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Interwoven Patents Code Versioning 517

Posted by timothy from the prior-artfulness dept.
webengr writes "It seems like the USPO is pretty lenient when it comes to awarding software patents. CVS has been around for a long time, but now Interwoven has been awarded a new patent covering version control of web assets. The claims include, 'The use of a hierarchical file system and an object repository for representing and hosting content and its structure,' and 'The combined concepts of file history, versioning, comparison, and merging as it relates to content, provide an archive of all individual changes as well as collections of changes so they can be versioned and audited.'"
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Interwoven Patents Code Versioning More

Interwoven Patents Code Versioning

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  • Patents out of control (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hether ( 101201 )
    We all know the awarding of patents has gotten out of control. This is just another example...

  • Lenient? No. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06.email@com> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @12:58PM (#5380083)
    Asleep at the wheel, recklessly driving us all over a cliff of patent infringement lawsuits? Yeah, that's fair.

  • Ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @12:58PM (#5380086)
    When will the patent office get a clue? Doesn't *anyone* there make even the slightest attempt to search for prior art? A 5 minute google search should have invalidated this patent.

    • Re:Ugh. (Score:2, Informative)

      by SpacePunk ( 17960 )
      Unfortunately it's up to the person(s)/entitiy submitting the patent to supply prior art. Evidently they aren't fullfilling this requirement.

      • start a campaign (Score:3, Interesting)

        by exhilaration ( 587191 )
        Reading through the responses, I see plenty of complaints but no one seems to have a plan for reforming the patent office.

        I don't claim to have all the answers, but maybe it's time to sit down, discuss the possibilities, and take action. All average citizens have to be shown is the patent for the "cat exercise system using a laser pointer" to convince them that reform is needed. The next step is a letter campaign to congress.

        Perhaps some college kid with plenty of free time on his or her hands would be willing to start something? Maybe the EFF can start something?

        I dunno - anyone got any useful ideas?

    • The PTO has no incentive *not* to grant patents (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sanity ( 1431 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:19PM (#5380287) Homepage Journal
      Their attitude is to grant patents left right and center, and let the courts sort it out. The have no real incentive to try and find prior art.

      The problem is that in the time between the dumb patent being granted, and the courts sorting it out, severe damage can be done to people's freedom to innovate.

      Recall that over the past 100 years (and beyond), significant advances in technology have almost always been despite IP laws, not because of them*

      *Some examples:

      • The modern movie industry set up in Southern California to escape from Edison's patents
      • The VCR was fought tooth and nail by the movie industry even though 2/3rds of their revenue now come from video rentals and sales
      • The proliferation of the commodity PC was only possible when IBM's BIOS was reverse engineered thus evading trade secret laws
      • The Internet is currently under siege from copyright holders
      • One of the worlds fastest growing operating systems, Linux, explicitly rejects the concept of intellectual property in its license

      • a real technological lynchpin (Score:5, Informative)

        by GunFodder ( 208805 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:34PM (#5380438)
        The patent for the integrated circuit was hotly contested between Fairchild and Texas Instruments when Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce both invented the integrated circuit at about the same time. The battle dragged on and by the time it was resolved it was totally irrelevant since both companies were making tons of ICs.

      • Re:The PTO has no incentive *not* to grant patents (Score:5, Insightful)

        by awol ( 98751 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:35PM (#5380447) Journal

        One of the worlds fastest growing operating systems, Linux, explicitly rejects the concept of intellectual property in its license

        Unfortunately, no it doesn't. Indeed, Linux (and GNU) explicitly relies on IP to make the GPL binding. This is the problem, even the answer to IP, Free Software, requires IP in order to live because of the existence of IP in the first place. It is a classic Catch 22 situation

        • Re:The PTO has no incentive *not* to grant patents (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I don't think you're looking deeply enough. I think Stallman would be delighted if copyright was defanged, or totally removed. Until that time, the best he could do is to use it against itself.

          It's much more of a philosophical thing. If everything was "free" then we wouldn't need the GPL.

        • That is incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Srin Tuar ( 147269 ) <zeroday26@yahoo.com> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:59PM (#5380677)
          The GPL would be unnecessary if there were no copyright law.

          If there is no "copyright", then why would you need a "copyleft"?

          GPL is supposed to spit in the face of copyright law. The beauty of it is that it does this by depending upon it.

          If there were no copyright, then closed source would still be inviable: because anyone could copy it around. The difference would be that the BSD, LGPL, and GPL licenses would be effectively compatible, and I could finally see goddam SVG enabled in mozilla by default, etc.

          The reason the GPL does not need copyright, is that eliminating copyright would eliminate the incentive to violate the GPL. Thats a catch 22.

          • Re:That is incorrect (Score:3, Insightful)

            by smallpaul ( 65919 )

            The GPL would be unnecessary if there were no copyright law.

            That's quite incorrect. If there were no copyright law, how ecould the GPL prevent me from distributing binaries that include the Linux source code?

            If there were no copyright, then closed source would still be inviable: because anyone could copy it around.

            I don't know what you mean by "inviable", but if there were no copyright, then it is clear that the software market would behave very differently but one part would remain unchanged: software companies would have no obligation to make their source code available ever. Plus, the GPL could not force them, no matter how much GPLed software the vendor incorporated. Linux distributions could be all-binary (but the binaries would be freely redistributable).

      • To be fair you last item isn't true (Score:5, Informative)

        by kfg ( 145172 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:41PM (#5380493)
        The GPL embraces the concept of intellectual property law and uses it to forward the philosophical point of view that the *code* ( not the coder) should always be free.

        If the GPL rejected the concept of intellectual property it would called "public domain."

        The GPL is very much *not* the same as the public domain, since it forces contractual obligations. It can only do this because the code is *someone's intellectual property.* You use the code under license. Not right.

        This is why we have BSD/GPL/Aritistic license religious wars.

        The power of the GPL ( whether you think it's good or bad is up to you. Please note I'm only bringing up facts here, not making value judgements) is that with no concept of intellectual property you would have *no* rights to obtain source code. The GPL uses intellectual property law to force the code "free."

        KFG
    • When will the patent office get a clue? Doesn't *anyone* there make even the slightest attempt to search for prior art? A 5 minute google search should have invalidated this patent.

      1) Leniency in granting patents can only benefit lawyers who prosecute/defend patent infringment cases. There's no money to be made in "checking prior art".

      2) Over 90% of the serving members of the 3 branches of government were lawyers. Lawyers and old-money own the government(now more than ever). Do you think they will regulate themselves?

      It is one big money-making feedback cycle. We may hate MS for monopolizing the IT industry. But what about those who monopolize our own "for the people, by the people" US government? There's no mystery here, just a severe crisis.

    • Re:Ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
      When will the patent office get a clue? Doesn't *anyone* there make even the slightest attempt to search for prior art?

      Not really the task assigned to them. They zip through their own patent db, and (I would assume) check referenced patents, but they don't have anywhere near the funding to be an authoritative source on whether a patent is valid or not. They're basically just a registry...and if someone tries to go after you with a bogus patent, it's *your* responsibility to challenge it. The PTO wasn't given authority to mark patents as valid or not.

      Think of what it would entail (and keep in mind that patents are deliberately worded to be as broad as possible and yet sound as original as possible). You'd have to hire leading PhDs in every field to comb through all the data coming in.

  • Tons of prior art (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nsayer ( 86181 ) <{moc.ufk} {ta} {reyasn}> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @12:59PM (#5380091) Homepage
    Sigh.

    Didn't the VMS filesystem have versioning in it?

    Didn't the original ISO-9660 spec also talk about that as well?

    • Re:Tons of prior art (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Target Drone ( 546651 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:13PM (#5380230)
      The problem is the patent office doesn't bother to check for prior art any more. They only check to see if a patent filing infringes on any prior patents.

      I guess they figure it's up to the courts to invalidate patents based on prior art??

      • Its the applicant who is claiming that the invention is original and is
        responsible for supplying all of the documentation to back up her claim.
        The PTO just issues a number. Their award of a patent has no more
        meaning than the International Star Registry. They don't take sides
        when you have to defend your patent in court, either.

    • Yes, yes, and they're related. It was a representative from DEC on the committee that drafted ISO-9660 who got the version field added to the file identifier in order to make ISO-9660 more VMS-friendly. If I still had my old documents from when I implemented Rock Ridge on one of the commercial Unixes, I could even tell you his name.

      ObTopic: Preaching to the converted here, but we all know that configuration management and version control have been around for decades, and that applying them to web content does not advance the state of the art at all.

      I'm waiting to hear back from the USPTO regarding my "method of storing information via the presence or absence of electrical potential".
  • Interwoven claims:

    branches, workareas, staging areas, and editions

    I don't know of any explicit support in CVS for "workareas" and "staging areas". It's perfectly legit to patent an improvement to a previous invention.

    You may have reacted too soon.

  • Anyone remember VMS? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dielectric ( 266217 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @12:59PM (#5380098)
    File versioning came free, built in. Like a zillion years ago. What happened to rejecting patents based on obvious-ness? A patent must be new and novel, not old and obvious, and that's according to the USPTO's own charter. WTF?

    I quit, I'm going to go farm some llamas or something. All this patent crap is starting to wear me down.

  • article in case of server meltdown (Score:4, Informative)

    by mrhandstand ( 233183 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @12:59PM (#5380100) Journal
    pertinent info frfom article

    Interwoven's U.S. patent (#6505212)

    A system for asset management comprised of multiple workareas, each configured to maintain a virtual copy of content as it would appear when published;

    A staging area to which content is submitted from multiple work areas and where any conflicts between content can be resolved;

    Branches and sub-branches (for different projects or initiatives) that contain individual workareas, staging areas, and editions which allows for massively parallel development on a single platform;

    The use of a hierarchical file system and an object repository for representing and hosting content and its structure;

    Virtualization of all content regardless of location as well as Web and application servers - this allows contributors to make changes "in context" of the entire site;

    The combined concepts of file history, versioning, comparison, and merging as it relates to content, provide an archive of all individual changes as well as collections of changes so they can be versioned and audited.

    • Re:article in case of server meltdown (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:11PM (#5380224)
      Regardless of what Interwoven's site says, here are the 13 actual claims that define the scope of their exclusive rights. Pick the braodest among these and see if prior art exists that discloses each and every limitation. If so, great.

      The point to remember, gentle reader, is to put zero stock in the company-paraphrased/sweeping language on their website. To quote (or at least paraphrase) a famous patent law scholar and judge, "The name of the game is the claim." IAAL, a patent one at that.

      1. A system for file management for files containing website content comprising:

      a work area configured to allow a user to create and maintain web content to be displayed on a website, the work area being a file system having read and write operations to enable a user to edit virtual representations of files having web content that is located in the work area; and

      a staging area adapted to receive and integrate the web content submitted from the work area when the web content of the work area does not conflict with other web content submitted to the staging area and configured to retain versions of web content submitted from the work area.

      2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of work areas configured to allow different users to create and maintain web content to be displayed on a website, wherein the staging area is adapted to receive web content changes of files modified in the work areas and is configured to check for conflicts in web content received from two or more work areas.

      3. In a system having a plurality of file systems containing web content, for use in a system for developing virtual copies of web content to be displayed on a website, a method for maintaining the history and ancestry of the web content of an item in each of the file systems in which the item is included, the method comprising:

      associating a history object with a first item containing information related to the revision history of the item web content;

      associating information related to the ancestry of the item web content; and

      maintaining an entry in the history object for each file system in which the item is included that identifies the web content associated with the first item in that file system so that conflicts with other items and their associated web content may be ascertained.

      4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

      associating new web content in one of the plurality of file systems with the item;

      modifying an entry in the history object corresponding to that file system to indicate that the item is associated with the new web content; and

      adding a reference to the previous web content in the new web content.

      5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

      determining whether a second item is in conflict with the first item by determining whether web content in the second item are previous web content of the first item.

      6. A method for developing a website by resolving potential conflicts in web content submitted to a web content staging area by a work area where virtual copies of web content are developed, comprising:

      modifying data associated with a selected object in a work area that is related to web content to be published on a website;

      determining whether other web content is in conflict with web content developed by the work area;

      resolving the any conflicts among the different web content; and

      submitting web Content from the work area to the staging area where web content is staged before being published on a website.

      7. A system for developing a website comprising:

      a work area defined within a memory location and configured to enable a user to edit virtual copies of web content by editing files containing web content within the work area and to submit web content to be staged for publication on a website; and

      a staging area defined within a memory location and configured to receive web content submitted by a work area, to determine whether conflicts exist between web content submitted by any one work area and other content to be staged in the staging area, and to integrate web content submitted from a work area when the web content of the work area does not conflict with other content submitted to the staging area and to maintain versions of web content sent from a work area.

      8. A system according to claim 7, wherein the work area may be characterized as a file system stored within memory and having read and write operations to enable a user to edit files containing web content in the work area; and

      wherein the staging area may be characterized as a file system for staging web content developed in a plurality of work areas and stored within memory and capable of receiving web content from a work area, the staging area including a versioning mechanism configured to maintain versions of web content received from a work area and an integration mechanism configured to integrate web content received from a plurality of work areas when the web content does not have conflicts.

      9. A method for modifying website content, wherein the method is configured for use in a web content modification system having at least one. work area for modifying virtual copies of web content and a staging area for integrating web content submitted by one or more work areas, the method comprising:

      modifying virtual copies of web content of a selected object in a work area;

      analyzing the web content of the work area to determine whether it is in conflict with other web content submitted to the sting area; and

      in response to said other web content not being in conflict with the web content of the work area, submitting the web content modified in the work area to the staging area; and

      in response to said other web content being in conflict with the web content submitted by the work area, not submitting the web content to the staging area.

      10. The method of claim 9, further comprising, in response to said other web content submitted to the staging area being in conflict with the web content of the work area, rejecting the web content from being submitted to the staging area.

      11. The method of claim 9, further comprising, in response to the other web content submitted to the staging area being in conflict with the web content submitted to the staging area by the work area, refraining from submitting the web content of the working area to the staging area for integration with other web content.

      12. The method of claim 9, wherein analyzing the web content of the work area to determine whether it is in conflict with other web content submitted to the staging area further includes analyzing the web content of the work area to determine whether the web content of the work area shares a common ancestry with other web content submitted to the staging area by a work area, wherein if the web content of the work area shares a common ancestry with the other web content, no conflict exists, and wherein if the web content of the work area does not share a common ancestry with the other web content, a conflict exists.

      13. The method of claim wherein analyzing the content of the work area to determine whether it is in conflict with other content submitted to the staging area further includes:

      analyzing the content of the work area to determine whether it is the same content as and whether the content of the work area shares a common ancestry with other content submitted to the staging area;

      if the web content of the work area is not the same as the other web content submitted to the staging area, a conflict exists and the web content from the work area may not be submitted to the staging area;

      if the web content of the work area is the same as the other web content submitted to the staging area, a conflict does not exist and the web content from the work area may be submitted to the staging area;

      if web the content of the work area does not share a common ancestry with other web content submitted to the staging area, a conflict exists and the web content from the work area may not be submitted to the staging area; and

      if the web content of the work area shares a common ancestry with other web content submitted to the staging area, a conflict does not exist and the web content from the work area may be submitted to the staging area.

      • Re:article in case of server meltdown (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I don't think that Interwoven's patent should be dismissed out of hand just because it incorporates the functionality of a traditional SCM system. As someone else remarked, improving on an existing idea CAN be legitimately patented.

        Doing large-scale web development poses special problems that are not covered by conventional SCM systems.

        For example, it's simple to preview a single web page you are working on in isolation--you just point your browser at the URL for the page. But what if you are replacing an existing part of a complex web application, and are working as a member of a team? Yes, an SCM system will help you keep track of the files and integrate the source changes. What it will NOT do is give you an environment in which you can use a web browser to debug your piece of the project. You have to set up a private development environment manually, and that's a real pain--you have to make sure all the URLs pointing to the various pieces are correct for your test environment in each file. You have to make sure that when you press the "Submit" button, the right CGI program is called (the one you are working on, or the "real" functional one, depending on what you are trying to do), and that the correct page comes up when a link is triggered. You have to make sure all the external references point to files you want to use for testing--i.e., that the correct Java Script files are being included, and so on ad infinitum. And you have to make sure that none of this interferes with the current application that is open to real users, or with your fellow developers. Like I said, a PAIN.

        After unit development is done, you want to integrate everybody's work and do beta testing. Again, you can build a conventional application tree using a conventional SCM for this, but the SCM won't do it for interactive testing in a web environment. Once again, you have to change all the references so they point to the right places, and make sure everything works together. More PAIN. My head hurts. OUCH.

        Lastly, you have to take the whole ball of wax and drop it in place of the existing application for real use. Again, an SCM will give you the finished code--but it won't fix the URLs in the code and create the web hierarchy in the right place for you. This must be done manually, and you have a good chance of screwing up and breaking the application. Maybe if I drill a hole right HERE in my forehead it will let the evil spirits out and I will stop hurting.

        And when you've finally installed the new code and find out that something that worked perfectly well in Beta doesn't work in production because it interacts with something else on the same server that you didn't even know was there all along, you are screwed. If Interwoven's software will help me back out the changes and retrieve the previous working version before half a million people notice, I would be very grateful to them at this point. Really, I can do without my first-born.

    • Re:article in case of server meltdown (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ashran ( 107876 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:13PM (#5380233) Homepage
      1.) Mirror Page Content
      2.) ???
      3.) Karma
    • This stuff doesn't matter. The only thing that matters legally in a patent is the claims, not the abstract.

    • I'd pay for this. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MickLinux ( 579158 )
      It looks like what they patented is something I've been thinking of for a while.

      We have a small prepublishing company, and it really would be ideal to let the authors request their changes right on the web, and then submit them. Then have a system that would send an alarm to my people, who would get on the job immediately, update the info, and then send an email ['Your work is ready'] to the authors.

      But that isn't all I want. I want
      (1) Secure password encoded, 128-bit at least
      (2) Dating and timing of requests, backup of all previous versions
      (3) Dating and timing of our new documents
      (4) Access to Mac systems

      And then what I'd really like:
      (5) Online web-native/Postscript-native document manager that can handle templates [like equations], read postscript *FROM OTHER WORD PROCESSORS INCLUDING MS WORD*, reformat it into template-format work, do all the things that Quark XPress can do, allow mass updates with individual checks [so words and formulas must be stored in tree format].

      I suppose this could be done with Acrobat files initially, including their form submission.

      But the fact is, we don't have it done. Now, I'm not about to spend money to develop something that isn't mine, especially when I don't have a lot of money. But if they got a really good system going, there's an excellent chance that I would buy in, so long as the license was permanent. [I won't be held hostage, but I *will* pay money for the system].

      So I really hope they do develop a halfway decent working model.

      But if they don't develop it themselves, I'm not going to have a problem doing an artwork search and then developing what I wanted anyhow. Or if they have a hostage-data situation.

      I won't pay money to put a noose around my neck voluntarily.

  • Is the phrase 'web assets' significant ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aron_wallaker ( 93905 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:00PM (#5380105)
    I'm just wondering if the patent being granted is someone hinged on Interwoven's claim to be the first to do version control for 'web assets' (ie, HTML, images) as opposed to source code.

    The fact that there's no technical difference between version control on an HTML file and version control on a 'C' file seems to be the sort of thing that's lost on the patent office.

  • Ha. This will have no effect on me! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sun Tzu ( 41522 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:01PM (#5380115) Homepage Journal
    Unless one of the claims covers working on programs in one big file (tm) and saving off another copy with a new extension (1,2,3,4,5,...) with every significant change.

    Heh, I knew my slackerly habits would pay off eventually!

    Send us your Linux Sysadmin [librenix.com] articles

  • Lost work at the patent office (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:01PM (#5380117)
    Nobody at the US Patent office must version control their documents. Maybe thats how patents get awarded so easily?
    • I really wish I had the money to patent that idea. It'd work, and then I'll make millions. Win 95 to 98. My patent. Netscape 4.79. My patent. That's why Slashdot hides their patent number. I'll own them in a lawsuit. Slashdot will become nothing but donkey sex gifs.

  • And in a related story... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TrollBridge ( 550878 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:02PM (#5380136) Homepage Journal
    "It seems like the USPO is pretty lenient when it comes to awarding software patents."

    And in our next story, Microsoft is now widely perceived to be the playground bully of computer software.

  • ... someone jumps in to tell us that patents have no authority until they are successfully defended against a challenge, blah blah blah...

  • Bugger that you new fangled whippersnapper.

    RCS now that is where the real programmers live.

    CVS... PAH!
  • Perhaps they (interwoven) are taking a lesson from what slashdot has been preaching and will sit on the patent and never file any suits, thus taking away the chance of another company doing just that?

    Or maybe I just have too much faith in society.
  • i don't think Timothy's quite right. Not that this is a whole hell of a lot better, but the patent appears to apply only to the application of versioning/history, etc. to web content. That still sucks, but i don't believe it'll impact code versioning systems (e.g. CVS) though perhaps someone using CVS as a backend for their own CMS would be in trouble.

    I'm not sure how broadly the courts would read "content" but on first glance, it seems all the coders out there should be ok.

    Just a layman's opinion, but patents are ususally pretty specific in their scope, and this one mentions "Web" and "Content" not "code" or "source"

  • lenient ? are you kidding ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Booie Paog ( 640418 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:06PM (#5380172)
    "It seems like the USPO is pretty lenient when it comes to awarding software patents." no kidding. the USPO appears, in some cases, to not only be lenient, but to be completely oblivious to the purpose of having patents, as well as having wild interpretations of patent law. software patents, the way that they are currently handled, is incorrect, with regards to the original means that was set out by even Thomas Jefferson himself. to be able to patent compiled binary code, without regards to the source, or ENTIRE details of the mechanism that the software is implying is insane, and will continue to destroy the legal ability to innovate based on derivative work.

  • New Rules (Score:5, Interesting)

    by glh ( 14273 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:08PM (#5380190) Homepage Journal
    I think the patents should be reformed in the following way:

    1. Submit the patent idea to the patent office- as a "pending patent".

    2. Patent office does a search (web or otherwise) on prior art, billing the individual/corporation that submits the patent at a standard rate. If no prior art is found, the patent office does not bill. The company is able to challenge any claims to prior art. Each challenge to a claim at prior art costs a certain fee.

    3. Patent is awarded to the individual/corporation.

    Basically the idea behind this is that companies will be charged for their stupidity. It will discourage patents on ideas that are already "out there" (patented or not). At the same time, it will *not* discourage individuals from ligitimate patents as they will be reimbursed for the "prior art search fee".

    In addition, the Patent Office still gets its money and they begin providing real value.

    Until something like this happens, we will all have to groan as the patent office continues to do stupid stuff and lawyers get richer.

    • Re:New Rules (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Courageous ( 228506 )
      With all due respect, perhaps you should find out how it's done *now*. You just described, more or less, the process one goes through in the US to get a patent.

      The problem is that these web searches and other techniques aren't really very fruitful. Patents are *complicated*.

      I should know. I've written two, and read many.

      C//

    • Re:New Rules (Score:5, Funny)

      by Slime-dogg ( 120473 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:45PM (#5380532) Journal

      Or, conversely

      1. USPO submits claim to Slashdot as a news item.
      2. Comments follow, listing examples of prior art.
      3. Highest moderated comments are then re-submitted to the USPO, with a summarized recommendation based on all mid-high moderated comments

      I don't think that I've seen patents go through /. and not read examples of prior art in the commentary.

    • Re:New Rules (Score:3, Funny)

      by Washizu ( 220337 )
      "Patent office does a search (web or otherwise) on prior art, billing the individual/corporation that submits the patent at a standard rate. If no prior art is found, the patent office does not bill. The company is able to challenge any claims to prior art. Each challenge to a claim at prior art costs a certain fee."

      You should seriously patent this idea before someone steals it.

  • Maybe (Score:5, Funny)

    by YanceyAI ( 192279 ) <IAMYANCEY@yahoo.com> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:08PM (#5380191)
    Some of you guys should get a job reviewing patent applications. You seem to know more about prior art & novelty than these patent officers do.
  • So content management system weren't really protected by either an expired patent or a patent held in public domain or held by a friendly party (or a patent system that makes some sense in the software realm). So Interwoven's lawyers do their job and protect the company from everyone else patenting it and putting them out of business.

    Yeah a lot of the stuff they have in their patent is, well, obvious or common practice or whatever they call the stuff you aren't allowed to patent. But they have a completed product and filed. It will be interesting to see what they do about all the other CMS out there. I would love it if they were dumb enough to take on Vignette or any of the other commercial CMS's out there.

  • jeez (Score:5, Funny)

    by maxbang ( 598632 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:10PM (#5380209) Journal

    I just patented the process of "using organic photoreceptors to relay electronic signals via sheathed sodium channels to a core carbon based processing unit to elicit saturation of iron-rich fluids in nether regions of humanoid body, and further organic electrical manipulation of calcium mechanics to stimulate fluid-engorged region." I'm willing to settle for $20,000 per license violation.

  • Clearcase is prior art -it was their prior company (Score:3, Informative)

    by puppetluva ( 46903 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:10PM (#5380212)
    The interwoven designers were the original designers for Clearcase.

    Clearcase has all of this stuff including staging and work-areas.

    They are basically patenting "Clearcase as applied to the web".

  • Total troll... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 )
    There is much more to this patent than just versioning, if you even take a cursory look at it. Perhaps we should able to mod articles themselves as trolls!

    Actually, come to think of it, modding the article itself could yield some interesting info...

    • Re:Total troll... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 47PHA60 ( 444748 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:53PM (#5380618) Journal
      If you're going to make this assertion, you should say exactly what is "so much more" about this patent. I read Interwoven's press release. They say that the patent contains 13 claims.

      I read all 13 claims of the patent (go to the Patent and trademark office [uspto.gov] and do a "Quick Search" for patent #6505212, and saw an exact description of all the features CVS and Clear Case users have enjoyed for years. Six years ago I built a system using PVCS to manage source code and a 7 platform build system, and three years ago I adapted it to CVS for management of a website managed by 45 writers and programmers. It included a staging area, individual or team work areas, and the ability to search versions by content.

      Following the 13 claims are the details of the patent; there is nothing there that cannot be done with CVS and some perl or python scripts. The "virtualization module" is similar to perl I wrote to run the site. The user typed in the URL with the CVS label and they would get the site in their browser as it appeared when labeled. Clear Case did the same thing with a file system view.

      Nothing personal against Interwoven; if their product works it's worth the money, but it does not deserve a patent.

  • Suing the patent office (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SWroclawski ( 95770 ) <serge@@@wroclawski...org> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:14PM (#5380247) Homepage
    What I would like to see is if the patent holder then goes after someone for use of the patent and the defendnat challenges the patent in court, and if the defendant is correct and the patent is invalidated- the patent office itself should be liable for court costs, plus any lost revenue due to any possible injunction during the trial.

    Enough of these cases and the patent office may begin to reforem itself in when and where it grants a patent.

    - Serge Wroclawski
    • Yes, that's right, the defendnat. It's a sort of protective insect with wings.

      Yeah that's the ticket...

      - Serge
    • Has forcing a government agency to pay (monetarily) for its mistakes, thereby forcing Congress to increase that agencies budget, ever been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the number of mistakes that the agency makes?

      Always remember that from the bureaucrat's point of view it is all funny-money, and increasing his budget, even if only to allow him to cover punitive expenses, only increases his clout in Washington.

      -Peter
  • Remember the Berman bill, where people caught violating IP rights could be attacked electronically?

    Too bad we don't have a bill letting us electronically attack people caught abusing IP rights.

  • Link to patent (Score:5, Informative)

    by forand ( 530402 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:17PM (#5380272) Homepage
    Here [uspto.gov] is a link to the actual patent.

  • This Move is Ironically Anti-Innovation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by McLuhanesque ( 176628 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:20PM (#5380292) Homepage
    Deep in the company's website [interwoven.com], they state, " With this patent, Interwoven joins the class of top tier software companies that recognize that market leadership is directly related to continued innovation combined with the protection of intellectual property. Patents represent the most effective and powerful way to ensure that a company protects its long-term investment in research, design and innovation."

    Unfortunately, the fallacy of the first part of that self-serving statement is that history demonstrates the contrary: Innovation, especially in the area of software innovation, has been most successful in an atmosphere of sharing, openness, mutual support and peer-recognition. This is well-documented by Manuel Castells, Lawrence Lessig and others. Patents impede the advance of innovation by preventing potential competitors from innovating. With patent protection, innovation is limited to those who can afford the overhead of traaversing the patent minefield (as Stallman puts it). Those who choose to share innovation with the restriction that those who benefit also share their follow-on innovations - even when innovations pertain to other than software disciplines, accelerate the innovation process, and thereby support the development of a sustainably expanding economic infrastructure.

    I do agree with the company's second statement: Patents are "most effective and powerful way to ensure that a company protects" its stuff. It just does very little for the rest of society, and for the economy in general.
  • Just out of curiosity, does anyone like Interwoven's TeamSite product? It's outrageously expensive and doesn't seem to do anything that you can't get better from CVS, rsync, and Samba/NFS. My assumption has always been that the people who buy it are just too dumb to set up this other stuff, but honestly the configuration for TeamSite is such a bitch that it's not exactly saving you time. Is there anyone who has had a positive experience with it?

  • Here's how to fix the patent process (Score:3, Funny)

    by Schik ( 576085 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:27PM (#5380376) Homepage
    Every patent that is filed for is posted on slashdot. If nobody says "I was doing this back in...", then they get the patent.

  • Next on Fox: "Leave it to Beaver, thePatent Clerk" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Colonel Panic ( 15235 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:33PM (#5380430)
    Beaver: "Hey Wally, getta load of this! It's another one of them swell software patents!"

    Wally: "Well, you remember what the memo said, if it's got the the word 'web' in it then you should accept it, otherwise you're gonna get it when the commisioner gets back."

    Beaver: "Not only does it have 'web' it's got 'web assets' and 'version control', what the heck is that?"

    Wally: "No idea, but it sounds good. Hey just stamp the thing with the 'ACCEPTED' stamp and let the lawyers sort it out; we're gonna be late for beer at The Prior Art tavern."

    Beaver: "Yeah, wouldn't want them lawyers to be outta work, now would we. Well, that's ten I've accepted before lunch, let's get to The Prior Art, pronto!"

  • Interwoven vs Microsoft? (Score:3, Funny)

    by hndrcks ( 39873 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:38PM (#5380477) Homepage
    Last week the SQL Server developers found out [slashdot.org] they might be liable for royalties...

    Are users of this version control software [microsoft.com] next?

  • Only way to sort this out... (Score:4, Funny)

    by IainHere ( 536270 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:41PM (#5380492)
    I propose applying to the USPO for a patent on

    "A system to allow full disclosure of innovative techniques or technologies, while permitting the applicant exclusive license to said technologies for a certain period."

    They're bound to grant it, and once they do, you sue them into oblivion for infringing it.

  • Open Source Patents (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DonkeyJimmy ( 599788 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:41PM (#5380500)
    Does there exist a section of the open source community dedicated to seeking out obvious and prior-art patents for the purpose of making those ideas public domain (thus protecting us from companies doing the same but not making them public domain)? If not, there should.

  • Archive (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bwt ( 68845 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:42PM (#5380503)
    Is anybody making an archive of all the bullshit patents?

  • Palm Vs Xerox (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:43PM (#5380515) Homepage
    An interesting development on the Patent issues is the latest battle between Xerox and Palm [yahoo.com].

    Xerox won the day as far as Infringement is concerned, however the appeal court "agreed with Palm's argument that the lower court failed to find out if Xerox's patented technology was indeed unique." and ordered that portion back to the trial court.

    If Xerox looses the validity of the Graffiti patent it will set a much needed precedent and pave the way for future legal strategies in dissputes.

    Attack the Patent rather than defend non Infringement.

  • Why is everyone overreacting? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dragonshed ( 206590 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:44PM (#5380525)
    (I am not AL, nor am I ANAL)

    First off, read the actual patent [uspto.gov], not the press release.

    The patent does indeed include version control elements, but further defines exactly what their product does. See section 2, for example:

    "The system of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of work areas configured to allow different users to create and maintain web content to be displayed on a website, wherein the staging area is adapted to receive web content changes of files modified in the work areas and is configured to check for conflicts in web content received from two or more work areas. "

    There are very many products out there that do version control. But, there are very few that provide robust Content Management, which includes version control, but also includes a system to quickly and directly retrieve content for a web site/application and other such ammenities described in the patent. You would never do such a thing with CVS, unless you're insane.

    What this does endanger is projects like Zope with it's CMS framework, which does alot of what is described in this patent. Versioning, browsable "file system" (html browsable, not unix mountable :p), submission and workflow associated with the content, embeded webserver, etc. These are features which parallel Interwoven's offerings (albeit at a smaller scale).

    So, having said all this, I don't see why everyone is freaking out. The patent obviously addresses a complex Content Management system, not a simple version control system. I'm sure a simple-minded judge would be able to tell the difference once given the facts.
    • Um, have you every used Interwoven's products? What they mean by "wherein the staging area is adapted to receive web content changes of files modified in the work areas and is configured to check for conflicts in web content received from two or more work areas" is that when you check stuff in, it shows up in the shared code. Wow! That's basic CVS. I don't know where you got this stuff about "a system to quickly and directly retrieve content for a web site/application" from, but what TeamSite offers is just a way to sync the repository to a remote server. It's basically a very inefficient version of rsync.

    • Re:Why is everyone overreacting? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Un pobre guey ( 593801 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @03:02PM (#5381193) Homepage
      I am as upset about idiotic patents as the next guy, but I agree with the several posts that point out that there are some novel elements to the patent that are built upon prior art. You can use as much prior art in your patent as you like. What you are patenting, and can defend in court, are the novel aspects not found in the prior art and which are not obvious to skilled practitioners. At some point, someone needs to make a few bucks on an invention in order for there to be incentives to generate new technology.

      The historically interesting aspect of licenses such as the GPL lies in the possibility that some people would forego the monetary profits for the greater good of both the inventor and the community. If you want to make a buck, fine. If you want to share with and among others, fine too.

      Unfortunately, the USPTO is becoming less able to function as the arbiter of the rules, and this is what causes the system to degrade. In fairness to those poor schmucks, it is not realistic to expect young, underpaid, undertrained, inexperienced patent examiners (or even not so old or inexperienced) to be able to consistently and without errors or omissions spot all issues relating to obviousness and prior art. The volume of patent submissions also thwarts the system, at least as it pertains to high tech patents.

    • Let me get your argument straight.

      1. CVS does not constitute prior art against this patent.
      2. Other products, like Zope, do more or less the same thing as what the patent claims.
      3. Therefore, there is no prior art.

      ???

  • dont get panties in uproar (Score:5, Informative)

    by chron ( 96048 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:46PM (#5380538)
    I've used TeamSite for years.. and checked out the patent. everyone needs to settle down. Interwoven uses some clever tricks in the caching and indexing in their management system that go above and beyond what something like CVS does.

    This is what they're pantenting. TeamSite was actually built on top of CVS when the project started, but the standard content manageement scheme is not what's being patented here..

  • My prior art: Versioned website dating to 1996 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by douglips ( 513461 ) on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @01:54PM (#5380626) Homepage Journal
    And I can prove it:

    support% sccs prs -e index.html
    SCCS/s.index.html:

    D 1.157 01/08/14 09:17:44 amorrow 157 156 00002/00002/00111
    MRs:
    COMMENTS:
    kill target=_blank

    [five years of history removed for brevity]

    D 1.3 96/08/05 11:24:03 dvs 3 2 00001/00001/00089
    MRs:
    COMMENTS:
    Highlighted "More" to emphasize that the list of links is incomplete.

    D 1.2 96/08/02 12:42:21 dvs 2 1 00000/00002/00090
    MRs:
    COMMENTS:
    Removed link to old interface

    D 1.1 96/08/02 12:12:47 dvs 1 0 00092/00000/00000
    MRs:
    COMMENTS:
    date and time created 96/08/02 12:12:47 by dvs

  • I've got a solution (Score:4, Funny)

    by PhilHibbs ( 4537 ) <snarks@gmail.com> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @02:32PM (#5380957) Journal
    Set up a cron job that executes twice a week, and posts a "Patent system still fucked" story on Slashdot. That'll save a lot of effort.

  • In defense of the USPO (Score:3, Funny)

    by Grotus ( 137676 ) <rlmoserNO@SPAMearthlink.net> on Tuesday February 25, 2003 @04:32PM (#5381945) Homepage
    A lot of posters have been criticising the USPO for not scrutinizing the contents of patents passing through their system closely enough. I would suggest that having the USPO carefully examine each patent passing through its system for prior art, obviousness, etc. goes way outside the bounds of their job.

    IMO, as long as the patent is properly addressed, has sufficient postage, and doesn't set off the anthrax detectors, the USPO should move it straight through the system just like the rest of the mail.

    Now the USPTO, on the other hand...

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