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McAfee Patents ASP Business Model 284

Posted by michael from the your-patent-will-come-to-$4.65,-please-drive-through dept.
Rob Kischuk writes: "According to an article at InfoWorld, McAfee.com has been granted a patent on its variety of "software as a service". No specifics on the patent, but the CEO's statement, "You either work with us, or you work around this patent", seems to indicate that more than a couple of ASPs could be affected." kerubi gets a cookie for sending in a link to the patent in question, or read McAfee's press release.
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McAfee Patents ASP Business Model More

McAfee Patents ASP Business Model

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  • Why do I suspect that if the current procedures at the USPTO had been in effect at the close of the 19th century things many things that we taken for granted today would never had become invented or improved? The courts would have been clogged with inventors suing each other over who invented the automobile, light bulb, etc. and demanding royalties rather than competing with one another to make better products.

    Gotta love their attitude that Amazon's and others' patents were all wrong but ``our's is different''. (Please explain how patenting the obvious is wrong in their case but not yours. This sort of reminds me of most citizen's views that most ``politicians are worthless... except the one's I voted for''.) That, in particular, cracked me up until I remembered that remark about ``you wanna do ASP, you gotta go through us''. Is this the sort thing that the USPTO is supposed to be supporting?

  • If I have a lobotomy.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @12:15PM (#2110836) Homepage
    If I have a lobotomy, can I still get a job as a patent examiner?
    -russ
  • So it's come to this: a company which makes its money identifying the numerous "computer viruses" that affect bug infested and strangely designed consumer operating system is able claims a patent on the idea of server-client computing (that's basically what it comes down to, it's so general) and the sober government "authorities" give their stamp of approval to this high-tech innovation.

    Gotta keep that "knowledge economy" going.

    Thank goodness society is perhaps not as stupid as it appears.

  • Why don't we have the FSF patent the business model of patenting obvious stuff that others are already doing in order to attempt to bludgeon them into paying us for the right to do it. Then we could sue McAfee for violating the patent.

  • ...if we work around their patent, we'd be jailed for making a "circumvention device" under the DMCA! We're constructing a means to use their intellectual property (ASPs) by circumventing their IP protections (the patent).

    McAfee has us by the balls here...

    I bet there's Pseudonews in this somewhere, gimme a moment ;)

  • I believe OSDN's own gifoptimizer.com is prior art. I think the site went live somewhere around May-July of 1998 (before the December 8 filing date). Kurt could find out for sure.

  • You want to see software as a service, through a web browser? Check these guys [citrix.com] out. They've been doing what you just patented since around 1995, and I guarantee you they are MUCH better at it. Application hosting and services, through a web browser.
  • They mouth a lot of words that just don't mean anything;

    "The strengths in this patent are not in the business model; the strengths in this patent are in the technology model," he said. "I'm less focused on the subscription model ... it's the technology model that really matters."

    Huh ?

    I'm not even sure what the patent consist of, it's too vague.

  • Affect XP? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) <`mister.sketch' `at' `gmail.com'> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:08AM (#2114718)
    Wasn't Microsoft going to release Windows XP under a 'Software as a service' license and requiring monthly (annual?) fees? But I'm sure Microsoft's legal teams will find a way around it, they alway do.
  • Servicing customers in automobiles through the use of a transparent dynamic interior/exterior interface.

    AKA Drive-through

  • "Software as a Service" means "Software execution controlled by someone else". Not something I want for my personal computers.
  • I am going to patent the business model of patenting obvious uses of technology as business models. Then nobody else will be able to do it.

    No wait! I can't do that. Too much prior art!

  • Now I am trying for electromagnetic waves moving information through the aether. Mortimer, the patent office guy, says he needs more than $100,000 this time, though. He has kids going to college. In case you need a source of income, the ingestion of products by the mouth is still available says Mort.

  • ### JAVA anyone???? ### (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Myrv ( 305480 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:29AM (#2120899)

    A system, method, and computer program product for delivery and automatic execution of ... over an Internet connection to a user computer responsive to a user request entered via a web browser on the user computer.

    Don't know about you but this sure sounds like java applets to me and I could have sworn somebody already held the patent for that ;)

  • yup, the usual (Score:3, Informative)

    by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @01:13PM (#2121241) Homepage
    From the patent:

    PointCast.TM., however, is configured only to deliver content to the browser of a computer over the Internet. It is not designed or equipped with the means to download executable programs to a storage device connected to a computer and execute them at the remote computer.

    In other words: PointCast does exactly what our thing does, only we instruct the machine (on the clientside) to run the bytes transferred, while PointCast only displayed them.

    Definately an invention worthy of lucrative licencing fees! I guess this makes them Mc-A-Fee.

    Oh, and:

    Those skilled in the art may make numerous modifications and departures from the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the claimed invention.

    In other words: This is a blanket patent. Please remember that when we're in litigation with a zillion other companies to obtain royalties.

  • Competing patents (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jordan ( 17131 )
    While McAfee.com was first to be awarded the patent, there are certainly competing (pending) patents trying to nab the same thing.

    Note currently pending patent #20010010053, Service framework for a distributed object network system, comes frightfully close as well.

    Of course they filed it this year, and it will probably be rejected as a result of McAfee's award.

    How depressing.

    --jordan
  • So, which antivirus am I supposed to use now? (for when I boot into Win2k, if you're curious)

    McAfee is evil, so it seems, but Symantec [slashdot.org] is evil [slashdot.org] as well. Can anyone recommend an AV product from a morally-acceptable company?
    • How about InnoculateIT from Computer Associates. It's free (as in beer) for personal use. Only works on Win2K Pro though. www.ca.com. Now I don't know if they have done anything evil or not, but they have some pretty good products.

      Jaysyn

    • You could try these folks [sophos.co.uk]. By all reports they offer a very decent product and high quality services.

  • Surprise (Score:4, Informative)

    by technomancerX ( 86975 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:12AM (#2125737) Homepage
    Surprise, surprise yeat another patent on something obvious that tons of people are doing... Although considering they filed in 1998 it may not be that hard o find prior art on this one. Arguably any form of web-based installer violates this patent (or counts as prior art) as software installation can be considered 'administration'.

    • Re:Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Phrogz ( 43803 ) <!@phrogz.net> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:27AM (#2148521) Homepage
      Arguably any form of web-based installer violates this patent

      Yup...but can you point to a web-based installer prior to 1998? People are all gung-ho on patent-bashing, but I think this is a combination of I-want-free-stuff ("free napster!") and hindsight-is-20/20.

      I'm not necessarily defending the scope or righteousness of the patent system in general, but just because everyone is doing it today, and just because you use it frequently, doesn't mean it didn't take someone else's smarts to come up with the idea and introduce it to society. Zippers, shoelace grommets, post-its, etc.

      "Can you believe it, someone has just patented STICKING PAPER TO THINGS!"

      • Windows Update ? Java ?
      • Perhaps Netscape's SmartUpdate?
      • Even Starcraft had auto-patching, and the battle.net stuff for that was in beta in '97. Not the "preferred embodiment", but that doesn't limit patent scope. The other poster provided several web-based refutations. Obviously the courts will decide if there's enough prior art, but this is as much of a no-brainer as one click-- in that only people with no brains think it's a novel idea.

        "Oh, shit! You make it automatically download and execute, rather than have them double-click on it? Genius! I've gotta write home about this! Oh, wait-- shiny thing...."
      • Yup...but can you point to a web-based installer prior to 1998?

        People downloaded DOOM updates over the web before then, and Linux bug fixes, and lots of other stuff. How do you think people most people got their web browsers and security updates to it (many of them)? How do you think the NCSA web server was distributed? The first downloads happened over FTP (a web protocol) or a number of web-like protocols. Subsequent updates/downloads happened over the web. It took years for that kind of software to get distributed any other way.

        I'm not necessarily defending the scope or righteousness of the patent system in general,

        Oh, yes, you are; otherwise, you wouldn't make such random comments in response to a discussion about the problems with a specific comment. And like many people who do that sort of thing, you either don't have a clue about what has happened over the last 50 years in computer science or the computer industry, or you just conveniently choose to ignore it for demagogic reasons. Either way, your kind of response is as predictable as it is tiresome.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Yup...but can you point to a web-based installer prior to 1998?

        Riddle me this - when did windowsupdate go into it's first beta? Yup, it had been developed and seen before that...
      • Yup...but can you point to a web-based installer prior to 1998?


        I think Java would REALLY fall under this category, wouldn't it? From the Java Technology History Page [sun.com]

        On May 23, 1995, John Gage, director of the Science Office for Sun Microsystems, and Marc Andreessen, cofounder and executive vice president at NetscapeTM, stepped onto a stage and announced to the SunWorldTM audience that JavaTM technology was real, it was official, and it was going to be incorporated into Netscape NavigatorTM, the world's portal to the Internet.

        At that time, the entire Java technology team, not yet a division, numbered less than 30 people. It was the original members of this small group who created and nurtured a technology that would change the computing world.

        The Set-Top TV You Never Saw

        Java technology was created as a programming tool in a small, closed-door project initiated by Patrick Naughton, Mike Sheridan, and James Gosling of Sun in 1991. But creating a new language wasn't even the point of "the Green Project."

        .....

      • You could get a web-based installer for free in 1998, and before. It was called apt-get and is a standard part of Debian. Yes, it is web-based: you put URLs in your sources.list file and HTTP is used to fetch the needed updates.

      • Hmmm.... ActiveX components might qualify... and I'd have to look into dates for M$ Update, Netscape's Smart Update, InstallShield's Install Anywhere Web edition, some of Marimba's software might apply... And those are what comes to mind off the top of my head... Let's just say I REALLY doubt McAfee was the only one doing this in 1998.
    • Surprise, surprise yeat another patent on something obvious that tons of people are doing

      It doesn't matter how many tons of people are doing something -- if they weren't doing it more than one year prior to the date of the application, it does not negate patentability. 35 U.S.C. s. 102(b).

      It doesn't matter whether you consider the invention to be obvious. The test is whether there exists prior art that contains each and every element of the claim. If no one piece of prior art contains the element, then prior art references may be combined to "fill in" for the missing pieces, provided that the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art.

      In short, "obviousness," as the term is used to determine patentability, doesn't mean what you appear to think it means.

  • Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by emf ( 68407 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:08AM (#2126258)
    "In a preferred embodiment, the user directs the Internet browser to a Internet clinical services provider web site computer and logs in to the site using an identifier and a secure password and optionally makes a selection of the type of servicing desired, wherein an automatically-executing software package encapsulated within a markup language communication unit deliverable across the Internet is delivered, to the user computer, the automatically-executing software package being adapted to perform security, management, or optimization functions on the user computer."

    Isn't that what Microsoft's Windows update does ? Or better said, isn't that what Microsoft's Windows update tries to do?

    • Or any Java applet that does a "security, management, or optimization" function? Or a javascript file that does this? Wtf is an "automatically executing software package" .. that is so vague and could be anything from an HTML page ('execution' meaning 'render') to an .exe file. If it's an .exe file, then it doesn't "automatically execute" it is executed by the user.

      I love how they use vague terms such as "automatically executing software package" and "markup language" in order to make sure they have all the bases covered, not just their stupid (probably buggy) solution that uses a specific type of software package and a specific type of markup language.

    • Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by justin_w_hall ( 188568 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:57AM (#2136604) Homepage
      You know.. maybe this is what needs to happen for the government to realize the idiocy of the patent system:

      • McAfee files a blatantly obvious patent.
      • The patent happens to cover an idea that Microsoft is about to base their entire software strategy on (web services).
      • Light bulb goes on over a Microsoft VP's head - 'hey we should do something to stop this'.
      • Microsoft's legal muscle fires off multiple letters to Washington.
      • Light bulb goes on over Washington's head (or is forced there by Microsoft's legal types - 'maybe this patent law does suck.'
      • Change ensues.

      Who knows? Maybe having the 800-pound gorilla fight some battles for you isn't all bad..
      • MS: Hey, this patent covers our new business model, let's keep quiet, maybe McAfee won't notice.

        McAfee: Hey, Microsoft is violating our patent, let's go after them.
        McAfee: Hey, Microsoft, gives us lots of money or we'll take you to court and bend you over.

        MS: No way man, file a suit against us, and we'll file one right back at you for violating patents (long list of overly broad patents owned by Microsoft).

        McAfee: Ok, cool, want to "license" our patent, then you can help us track down poor schmucks who don't have money or patents to combat us with so we can suck them dry?

        MS: Sounds good to us.
      • ... they'll just buy McAfee (and their patent) if necesarry.

        Microsoft don't have their own virusscanner anyhow, so perhaps we can expect Microsoft Viruscan pretty soon ;-)

        • <tounge-in-cheek> I don't think that's likely. I don't think they'd like it's behavior. They're program would, of course, be better, and try to `fix' programs that are likely to spread viruses:
          Checking hard drive...
          Outlook found...deleting virus spreader
          IIS found...deleting virus speader
          User found...deleting virus spreader
          Microsoft Windows found...deleting virus spreader
          Microsoft Viruscan found...deleting virus spreader
          I've left out the obvious reboots after each installation is deleted, but I think those are implied. </tongue-in-cheek>
      • Yeah, or one of two more likely scenarios will happen:
        • Microsoft pays billions of dollars to abide by patent, recognizing that it too has patents it would like to continue to protect. Payment results in Microsoft shelling out 0.5% of net worth.
        • Microsoft pays billions of dollars and buys McAfee, thus obtaining one more slice of the planet.


        So, as you can see, Microsoft can pay lots of money to lobby Washington and hurt itself for a minor victory or pay lots of money to protect itself for the status quo. I think I'll put my money on the latter.

        • You are assuming Microsoft acts rationally. That may be a mistake.

          If Microsoft was always rational, they wouldn't have kept up their shenanigans DURING the court case, they'd gone on the straight and narrow for the duration of the trial, or at least been more sneaky, and then started up again with their mess after no one was looking.

      • Patent idiocy will die when... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by alispguru ( 72689 ) <bob,bane&me,com> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @02:30PM (#2149092) Journal
        ... the first lawyer successfully patents a legal argument, or perhaps a clever sequence of filing inter-related lawsuits, as a business process, and then starts charging other lawyers for using it.

        Remember, the legal system in general thrives on adding complexity to other people's lives. When the complexity starts removing money from their pockets, things will change.
      • "blatantly obvious" doesn't even begin to cover it. The McAfee patent was filed Dec 8, 1998. Didn't Windows 97 come with a feature to update itself? Sure seems like prior art, aside from little details of the implementation -- which you probably wouldn't want to copy anyhow.

    • Re:Hmm. (Score:2)

      by Masem ( 1171 )
      You don't need to log in to use Windows Update, the patent specifically mentions requiring to log on (as to therefore track customer usage, most likely), which probably is why Windows Update wasn't considered as prior art.

      • Actually, the patent doesn't require you to log on. The claims of a patent set out what it protects. The first claim doesn't have any requirements of logging on. The second claim (dependant on the first) provides that limitation. Thus, it covers systems that don't require people to log on.

  • Microsoft? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by alen ( 225700 )
    Are they going to pay up $$$ big or sue? If they sue how long will .NET be delayed.

  • windowsupdate.microsoft.com (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:18AM (#2126405) Journal
    one or more maintenance tasks comprise at least one of the following: compression of software, compression of data, search for software that needs to be upgraded, search for data that needs to be upgraded, upgrade of software, upgrade of data, search for obsolete software, search for obsolete data, deletion of obsolete software, deletion of obsolete data, archival of software, archival of data, hardware diagnostics, and software diagnostics.

    Windowsupdate.microsoft.com is probably covered by this patent. So are the auto update services used by Red Hat and SuSe. And any other remote update system. Hell, it might cover PC Anywhere. If it does, then it might be partially invalidated on prior art grounds.

    But, it looks like portal systems like Zope would be in the clear. Damn broad patent, though.

      • But, it looks like portal systems like Zope would be in the clear. Damn broad patent, though.

      Whee, this is fun, another keen poster who didn't bother reading to the end:

      • Those skilled in the art may make numerous modifications and departures from the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the claimed invention. For example [...]the software downloaded may be intended to perform tasks such as database management, word processing, spread sheet, games, or other tasks that are not specified herein.
      • Zope is run on the server, and that's where all the database stuff happens. Software, etc, isn't downloaded from the zserver to the client, just web pages (well, with java, or whatever.) Although. This could cover java. Java is compressed. Hmmm, interesting thought.

  • Moral compass (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bongo ( 13261 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:19AM (#2126409)

    I'd patent one (the Moral Compass), but I sure don't think I'd collect much royalties. Anyone out there know of prior art??

  • Take a look at the title... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:13AM (#2126851)
    "Method and system for securing, managing or optimizing a personal computer"

    So basically McAfee is claiming a patent on:

    * Passwords
    * Locks

    * Command Shells
    * GUIs

    * Defragmenters
    * Memory management

    You get the idea...this is broader than the side of a barn. The only sentance I can pull out of the abstract that means anything is "you do something with a web browser and something happens on your computer"

    Serious...who read this @#%!$ at the patent office and finds anything unique about it at all? I mean AT - FREAKING - ALL?

    - JoeShmoe
    • Don't read too much into a patent title. The key points in any patent are what the claims are; everything else is definitions or supplimentary material.

      As others have pointed out, the process that McAfee is patenting is rather descriptive (eg, requires that the user initiate the connection, requires a browser to initiate that, and requires authenication by the user), which pretty much limits the possible use of prior art to only a few questionable cases.

    • Re:Take a look at the title... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:34AM (#2114669) Homepage
      • "Method and system for securing, managing or optimizing a personal computer"

      I wonder how many times I'm going to have to post the simple advice to read to the end, to see that it gets even worse:

      • Those skilled in the art may make numerous modifications and departures from the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the claimed invention. For example [...]the software downloaded may be intended to perform tasks such as database management, word processing, spread sheet, games, or other tasks that are not specified herein.
    • You're forgetting mice, keyboards, joysticks, cd-roms, disk drives, etc, they manage a personal computer too.

  • Prior Art exists in same market (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sinistar2k ( 225578 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @01:34PM (#2127208)
    This is a repost (see "*cough cough*"), but this incredibly relevant data is being ignored in favor of James Bond references. :)

    There are at least two instances of prior art (that I submitted to Slashdot when I submitted mention of the McAfee story, but oh well...).

    In 1997, Symantec partnered with Ziff Davis in launching the HealthyPC.com web site. It was a subscription service that allowed customers access to Norton Antivirus, a subset of Norton Utilities, and the then newly developed LiveUpdate product. I did web design for that launch.

    The way the service worked is that the apps were downloaded and installed on the client side, but they could only be activated by a launch script from the server side, so a user had to log in to the HealthyPC.com subscriber area in order to use the tools.

    Here are some pages that reference HealthyPC.com and pretty clearly show dates from 1997 (according to News.com, McAfee applied for the patent in 1998):

    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-318512.html
    http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1997/04/msg0024 1.html
    http://www8.zdnet.com/pcmag/insites/sod/sd970310.h tm
    http://www.quantum.org/members/issues/1097/7875.ht m

    Before that, there was a site offering similar services that was called TuneUp.com, but it ended up going through a few acquisitions before finally ending up as part of Symantec.

  • By making it harder for application service providers (ASP) to operate, the price will go up. It will be more costly for a company to outsource its IT. Companies that outsource their IT layoff their IT staff.

    The patent makes it less economical (or even uneconomical) to outsource IT, hence less layoffs, hence us IT people don't have to go around asking "Do you want fries with that?".

    One ASP can serve many many companies. If ASPs became really prevalent a relative few overworked employees will be doing the work of many - some people will have murderous workloads, many will be unemployed. This patent ironically could prevent that.

  • My god - Microsoft will be the *good guys*! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:26AM (#2128286) Homepage
    • A system, method, and computer program product for delivery and automatic execution of security, management, or optimization software over an Internet connection to a user computer responsive to a user request entered via a web browser on the user computer

    What? A patent that actually limits its scope?. But read right to the end for the gotcha:

    • Those skilled in the art may make numerous modifications and departures from the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the claimed invention. For example [...]the software downloaded may be intended to perform tasks such as database management, word processing, spread sheet, games, or other tasks that are not specified herein.
    • Filed: December 8, 1998

    Even for a USPTO filing, this is breathtaking. The detail wording of the patent discloses prior art that differs only in small details (at the time of filing) from the claimed method, and the attempt to generalise from a specific implementation to cover pretty much anything you download and install would be hilarious if it wasn't being done by a company with a legal department and a belligerent attitude.

    I'm astonished to find that I can't wait for Microsoft to let their lawyers loose on this. I wonder how much longer the USPTO can be allowed to continue in it's current form? It's slipped quietely from being merely incompetent and underfunded into the realms of the farcical.

    • No, no, no... MS loves this patent. Drop your naive faith in fair competition and the goodwill of the corporations, and listen to my cute little conspiration theory: Microsoft will not fight, it will probably partner or even buy McAfee, thus swallow this delicious patent and become an even bigger and more Evil Empire. Ha!, they even helped McAfee to bribe / blackmail / threaten those poor little USPTO officers into accepting the patent in its most general form. When later somebody complains about it (muttering something about monopolies or so) they (MS) can blame McAfee and say they only bought McAfee out of self defence.

    • Re:My god - Microsoft will be the *good guys*! (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, it is a good move by McAfee. They simply license their "technology" to Microsoft for a nominal fee of, say, $.001/unit and MS cannot afford to litigate the issue as a business decision. Then McAfee gets to say "See, our patent is so strong even MicroSoft will not challenge it. Pay up all the rest of you."

  • "You either work with us, or you work around this" (Score:4, Funny)

    by T1girl ( 213375 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:05AM (#2129470) Homepage
    Definitely sounds like a challenge

  • Just for virus software (Score:3, Informative)

    by MosesJones ( 55544 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @12:19PM (#2133357) Homepage
    "The method of claim 6, said software package including a program to detect computer viruses on the remotely located computer"

    So if it doesn't include a virus detector then it would appear to be okay.

    Still seems a silly patent mind

  • Another bounty comming right up. (Score:4, Informative)

    by thebitninja ( 512627 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:14AM (#2134921) Homepage
    If Macafee have just filed this patent then there must be prior art out there.

    Here is an excellent article on IP issues and mad patents. [technologyreview.com]

    Also check out IP.com [ip.com] and BountyQuest [bountyquest.com]

    so I imagine well be seeing something here about this soon!

    I'm tempted to immediately blame the companies for doing this, but I guess they are just trying to work within the system to make money. It's the system that sucks. Still I'm gonna hold off buying that antivirus software for a while now.

  • Stopping .Net (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sterno ( 16320 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:29AM (#2135062) Homepage
    I hate software patents and I think this is yet another silly one but it could provide an interesting way to stop Microsoft's .Net initiative. Isn't the .Net model completely based around the ASP model? So perhaps McAffee could simply refuse to license the patent to Micrsoft. By refusing to license, McAffee could at the very least keep Microsoft tied up in court for a long time.

    This isn't to say that McAffee has any vested interest in kicking Microsoft around. In fact Microsoft would probably do their best to destroy McAffee through other means if this happened. But it's an interesting idea.
    • So perhaps McAffee could simply refuse to license the patent to Micrsoft. By refusing to license, McAffee could at the very least keep Microsoft tied up in court for a long time. This isn't to say that McAffee has any vested interest in kicking Microsoft around.

      Not only does McAfee not have an interest in "kicking Microsoft around", they absolutely depend on Microsoft's survival.

      McAfee and the other anti-virus companies entire existence is due to the fact that Microsoft has so far been woefully unable to design decent operating system security.

      The anti-virus industry is a freaking joke. Once the majority of operating systems start treating untrustworthy code with the proper care, anti-virus software will become obsolete.

  • Cookie (Score:5, Funny)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:24AM (#2136001) Homepage Journal
    Actually, kerubi gets a cookie just by browsing Slashdot.

    (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)
  • Perhaps we should petition the patent office to make use of some of this great new technology in their patent application process. A web site could be set up to request comments about prior art for patent applications that have made it through the application process, but before they are granted.

    Those applying for patents would benefit because they would not be granted patents which would eventually be ruled unlawful in court. They would then be able to apply for more narrowly drawn patents which do not infringe on prior art.

    Owners of prior art would benefit because they would not have to spend time and money on court battles in order to establish facts which should have been established at the patent application level in the first place.

    Consumers would benefit because they would not have to bear the increased cost of products and services due to patent lawsuits.

    Slashdotters would benefit because we could spend our time contesting patent applications instead of ranting about bogus patents after the fact.

  • hrm, one of the first things that came to mind was the RBL (Realtime Blackhole List), which (IIRC) can update firewall rules or sendmail rules.. (nope, cant look it up, but if someone knows more or better, be my guest)

    Frankly, I can't be bothered to at the moment.

    //rdj
  • MS is gonna get their .NET squashed?

    • Nah, they'll just license the patent if they need to. It's not like they can't afford it. Or maybe they'll just pressure McAfee into a free license. "Gee, maybe we should integrate a virus-scanner into our next version of Windows."

      Ya gotta wonder what kind of sick masochist would base a business on writing Windows software. ;-)

  • Don't be fooled by mentions of Internet browsers; it's clear that these guys want their patent to be interpreted broadly enough to cover any client application that speaks HTTP or FTP. Once you realize that, it's clear that apt-get does everything described in claims 11 and 12, and since standard Internet protocols are used, claim 1 as well. And apt-get predates the filing date of this patent (December 8, 1998), and other features of the Debian package system provide all of the capabilities described in this patent, other than those for collecting money.

    It's possible that some portion of this patent could survive, but an easy way for competitors to work around this patent is to base their mechanisms for delivering virus updates on apt technology, delivering their updates in nice, standard .deb or .rpm packages.

  • Um ... (Score:2, Informative)

    by mystik ( 38627 )

    The patent abstract only seems to imply that this will cover remote recovery/maintence of PC's.

    ..which, Hard Drive recovery agencies have been doing for a while, I'd imagine.

  • Abstract (Score:3, Redundant)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <{petedaly} {at} {ix.netcom.com}> on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @11:15AM (#2149569)
    From the Patent:

    Abstract

    A system, method, and computer program product for delivery and automatic execution of security, management, or optimization software over an Internet connection to a user computer responsive to a user request entered via a web browser on the user computer. In a preferred embodiment, the user directs the Internet browser to a Internet clinical services provider web site computer and logs in to the site using an identifier and a secure password and optionally makes a selection of the type of servicing desired, wherein an automatically-executing software package encapsulated within a markup language communication unit deliverable across the Internet is delivered, to the user computer, the automatically-executing software package being adapted to perform security, management, or optimization functions on the user computer. User identifiers and passwords enabling the downloads may be provided on a per-download basis or on a subscription basis.

    • Re:Abstract (Score:2, Redundant)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

      The sting in the tail:

      • Those skilled in the art may make numerous modifications and departures from the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit and scope of the claimed invention. For example[...] the software downloaded may be intended to perform tasks such as database management, word processing, spread sheet, games, or other tasks that are not specified herein.
    • A system, method, and computer program product for delivery and automatic execution of security, management, or optimization software over an Internet connection to a user computer responsive to a user request entered via a web browser on the user computer.

      Depending on how a "Web browser" is defined, Debian's dselect may qualify as a "Web browser" (an interactive program that accesses files via HTTP) which allows the delivery and automatic execution of security, management, and optimization software. It can also install software for "database management, word processing, spread sheet, games, or other tasks".

  • One of these days, someone is going to make a claim on one of these absurd, vague, obvious, and incredibly arrogant patents that will be the last straw, and the sheeple in congress will be moved to reduce the patent office's power. Here's hoping it's today.

  • Protest! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Tuesday August 07, 2001 @12:57PM (#2151154) Homepage
    Hi guys,

    Perhaps the best way to protest their action would be to purchase as many Norton & Symantec products as possible.

    Regards,

    Ben Hallert
    Symantec
    • Symantec has equally stupid patents. Why, wasn't it less than a year ago since Symantec was granted a patent on... virus definition updates. That puts Symantec right in line with McAffe and Amazon. Fortunately, Symantec management came to their sences and decided not to sue over it, realizing that the patent would be thrown out by the first judge who looked at it.
  • There is at least one specific example of prior art for this patent. It is the SolarSoft [lmsal.com] distribution system developed by Sam Freeland out at Lockheed-Martin, to distribute solar physics related software across the internet. It uses a web interface to generate a script that runs on the client's machine, pulling pre-configured software across the internet and then updating it regularly.

    Solarsoft has been in use since before 1995.

  • "The McAfee.com inventors of this patent include Chandrasekar Balasubramaniam, CTO & Vice President of Engineering; Babu Katchapalayam, Director of Engineering; Core Products; and Ravi Kannan, Director of Engineering, Infrastructure Services."

    In the usual american corporate structure, no one above the lowest level of engineering management is ever going to get time to invent anything. Directors and VP's certainly can never get out of meetings long enough to do any engineering, if the titles actually indicate a high position in the company rather than being 2nd and 3rd tier in a tiny 3 or 4 tier organization. 8-) So do those two "directors" have nothing to direct but themselves, or is putting their boss's name on the patent possibly fraudulent?


  • The CGI program running on the server computer 100 causes a web page to be downloaded to the user computer 104. Embedded in the web page are ActiveX.TM. controls and scripts that cause a search program to be executed on the user computer 104 to determine if any executable software needs execution, installation, upgrades or updates (step 408). In a preferred embodiment, this results in a search of the user computer's storage medium, for example, in the cache area of the browser 116, to determine if any program needs to be downloaded. Additionally, the program looks to determine if there is a need to execute any software program, such as an anti-virus program (step 410).

    So basically the're patenting using ActiveX to do Virus detection through a web browser. I would think MS might not like them claiming such an ActiveX function as theirs.

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