Self-described patent reformer Big Blue has asked the USPTO for a patent covering Suppressing De-Focusing Activities During Selective Scheduled Meetings by forcing meeting attendees to 'submit to the computing system suspension requirements.' What's next — a patent for Verizon for blocking cellphone usage during movies?"

IANAL, etc.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

But this seems pretty tepid. Software designed to enforce situation-specific social norms is not at all new(SMART's somewhat creepily named "Synchroneyes" is one that has been commercially available for a long while now, MS's "digital manners" application came out a while back, and I've run into a number of browser plugins and other utility programs designed to stop timewasting).

The only novelty, and it is a slender one, is using a calendar event as a stimulus, rather than time or location or some other variable.

What is IBM trying to do?

[Midnight Thunder]

IBM has been attempting to get patents for some of the craziest things lately, and I wonder how many of these were actually accepted. Are they trying an easy way to beef up their patent portfolio, for defensive tactics, to keep up the yearly count or simply to prove how broken the system is? In the meantime, they will ensure they keep getting noticed by Slashdot ;)

Or Be More Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Want people's attention during your meeting? Try a few basic things:

Start on time.
Get to the point when speaking.
Keep the discussion on topic.
If the meeting is more than an hour, have a 5 minute break for email and bathroom.
Never read your slides to the audience.

Then again, I dislike speaking in front of people, even if I do it well, so I'm quick myself.

Lotus Notes is a Worldwide CONSPIRACY

[djdavetrouble]

I have been riding a downhill slope of enterprise email systems for the last half decade.
First I started working at a Novell shop, Groupwise was of course the flavor. Well, I thought
it was lacking in usability and features, until we ditched it for a worldwide Lotus Notes
enterprise solution. What groupwise lacks in features and usability, Notes takes and twists
into infinitely complex knots, lashings, and tangles. Preferences? We got em all over the
fucking place. Location preferences, user preferences, security prefernces, address book
preferences, all dispersed throughout different menus and buttons. There is no way
a non admin could properly configure this evil bitch. Want to archive some email and get
it out of your active database (oh yes, this is not a mail file, this is a full fledged encrypted
domino database, bitches) ? Ok, follow this simple 10 step process! To change the font size, you
have to leave the application and edit a preference file by hand on Macs. We had to send out
a small magazine to explain how to use an html signature. The default browser when you
install? Notes browser. Ugh.

I have come up with a fairly plausible theory that Lotus Notes is a conspiracy
of complexity to keep huge numbers of IBM engineers and testers, as well as external
Notes administrators in business. Witness the ease of use of modern email.
We have well over 20 Notes admins for our global enterprise. REALLY?

Re:Lotus Notes is a Worldwide CONSPIRACY

[MichaelSmith]

I have come up with a fairly plausible theory that Lotus Notes is a conspiracy of complexity to keep huge numbers of IBM engineers and testers, as well as external Notes administrators in business.

IBM specialise in this. Have a look at the entire Rational product line, particularly ClearCase.

Re:Sounds new to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Except he clearly said that he does support the government suppressing software patents. He supports companies acquiring inane software patents so they can compete under the current system, but only until it's possible to get rid of them all at once, instead of having a handful of companies be matyrs.

Re:Grrrrr

[aztracker1]

Don't know about a patent, but a gps addon to phones that automagically puts them in vibrate mode when entering a theater would be cool...

Re:Grrrrr

[BlackSnake112]

Would be easier to just make all cinemas a Faraday cage? Maybe an update to the Faraday cage design/materials to block the higher cell phone signals.

Or maybe the people who work at the movie places actually enforce the no cell phone policy. If you are caught using your phone, you are thrown out.

One of those options is a lot easier to implement.

Re:Grrrrr

[stupid_is]

I agree - but neither system is perfect unless you're in a very large open space. DTOA can suffer in multipath environments, too, so the extra cells doing the triangulation help to bound the space that the mobile is in.