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Location-Based Search Was Patented In 1999
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jun 12, 2007 03:41 PM
from the can-you-spell-champerty dept.
from the can-you-spell-champerty dept.
greenbird writes "Another patent fiasco has begun. Wired reports that a patent on location-based Internet searches was filed in 1996 and granted in 1999 (patent is here). A patent troll company name Geomas acquired the patent and has filed suit against Verizon in none other than Marshall, Texas. They claim this is the first in what will be a long line of lawsuits. Geomas has amassed a $20M war chest in venture capital to use for getting rich off of a clearly obvious idea."
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Location-Based Search Was Patented In 1999
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Go Geomas! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.andyring.com/)
Re:Obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but some things that are not obvious become obvious once a suitable infrastructure is put in place. So even if they did think of the idea before it was technologically possible to implement...the idea would have been thought of anyway once the Internet approached its modern state.
At a bare minimum, a patent application should require a functional prototype. Stating "A device capable of faster than light travel" is not the same thing as inventing a device capable of faster than light travel, so why should the mere description of the technology be sufficient to patent it?
Re:Obvious? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.college-paintball.com/)
Building a strip club?
Re:Obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://pitabred.dyndns.org/)
Re:Obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
True. The reason is that only the citizens of countries with strong economies can afford to use enough money for entertainment to make the entertainment industry rich enough to bribe the politicians.
Strong IP laws are one of the results of strong economy and the large and rich corporations it tends to produce, not a cause for it. Weak IP laws allow economy to develop rapidly since new inventions can be used by anyone; once the economy reaches the natural level for the current technology level and growth stops (or slows to match the rate of technological advancement), the established players start setting up barriers of entry to get a larger share of the now-stagnant market, since there's no new growth to be had.
"Nothing to see here... move along" (Score:2)
No good (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/~Himring/journal/179579 | Last Journal: Saturday August 18, @11:20AM)
They Forgot One! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~eldavojohn/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 16, @03:26PM)
15. The system of claim 1, wherein said geographical search area is
Laugh now, but thousands of years from now when you're looking for an all night Denny's around Omicron Percei 8, the system that you use will end up paying me patent royalties!
Re:They Forgot One! (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday March 29 2002, @11:12PM)
You also have to remember, that it is not simply the claims that matter, but rather the disclosure of the actual subject matter in the patent that work. I can claim to cure cancer, but if my disclosed method is to throw ketchup packets at the cancer patient, then somebody else who actually cures cancer will have nothing to fear from my patent even if the claims are the same. If Verizon is using a technique that is substantially different from what is disclosed (or 'taught') by this patent, then it has nothing to fear, simply 'claiming' a technology is necessary but not sufficient to show infringement.
To those of you including the story poster who cavalierly call this "obvious", you have to remember that it is not the fact that it might be obvious today it was what was obvious in 1996.... so before you say "Google already does this!" Just remember these guys had the idea and applied for the patent in 1996... 2 years before Google even freakin' existed. Finding obviousness requires a careful reading of the patent and the prior art. It reminds me of a story about some digital photography patents that Kodak got in the late 1980's that some moron on this site called 'obvious' because his camera (from 2006) had the same features that were in the patent.....
As for the trolls who own the patent now, they can suck it, but at the same time, if the actual disclosures that are actually described in this patent are being used by Verizon, they should pay. If you were the lone inventor and some big company came and took your idea and never paid you for it, you'd probably want to be paid too.
Hmm. (Score:3, Insightful)
Obvious now, but was it obvious in 1996 when they filed for it? The problem is that this sector advances so damn fast that it's hard to even tell sometimes.
Of course, holding the patent in their back pocket then arising like a submarine is a despicable action, one which I think should invalidate a patent. I think if you patent something you should be required to at least attempt to make a business off it instead of suing the shit out of people who have more balls than you.
Now is when I'd like to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday December 09 2004, @09:25AM)
Show of hands on the proposal?
*For those who say 90 days is too short, let me preemptively reply that if you are so involved in a particular industry that you can patent something in that field, you damned well ought to notice when someone announces or commercially uses that idea _in your field_ within three months. Otherwise, you really are just a troll.
Obvious When? (Score:1, Insightful)
(http://covertinferno.org/)
Re:Obvious When? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.imagicity.com/)
Really obvious. Blindingly, mind-numbingly, stupefactifyingly obvious.
I was writing geographically-based search functions (in a non-web context) in 1998. They were just another feature of the search applications we wrote. The products I was supporting had been in use since 1994.
Slashdot exercise: prove it was an "obvious idea" (Score:4, Interesting)
To invalidate it as obvious, you have to find one or more documents/patents or example of a system that contain all of the elements of the claim (or enough sources that show that it was obvious to combine).
Remember, you have to be able to find documents that existed on or before the date of filing Jan 31, 1996.
Frankly, it would probably be easier to show that the disclosure was not enabling. But, let's have at it.
Re:Slashdot exercise: prove it was an "obvious ide (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.flying-rhenquest.net/)
y'aint seen nuttin' yet (Score:1, Interesting)
Gosh a patent story.... (Score:1)
It seems like every few days, somebody post another patent story to prove the the system in the US is broken.
Then we get the same arguments repeated
Can't we just wait until we get a patent story where there is something unusual about it and then start a discussion?
Prior Art, Dial '0' For Operator (Score:2)
Yellow Pages (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.phynd.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday December 20 2003, @03:07PM)
Prior art: Phone book? (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.dwheeler.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 07 2004, @05:59PM)
Say it again: "No software patents".
Fire with Fire (Score:2)
Obvious Patent? (Score:1)
This was totally obvious. it's what a database search is. a criteria based search. be it location-based or whatever
Oh yeah, it's ON THE INTERNET!!
Yes! Wait, no! (Score:2)
(http://ermarian.net/)
I need to see this positively. It's a Win-Win situation. Whatever the outcome, the bad guy loses.
obviousness of problems vs. solutions (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://nothings.org/)
You do not get a patent on a problem or an idea. You get a patent on a solution to a problem, an implementation of an idea.
"Location-based search" is an idea. "A machine that can trap/kill mice" is an idea. "A sturdy container made from cardboard" is an idea. "Heating water to create steam to power the motion of a vehicle" is an idea shading towards an implementation. The intention of patents was not to patent the idea. Yes, ideas are often clever, creative, novel, or "innovative": "nobody ever thought of doing that before". But that means very little; somebody has to think of it the first time. In the grand scheme of thing, ideas are cheap, and not what patents are supposed to protect (in the interests of encouraging).
You are supposed to patent an implementation of an idea: a detailed, specific approach to solving the problem. The solution is not supposed to be "obvious to a skilled practitioner", but there is no enforcement of this in the patent system, which is where many valid grumbles about patents arise.
I don't know anything about cardboard box patents, but there are some obvious constraints on the problem. You'd probably like to be able to tile the plane with the unfolded shape, so you can cut them out of a larger run of the material. You'd like to be able to fold the thing up into something along the lines of a box (a rectangular parallelpiped)--boxes pack well for shipping. You need overlapping flaps to allow sealing it.
Given those constraints, there are probably only a few basic plausible methods for a design for making a cardboard box that's efficient and effective. Given so few plausible designs, somebody who invents one and patents it is not significantly helping or advancing science (because the constrained solution space is so small, any skilled practioner could invent one of the few possible solutions). Actual advances are what patents are intended to encourage, but (at least as I've characterized the problem) I doubt anything like that happened in the basic design of cardboard boxes. (I also know nothing about what, if anything, got patented. This is just trying to offer an analogy.)
This happens constantly in software; most of the time the idea is the only novelty, and the patent is either interpreted as covering all possible solutions to the idea (making alternative implementations irrelevant), or it patents the obviously best solution (if you're going to draw a cursor in a manner that's reversible, XOR is the most effective algorithm; there were apple ][ / Atari 800 games that drew sprites the same way--but the patent only covered uses of the algorithm for drawing cursors on windowed workstations). Someone long ago patented the idea of a networked game with sound and was semi-recently extorting game companies with it; the patent was old enough that the most viable candidate for prior art fell through, because although people used a port on the old Commodore Pet computer to create a networked game, and used the same port to drive a simple sound output, nobody ever did both at the same time (I guess it only had the one port); and without prior art, nobody involved in the patent system accepts that the idea that combining the two is obvious, or at least that the two or three obvious ways of implementing game-sound-in-networked-game are, indeed, obvious. Or (more accurately, I expect) they've abandoned all pretense of 'obviousness' as meaning anything other than 'prior art'.
Internal Corporate IT projects (Score:2)
Mix a few words around and you have locating a computer in a building based on its network address, corporate yellow pages, and a floor map...
Which is what we did in colledge 30 years ago to see what cute chick was sitting at that terminal.
Ok, solution (Score:3, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday December 31 2002, @08:24AM)
a) create a subsidiary for the website
b) incorporate subsidiary in non-software patent country
c) host website and everything related to it in said country
These are just the patents I know about, but they pretty much preclude anyone from making an ecommerce website:
a) 1 click patent
b) CC payment over the internet is patented
c) "find nearest location" is patented
So if you want to accept money, allow customers to find your physical locations, or conveniently store customer information for repeat purchases (all normal, rather obvious things) then you have to pay licensing fees for each of these features (if licensing fees are available). The owner of these patents could just as easily say "No you can't license it, you have to pay me $100,000 to develop your website with this feature". Or, "No I'm the only one that can have a website with these features".
Basically, if software patents aren't done away with soon, all progress in the US will halt. The writing is on the wall.
For those of you stating that this is "non-obvious" in 1996, have you ever heard of the yellow pages?! This is a patent on online yellow pages. I'm 100% certain that the yellow pages companies have been storing their directories in DATABASES and accessing them across a NETWORK for decades. I'm also sure that whatever function they use internally to convert the digital yellow pages into a physical printed yellow pages book would violate this patent, running an SQL query on a database across a network would constitute a search engine on a database based on location and topic.
Creating an online web based interface to an existing database of listings which can be searched by location and topic is not novel, its not even an idea. It's been done for decades, just because its online doesn't make it any different.
two words... (Score:3, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Saturday October 07 2006, @07:46PM)
Do I really need to say more?
Well for those that don't get it.. on-line is a really broad term. Usually it means on a computer. Thier first claim, basically consists of a computer on a network, that is looking at goegraphical information via a search engine. Who patented this, mapquest?
Claim 1 is so broad, that Google and just about anyone doing mapping (GPS included) could fall under this defination. Now considering that I was using a GPS when I was in the army back in 1991, and that a GPS is a specialized computer, this claim can be invalidated under that.
But back to star trek.. they tracked people on that show and scouted planet surfaces using computers and GPS stuff. This was all talked about years before these people patented this stuff.
Who do I talk to about working to invalidate this patent? Seriously!
My phone book (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.sohomedic.com/)
I must admit ... (Score:2, Funny)
Watching the American system implode is about as entertaining to me as watching the system in my own country ... Canada ... do the same.
Best of luck to the folks who are doing the suing. I look forward to the changes that will need to come about due to your careful use of a clearly defined, if not poorly designed, system.
Another fine example of Patent Fraud. (Score:2)
(http://threeseas.net/ | Last Journal: Friday January 18 2002, @01:44PM)
When I look up a word in a dictionary I don't start at the beginning of the dictionary, I do a location based search, starting in the section that starts with "F" and then jumping to the pages that the "f" is followed by an "r" and then "a"... "u"
Now maybe the patent office applies some other technique to deal with their search needs rather than using location searching, but I use location searching along with many many more people.
Just because its done through computers doesn't mean anything new.....For what are computer softwares modeled after, if not human thought...
The best way to get rid of a stupid law... (Score:2, Insightful)
A /. reader and a businessman go to a garage sale (Score:3, Funny)
A /. reader and a businessman go to a garage sale, where they discover a copy of Action Comics #1 priced for 35 cents.
The slashdot reader launches into a diatrabe about how it's wrong that he can't photocopy and sell the copy because, man, information wants to be free. He then launches into arguments railing against how capitalism has assigned a value to the comic other than its value for recycled paper, and for good measure complains about his city's recycling program and how few people take advantage of it.
While he's busy making cracks about how "In Soviet Russia, comics read you!" to the poor housewife, who is fearing for her life and is trying to hide under the table, he completely misses the fact that the comic is no longer there; the businessman bought it, resold it, and is driving by in his new Ferrari.
Verizon didn't search for the patent. Someone else found it and discovered they could make money by buying it cheap. It's the market in action; what's the problem here?
And why exactly is this filed under "your rights online?"
Apparently not so obvious (Score:1)
(http://chrismcb.com/)
Tons of prior art (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Wednesday July 28 2004, @09:50AM)
BTM
Of course it wasn't obvious in 1996.... (Score:1)
... because each generation is getting 30% smarter. There's almost a whole 12 years since 1996: we've got a lot smarter since then.. maybe 10% even. Just think about all the really stimulating shows for our current lowest common denominator like Big Brother and ${country.name} Idol.
And what should the cost be to violating a patent be? Okay, sure someone might infringe upon this patent, but if it takes someone a few pretty easy intuitive hours to come up with this original idea, what's that, like a few hundred bucks of expense. The current patent system is more like bingo then reward attributed effort, which it should be. And the effort rewarded should be the least possible effort: work smarter not harder.
I agree with the idea of patents in principal. Like that guy who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner: fantastic. That would have taken a hell of a long time to work out all the different air vortexes and stuff. This supposed patent is nothing even close: an idea should not be possible to patent if all it is only the bare "use case" itself, it has to have complete details of the implementation. And even the bagless vacuum cleaner idea should have limits: bagless vacuum cleaners themselves should not be patentable, as it is a feature, but the mechanism to do so should be - and again this should be challenged against how hard it really was to work out exactly where to put the input/output pipes.
Location-based Search. (Score:2)
Prior art in literature (Score:1)
If the idea is clearly obvious (Score:2)
(Last Journal: Wednesday September 26, @11:11PM)
For a second... (Score:1)
Univac and Census 1952! (Score:1)
Vonage (Score:2)
1. Get some more venture capital
2. Purchase Geomas
3. Back in business!
Been there done that (Score:1)
U.S. patents... (Score:1)
(http:://www.eroticartists.org/Gal357_D.-A._D..asp)
Re:erm, isn't that fairly common? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Friday January 30 2004, @06:40PM)
Because most people arent stupid patent trolls?
Re:erm, isn't that fairly common? (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
The whole reason these submarine patents become problems is because someone did think of it, but didn't think to patent it. So the real inventor gets shafted by patent trolls later.
This is as bleeding obvious as the yellow pages, or a realty database.
Re:erm, isn't that fairly common? (Score:2)
IBM is a HUGE patent troll (Score:1)
http://members.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html [forbes.com]
Re:Cant someone (IBM?) set up a war chest to destr (Score:2)
(http://ermarian.net/)
I wonder if you could forge evidence that L. Ron Hubbard denounced software patents as being a thorn in the eye of Xenu.
There. Problem solved. Just sit back and watch the carnage.
Re:erm, isn't that fairly common? (Score:1)
Because patenting solutions, ideas and software only really kicked off in the 90's when dot com start up's were seeking venture capital.
Because most venture capital companys did not even begin to understand the sector they were investing in the best way to get them to invest was do things they would understand and the two main things they understood from other sectors was first and formost patents and to a much lesser degree trademarks
The main reason for this is most VC's came with previous experience of investing in real tangible "hardware" inventions and in that sector unless you had the patents there was no point in even really bothering because as soon as you started doing well some country like China or Japan would copy you and be able to produce it for half the price.
And yes this idea was not only obvious back then but widely in use, ask any DBA or developer who had to create a query to list all clients in area X