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Patents

AvantGo Gets a Patent 128

Posted by michael from the slashdot.org/palm/ dept.
AnElder writes: "Yahoo's Daily News Technology section is carrying a story reporting that AvantGo has received a patent for its synchronization technology. And here's an excerpt: "In legal jargon, AvantGo said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had issued it patent No. 6,341,316 covering the system, method and computer program product for synchronizing content between a server and a client." Why didn't I think of this?" In all fairness, the patent doesn't seem to be as bad as many that have been issued. It cites many other patents as references (which helps ensure that AvantGo is doing something *different*), and is rather specific about the process - I would expect that there are many ways to "synchronize" data that wouldn't run into this patent.
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AvantGo Gets a Patent More

AvantGo Gets a Patent

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  • Prior Art? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by 7608 ( 515533 )
    rdist, wget, assimilator, mirror, cp, nfs, tape, backup, restore, comp...

  • Patent link (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:13PM (#2903627)
    Link to the patent is here [uspto.gov].
    • Can somebody splain to me how rsync wouldn't, ahh, "infringe" on this patent?
    • The patent itself is very broad, and at first sight seems horrible, but it is actually going to be enforced in a very narrow set of circumstances. AvantGO simply wants to protect their market share; it sees that several companies are ready to jump on their technology in an effort to kill them, and made the right move.

  • Let's just hope.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by FauxPasIII ( 75900 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:13PM (#2903635)
    that they don't leverage this to try to quash their competition, the most excellent Plucker [plkr.org]
    • that they don't leverage this to try to quash their competition, the most excellent Plucker

      Keep dreaming. That's what software patents are for .
    • Plucker [plkr.org] uses a completely different, server-independant solution to gather content. It is de-centralized, and does not rely on a single point of failure. It is client-driven, not server driven. Here's some other reasons why Plucker [plkr.org] exceeds AvantGo [avantgo.com]:
      • Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
      • Plucker supports 12 languages [plkr.org], AvantGo does not.
      • Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
      • Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
      • Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
      • Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
      • Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
      • Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License [gnu.org], AvantGo is not.
      • Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
      • Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper [sitescooper.org]. AvantGo does not.
      • Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
      • Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
      • Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
      • You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
      • Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
      • Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
      • Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does [heise.de].
      • Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year [plkr.org] if you exceed "contract" usage rates.
      While they may think they have a wonderful, bloated product, which I'm sure appeals to corporate entities with $50,000/year to waste away without much functionality, and giving up control of their own content, I still believe that Plucker has a much better future overall. It's smaller, faster, more capable, and very well documented. It's also actively maintained, on a near-daily basis. When was the last time an update from AvantGo came around?

      Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

      • Fling-It [hice-dev.org] (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
      • BrowserG! [mozdev.org]
      • streetbeam [streetbeam.com] (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
      • And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish [bluefishwireless.com] who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL [advogato.org] by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.

  • And, naturally... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:14PM (#2903639) Homepage
    [Obligatory Inevitable MS Lawsuit Reference]

    [Obligatory Common Tool/Application Reference]

    [Obligatory Comment Such As, "I bet the US Patent Office could give me a patent for my ass."]

    I think that covers it...

  • Only a method of.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by reachinmark ( 536719 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:16PM (#2903650) Homepage
    The common phrase in a lot of these types of patents is "A method of". As in this case, obviously they aren't patenting the concept, rather a fairly specific method.

    The patent actually reads: What is claimed is: 1. A method of synchronizing a server and a client on behalf of a user, comprising the steps of:... - from the patent database [uspto.gov]

    • Claim 1 basically recites a method for updating content for a client at the request of a user, with the update coming from the content provider based on a user profile stored at the server. This is my take on a quick read of the claim without looking at the detailed description, but it seems rather broad.
    • Actually, the meaning of the langage "A method of" implies that the statutory subject matter for the patent is a process rather than a machine. This is common for patents on software, and doesn't say anything interesting about the relative merit of this patent's claims.

  • I wonder (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Restil ( 31903 )
    Maybe I should just patent something extremely obvious. Of course, I need to make sure that while its extremely obvious and could bring me in a large quantity of revenue from extortion royalties, yet nobody I'd be extorting is big enough to be able to actually handle the court costs. So patenting the wheel would be definitely out (although I think someone already did that :).

    Maybe I should patent popup banner ads. Then I can charge X10.com for the privilage of using my "technology". Of course, I contributed nothing to this cause, but I thought of it.. Its my idea (even though I got the idea from the rather obvious prior art).

    All kidding aside, as long as this patent is specific and doesn't keep others from innovating, its probably ok. Still, while I feel that code can be copyrighted, and even maybe algorithm implementations, I certainly am against output being patented. I don't know, tough call.

    -Restil
    • Maybe I should just patent something extremely obvious

      Well you could patent extortion, a method for forcing the surrender for funds despite the protests of other interested parties.

      To make it technical, add in a computer terminal someplace.

      • Well you could patent extortion, a method for forcing the surrender for funds despite the protests of other interested parties.

        Every company that licenses software patents would have prior art.

  • Innovation first! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zrafnid ( 155155 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:20PM (#2903665) Journal
    Well, I guess the patent isn't too onerous. But! What's the big deal anyhow?

    Look at it - software patents basically take the idea that you had and force the concept into a legally protected form. But I believe the reality is that duplicating the data streams and storage methodologies (not to mention the marketing and hype) are going to be cost prohibitive for most companies anyhow. Why bother?

    I suppose this kind of things bothers me, as I know it does others, because it seems to be getting more prevalent and smacks to me of protectionism in software. To me it's equivalent to providing an incumbant telecommunications infrastructure provider (like a cable-co or telco) exclusivity in a market and keeping out the competition. Good for the provider, bad for competition and business generally. I firmly believe that preventing the use of good technology in any scientific field (like software, biotech, engineering) by many different groups slows the rate of innovation in that field. Patents on specific inventions seem reasonable to me, though. I approve of the patent for the lightbulb, but not a patent on the use of electricity to provide light!

    • Re:Innovation first! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ADRA ( 37398 )
      The problem is, that if you copyright a very wide field of interest, it is because the range of the patent has not been encroached upon. Sure, it is technically easy t perform one-click technology post-fact, but when the patented it, who was doing it?

      If it was prior art, then too bad for the patent company for trying to control so much, but if the patent is non-overlapping, then they have created something truly original, regardless of how stupidly obvious it seems now. Hind sight is 20-20, remember.

      Your comment of a lightbulb is a little contrived concidering that you must describe the process of converting electricty to light. If you can describe "every" process to convert electricity to light, then yeah, I think you should be able to copyright it.

      As the poster mentions, it is just one way to perform a synchronization act. This isn't even newsworthy except to the trolls that attack everything "patent" friendly.

      If I invent the next best way to turn electricity into light, or light into bytes, or bytes into a solid state, I am glad that there is an OPTION for me to be keep the process proprietary, or to open it to the world. That should be my choice and right as an individual.
    • To me it's equivalent to providing an incumbant telecommunications infrastructure provider (like a cable-co or telco) exclusivity in a market

      Your grasp of the obvious amazes me! "Exclusive" IS the word used in the U.S. Constitution in the passage that permits patents.

      I approve of the patent for the lightbulb, but not a patent on the use of electricity to provide light!
      Funny you mention that. Had Edison patented "Using electricity to provide light", there would be NO patent barriers to ANY future electrical lights - whether they be LEDs, those nifty new electrochemicalphotoluminescent thingies, or something yet undreamed of. The broader the patent, the better, since the lifetime of the patent is quite short.

      BTW, I would suggest that the lightbulb is an obvious concept. Everyone at Edison's time knew that if you heated a wire hot enough, it would glow. Everyone knew that oxygen caused oxidation. Everyone knew you could pump the air out of a bulb and create a vacuum which contained no oxygen. How, then, did Edison innovate?

    • Re:Innovation first! (Score:3, Informative)

      by dublin ( 31215 )
      Patents on specific inventions seem reasonable to me, though. I approve of the patent for the lightbulb, but not a patent on the use of electricity to provide light!

      Actually, such a thing did indeed happen at the beginning of the electric age, and it was entirely appropriate. The story behind those patents shaped our world in a non-trivial way:

      After inventing the light bulb, Edison went on to patent pretty much all of the other components of his system to provide power generation (the famous "long-waisted Mary Ann" generators), electrical transmission, switching, etc. Of course, all these patents were for Edison's DC system. All these patents were appropriate, although some stole from the work of an employee anmed Nikola Tesla, whom Edison promised $50,000 if he would solve thorny problems with his DC distribution system. Edison did not pay as promised, claiming he was joking.

      Tesla, though, soon had patents for his ingenious polyphase AC system - avoiding the troublesome commutators of DC motors was a BIG deal, and AC could actually be transmitted over reasonable distances without terrific losses. Tesla later licensed these patents exclusively to George Westinghouse for the then princely sum of $1 million PLUS a staggering royalty of $2.50 per horsepower of equipment sold. This would have made Tesla the richest man in the world, every year (even today, that royalty would be worth billions per year just for generators alone, back then it was unimaginable.)

      In a financial power play (ugh) Westinghouse was forced into a financial corner by FUD from J.P. Morgan (who controlled Edison's patents.) The cash crunch made it clear that if he (and AC power) were to survive, the royalty agreement would have to be altered to avoid leaving Westinghouse too over-extended to survive long-term. Tesla famously tore up the contract granting hi the royalties making it clear that Westinghouse had treated him fairly and that Tesla preferred AC prevailing to all the money:
      "Mr. Westinghouse, you have been my friend, you believed in me when others had no faith; you were brave enough to go ahead... when others lacked courage; you supported me when even your own engineers lacked vision... you have stood by me as a friend...


      "Here is your contract, and here is my contract. I will tear both of them to pieces, and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties. Is that sufficient?"
      The rest, as they say, is history...
      • After inventing the light bulb, Edison went on to patent pretty much all of the other components of his system to provide power generation (the famous "long-waisted Mary Ann" generators), electrical transmission, switching, etc
        Actually, Edison didn't invent the lightbulb. That's an American myth.

        The man who invented the lightbulb was an English physicist; Joseph Swan. Actually, there were about five or six people working on the lightbulb at the same time.

        Additionally, Joseph Swan , a British inventor, obtained the first patent for the same light bulb in Britain one year prior to Edison's patent date. Swan even publicly unveiled his carbon filament light bulb in New Castle, England a minimum of 10 years before Edison shocked the world with the announcement that he invented the first light bulb. Edison's light bulb, in fact, was a carbon copy of Swan's light bulb.

        As Swan watched Edison line his pockets with money made from Swan's own invention, he took Edison to Court for patent infringement. The British Courts stood by their patent award for the light bulb to Swan, and Edison lost the suit. The British Courts forced Edison, as part of the settlement, to name Swan a partner in his British electric company.

        Edison fared no better back home in the U.S., where the U.S. Patent Office already ruled, on October 8, 1883, that Edison's patents were invalid, because he based them upon the earlier art of a gentleman named William Sawyer. To make matters worse, Swan sold his U.S. patent rights, in June 1882, to Brush Electric Company. This chain of events stripped Edison of all patent rights to the light bulb, and left him with no hope of purchasing any.

        It's important to spread the truth of the matter, not the yarn of myths.. pass it on.

  • Windows Roaming Profiles (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Isn't this fairly similar to Windows, and Romain Profiles? Microsoft ought to have a field day with this one.
  • Just got my weekly FoolWatch letter and saw the opportunity to comment on Auditing and Accounting firms (article [fool.com]) and wonder where one goes to whine about bad patents or trademarks (a very popular /. theme.)
  • I'm completely against silly software patents, like the 1-click one, but I think that AvantGo deserves this one.

    If you've ever used AvantGo, you know that it's an incredible system. They deserve this patent! Clearly, they worked hard on their idea, it wasn't stolen from someone else or obvious.

    This patent only covers server->handheld synchronization, not server->client sync (it's not overly broad). It won't make the whole Internet infringing. :)

    This isn't a patent on a simple algorithm or something really simple, it's a patent on a complicated method (as opposed to most software patents). It obviously took a lot of work to perfect this idea, and the way our current IP system works, we let the inventors keep the right to their inventions. Whether or not you agree with our IP system, it's the way it works over here, and they deserve the patent.

    • Re:They actually did something, unlike most compan (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:52PM (#2903834) Homepage
      It's an impressive system, but to me it fails to me to qualify as unobvious. Given the problem that AvantGo solves, it seems to me to be a straightforward and obvious solution: it's just that they happened to be the first to stumble upon the problem.
      • It is long well-settled that section 103 unobviousness cannot be determined by a hindsight review of a solution and a casual estimation of how "good" or "clever" is the solution.

        Being first to "stumble" upon a problem is often itself part of invention. The difference between invention, discovery and dumb luck, in this regard, is metaphysical at most. But the manner of making an invention cannot negative its patentability. No spark of genius, or even radical variation is required.

        The question is whether it was inventive, that is, first. What was the prior art, and would Verne, if he knew it all, think to put it together to make an Avant Go.

        In short, the meaning of unobviousness isn't all that obvious, as the law of patents goes. Your standard, however interesting, doesn't relate to the standard used for the Patent act.
    • Actually I don't think it's that complicated, but it is clever. What they've done is turn the orgy of do you have the latest version of this, no, here it is, ask for the next one into this:

      It looks like the client sends a doc to the server that looks like
      <sync>
      <item id='identifier>fancy_hash</item>*
      </sync>

      and gets back

      <update>
      <new_item id='identifier> content </new_item>
      </update>

      The clever part is the fact that only have 1 round trip to sync your device, important for high latency environments (read internet), and the synchronization request is simple enough to generate on an anemic palm
    • "I'm completely against silly software patents, like the 1-click one, but I think that AvantGo deserves this one. "

      Perhaps AvantGo does deserve this one, but if you allow one company to patent an idea than you must also allow others to do the same. Who determines just how "silly" one idea is over another? Some overworked, underinformed patent office employee?

      Software patents in general are a Bad Thing.
    • If you've ever used AvantGo, you know that it's an incredible system. They deserve this patent!

      I've never used AvantGo, so I may be off base here....

      But, keep in mind the distinction between a novel technical idea, and able execution. Strong marketing, engineering, and usability are all admirable, but they're not patentable. Reading other comments, I gather that the technology is uninspired (if competent), so I suspect that other factors are responsible for the success of AvantGo.

    • I don't see any interesting claims in that patent on inventions that extend significantly hat was already known and used when it was filed. The patent was filed in 2000 (continuation from a patent filed in 1999) and the techniques claimed in the patent were then already being used by disconnected web browsing software, rsync, unison, and Plucker. The fact that several of those systems aren't even mentioned in the references suggests that this patent was filed out of ignorance rather than malice.

      So, what it comes down to is that this is just another bad software patent, claiming inventions on things that someone of reasonable skill in the art should know.

    • That's what they said about the wearable ATM. [everythingisnt.com]

  • Lotus Notes Replication is prior art circa 1985 (Score:5, Informative)

    by dudeman2 ( 88399 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:26PM (#2903701)
    This patent looks to be worded broadly enough to cover Lotus Notes clientserver replication, which was developed around 1985. The only difference I can see is that Notes replication does not use XML or HTTP... obviously these were not available in 1985. I don't know if that's a material part of the patent claim.

    I think Lotus has their own patents covering replication. I also know that some work was being done to leverage the Notes replication engine in the Internet world, (circa 1995) perhaps using HTTP or XML, but I can't prove this.

    IBM, owner of Lotus and the world's largest patent holder, may have something to say about this patent.
    • I think Lotus has their own patents covering replication. I also know that some work was being done to leverage the Notes replication engine in the Internet world, (circa 1995) perhaps using HTTP or XML, but I can't prove this.

      This is what's bugging me. Ok, someone in the past has figured out how to do replication of data over a network. But now because we have the new bright, shiny technology of today (http and, ooooo, look XML) suddenly we have a new patent. So what now, we get a variation of this patent for the next 50 years because somebody finds a new way to package an old concept?

      This is exactly why I despise business method patents and software patents especially. To those who say this is innovative I say poppy-cock. This is a natural extension of what can be capable with mobile devices as they become more powerful and able to have more memory. Say I have a laptop, I go to a web site and load a java app. I disconnect from the site then run my program and when I reconnect to the web I have my java app sync with the application server. How is this different from what the patent proposes? If IBM gets their linux wrist-watch working can they create another patent to do the same thing because it's a unique device compared to a Palm?

    • i'm sorry, but does anyone notice that there's a hell of a lot of patents going up for trivially common or mundane concepts that are already in common use lately?

      i suspect there's a gross misunderstanding of the purpose of the patent office somewhere, and i highly suspect that it might be at the patent office, not here on slashdot.

      does anyone have any real info on what the process for accepting patents is? how is all this seemingly insane patenting happening?
      • The patent office is completely overwhelmed with patents and examiners get rewarded by how many patents they actually process. Examiners neither have the time, nor the training, nor any incentive to reject patent claims or patents. Except in obviously bad cases (perpetual motion machines), it's easier and more rewarding to rubber stamp patents and let the courts sort things out. That wouldn't even be much of a problem if the legal system were set up for that, but the legal system still presumes that if a patent has been examined, it is valid, and invalidating it is very hard. Furthermore, companies obtaining invalid patents pay little but stand to gain a lot. The incentives are all skewed.

        Given who sits at the head of the PTO and his background, this isn't going to change anytime soon.

  • . . . they'll get a patent on annoying interstital ads on a handheld device. Get Plucker [plkr.org] and dump AvantGo. Choose what you want to read on your Palm without having to tell a third party that's going to stuff your handheld with ads and sell your reading habits to direct marketers.
    • Well, if you don't have to tell a third party to use Plucker, it looks from a reading of the patent that it wouldn't even be infringing. Having state stored by a provider seems to be a key part of the patent.

  • Many references (Score:2, Interesting)

    by IP, Daily ( 250583 )
    Yeah, lots of references were cited, but the application also pended for less than 2 years. It's not uncommon for a software application to wait longer than that just to get a first action from the PTO. It looks like Sterne, Kessler really buried them in prior art right off the bat and pushed this one through; I'll bet the legal fees for this one were huge. As broad as the claims are, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a related submarime application still pending.
  • Avantgo is an excellent piece of software, and assuming they are just trying to protect their intellectual properity then there is nothing with filling a patent on the hardwork they did to create the software. We have to limit who we get upset at, and this seems like a legit patent aimed at preventing people from taking their ideas.
    • Of course, as a business they do what they have to do but, NO, we don't have to limit who we get upset at...some of us in that "we" don't think _software_ patents should be permitted so any software patent is bad.

      Do I misunderstand the whole issue? My take on it is as such: The problem with these patents is that they aren't against someone copying the EXACT, at the source code level, process but rather copying the idea. That would be like getting a patent for curing a particular disease (in general) rather than for the very specific process used to cure the disease....I was first to think up a cure for cancer, so no one else can do that even if they do it differently.

      If I can't see the source code, there should not be anything stopping me from implementing the same idea...like 1-Click shopping; if they want to patent a particular non-obvious algorithm they used to implement it, at best that's fine but to stop everyone from implementing, in a different manner, the same idea is just stupid.

  • Well, (Score:1, Redundant)

    by amitv ( 165482 )
    So does this make CVS and rsync subject to patent royalties now?

  • Mazingo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jenova_Six ( 166461 )
    There is another program out there for syncing content to PDAs - Mazingo [mazingo.net]. It's focused on Pocket PCs for now.

    It supports rich media, meaning you can get video, sound, or any other file type when you synchronize. It also has a lot of the same types of channels as AvantGo, though they're admittedly fewer in number. Good quality, though, which is something that can sometimes be hard to find anymore on AvantGo.

    Jenova_Six

  • Just a bit of experience... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mystery_bowler ( 472698 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:38PM (#2903773) Homepage
    While I was in college I did a co-op with a company that makes software to sync a certain popular PDA with Office. At the time, the company was really small and there were established competitors who were a lot larger than my employer. They, too, had a patent on a particular algorithm of synchronization, but we my bosses (one of whom was the developer of our software) weren't concerned. Our software was so much faster than theirs, the algorithm couldn't possibly be the same.

    Imagine our surpise when our biggest competitor sent a "cease-and-desist" letter claiming we infringed on their patents. My bosses denied it, of course, but our competitor would have none of it. They had to see our code for themselves to verify that we weren't in violation of their patents. I don't quite remember exactly how it was resolved - I left soon after this became a big issue - but I'm sure it had something to do with my employer striking a deal with the manufacturer of the PDA.

    Anyway, where I'm going with this is that, sure it might not seem like having this patent is a bad thing or over-reaching. And, used responsibly, it's probably not. But don't be surprised to see AvantGo try to get the drop on a potential competitor if they can use this patent as leverage.

  • It is another assinine patent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by victim ( 30647 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:38PM (#2903774)
    Claim 1: The client subscribes to aa set of content, the server gathers this content and later sends instructions to the client to transfer the content.

    Claim 2: As above, but use a single message for the request and a single message for the transfer.

    Claim 3: As 1, but also identifies "information that is of interest" during the sync.

    Claim 4: Claim 1 where it happens over http. victim: I may become ill and stop typing this.

    Claim 5: Claim 4 but transfer some XML on the HTTP. Yep, that's it. I can't go on. I mean no one would ever have considered transfering XML over HTTP! My GOD these people are geniuses!

    There is nothing in this patent that a handful of competent engineers wouldn't come up with in their first brainstorming session.

    I propose that the US Patent Office has so badly mismanged software patents that ALL software patents should be vacated and the patent examiners held personally liable for any damages claimed by the affected patent holders.
    • I should add that it took eight people to invent this and most of their references are their own press releases.

      Zarni Maung should be ashamed of himself.

      I wonder if we can query the patent database by primary examiner? God knows what else this guy is letting by.
    • Yes, you can search the PTO by primary examiner.

      Maung also granted a patent on Melodic alerts for communications device.

      Not as broad as it sounds, but they have managed to patent their protocol for sending a snippet of song as numeric digits. I suppose the business model here is to get companies to adopt this specific tune encoding and then be able to collect royalties.

      I could certainly encode a melody more compactly without infringing this patent, so innovation can't be the driving force behind this one.

      My personal favorite of Maung's Greatest Hits is Internet weight reduction system. It involves dieting by sending pictures of yourself to a computer to analyze your outline to verify the information you enter into the computer run diet plan. :-)

  • Completely fucking unreadable (Score:4, Funny)

    by startled ( 144833 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:43PM (#2903800)
    I couldn't make heads nor tails of the damned thing-- no wonder the USPTO is so backlogged, the legalese has really reached ridiculous heights. Is babelfish ever going to release Lawyer to English? I'm not sure what's more unreadable-- legalese or babelfish translations.
    However, I know Marimba was doing its Castanet updater before this was filed, so this application will have to be fairly specific to not get clobbered by that.

  • What's going on? (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 )
    Researched and non-insindeary commentary from michael??

    Whats going on?
  • Regardless of whether or not this patent is "silly," it is clear that future ones will be - for one simple reason:

    The goal of the patent office is to "assist patent seekers in obtaining patents as quickly as possible."

    The point is, there goal is to help give out as many patents as they legals can; they don't consider their job to be weighing the merit of a patent so long as it conforms to broad legal standards.

  • New Calculator (Score:3, Funny)

    by hahn ( 101816 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @06:02PM (#2903887) Homepage
    I just developed a new calculator that performs additions using a novel method. X+Y is calculated as X-(-Y). It never uses the add function!!! Warning to you thieving bastards: patent is pending.
    • That's the oldest trick in the book. Remember x86 asm optimizations?

      sub reg,128 => add reg,-128

      I found that one on Ken Silverman's page. Prior art!

      Okay, okay, so it's the opposite transformation (not using sub instead of not using add), but still...

      Do not moderate this post.
    • I keep thinking it might be useful to try to get a patent on my radical method of "linear recursive XOR bit chaining" comprising a method of XORing three strings of bits: a,b,c. The first and second strings (a and b) are determined by the user. The first bit of the third string (c) is always 0. The result of the process is stored in a bit chain s. The process is carried out in the following way:

      At each BitLocationIndex you check the following.

      If ((a_i AND b_i) OR ((a_i OR b_i) AND c_i)
      c_i+1 = 1
      else
      c_i+1 = 0

      If ((a_i XOR b_i) XOR c_i)
      then s_i = 1
      else
      s_i = 0

      This way you can generate a process that travels from the start of a string of bits all the way to the end of a string of bits. It appears to have some useful applications in the exciting fields of bioinformatics, AI, graphics, and arithmetic.

  • Scope of the claims (Score:3, Informative)

    by alcibiades ( 532013 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @06:08PM (#2903919)
    As some of you may know, the claims that do not refer to other claims are the important ones in determining whether or not a product infringes the patent. The independent claims of this patent are terse, and use very ambiguous terms. This means that it is very broad, and so very likely to be infringed. Fortunately, the earliest filing date that they might claim for this patent is in '99, and their is plenty of prior art available to get (at least the first claim) ruled invalid. That first claim is ridiculously broad, in fact. That type of process has been around since networks were invented in the 70s, right?

  • Broad patent? Ok. Only if they protect service. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @06:35PM (#2904046) Homepage Journal
    I don't know much about the patent, legalese is beyond me so I'm not going to comment on if the patent is overly broad or not. With this type of thing, it's hard to say. Some could argue that what AvantGo is doing isn't a whole lot different than how a browser works.

    Here's the thing though, even if it is very similar to a browser, it's still a unique and worthwhile service. Basically it takes existing sites and digests them into a format my PocketPC/Palm Pilot can handle. I like this because it turns my PocketPC into a little entertainment device. The Onion is one of many sites that is support AvantGo. It's pretty cool that in a meeting I can flip open my PocketPC to 'check my calender', only to be reading an article about an Ancient Race of Skeleton People Unearthed in Egypt.

    It's likely that the patent could be too similar to how a browser works I suppose. Here's the thing though, AvantGo has a pretty focused business. "Convert web pages into useful docs on a PocketPC." I'd say that the chances are real good that the only people they'd go after would be the 'me too!' places that take AvantGo's idea and run off with it to make a competing service. Since AvantGo did such a wonderful job of making this a useful service, I'd hate to deny them protection. I don't think this is on the same level as Amazon patenting 'one-click shopping.' The steps AvantGo has to go through are rather complex.

    I tell you what though, my tone would change really fast if they unfairly sued somebody.

  • or has it been patented already?

    mabye i can get a patent for patenting patenting!

    i rule!
  • Ridiculous patents like this one _do_ often get revoked. I've spent hours LMAO at www.bustpatents.com. Hopefully this one will join the ranks.
  • In a world without software patents your choices as a software vendor are either
    • sell your software and accept the fact that others might reverse enginneer it, or
    • keep your software to yourself and make no money at all
    Which one would you choose?

    That's the way cereal works, and fruit loops sell just fine.
  • There is far too much prior art on this soft of thing. There is:
    mirror.pl
    rsync
    rcp (cronned up)
    They don't have a chance if they are to sue anyone.
    p.
  • I bet they just want to patent something pretty common so that when someone else comes out with something remotely similar they can be sued, and in comes the money. IANAL, though, so I'm not sure if that would work or not.

  • This patent doesn't really affect Plucker.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by hacker ( 14635 ) <hacker@gnu-designs.com> on Friday January 25, 2002 @10:07PM (#2904938)
    (repost)

    Plucker [plkr.org] uses a completely different, server-independant solution to gather content. It is de-centralized, and does not rely on a single point of failure. It is client-driven, not server driven. Here's some other reasons why Plucker [plkr.org] exceeds AvantGo [avantgo.com]:

    • Plucker has two forms of compression (zlib/doc), AvantGo does not.
    • Plucker supports 12 languages [plkr.org], AvantGo does not.
    • Plucker supports local files (file://tmp/foo.txt) and intranet (including https://) content, AvantGo does not.
    • Plucker supports runtime image scaling, panning, zooming via the parser ([alt]maxwidth, [alt]maxheight), AvantGo does not.
    • Plucker allows runtime bit-depth changes in the viewer. AvantGo does not.
    • Plucker is an 85k footprint on the Palm, AvantGo 4.0 is 399k, without content.
    • Plucker supports Gestures, Autoscroll, Tap Navigation, and Hardware button configuration options, AvantGo does not.
    • Plucker is free and open source, under the GNU General Public License [gnu.org], AvantGo is not.
    • Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.
    • Plucker uses an openly-documented data structure format, and integrates with other parsers and gathering applications like SiteScooper [sitescooper.org]. AvantGo does not.
    • Plucker works on 11 platforms, 5 operating systems (with varying degrees of difficulty), AvantGo supports 1.5 OS' (Windows, and "almost" Macintosh).
    • Plucker does not "restrict" what websites can do with their own content, AvantGo does.
    • Plucker supports multiple instances of the same content (NYTimes with images, NYTimes with color, NYTimes without images) loaded at the same time, AvantGo does not.
    • You can beam your Plucker content to another Plucker user, with AvantGo you cannot.
    • Plucker offers 5 font choices, AvantGo offers 2.
    • Plucker does not have a maximum file size limitation; spider 20 meg databases if you want, AvantGo limits you to 200-300k.
    • Plucker does not "block" content. AvantGo does [heise.de].
    • Plucker does not "charge" for usage of Plucker, nor "fine" people for using it too much. AvantGo does (and steeply, at $6,000 per year [plkr.org] if you exceed "contract" usage rates.
    While they may think they have a wonderful, bloated product, which I'm sure appeals to corporate entities with $50,000/year to waste away without much functionality, and giving up control of their own content, I still believe that Plucker has a much better future overall. It's smaller, faster, more capable, and very well documented. It's also actively maintained, on a near-daily basis. When was the last time an update from AvantGo came around?

    Also, if AvantGo was the leader in this space, why are dozens of other companies moving to using Plucker instead?

    • Fling-It [hice-dev.org] (geared for classroom settings, direct "fling" of webpages from browser to Palm)
    • BrowserG! [mozdev.org]
    • streetbeam [streetbeam.com] (infrared "beaming kiosk" stations, now interested in moving to Plucker)
    • And let's not forget our friends at Bluefish [bluefishwireless.com] who are in clear violation of the GNU GPL [advogato.org] by taking Plucker source, closing it off, and distributing binaries made from it, without source, with Plucker attribution removed, and their names replacing it.
    • Plucker does not require that you have your Palm with you in the cradle to gather, sync, and create content. AvantGo does.

      Actually I can sync AvantGo without cradle by using infrared with GSM modem...

      Otherwise great points (enough for me to change to
      plucker)
      • Actually I can sync AvantGo without cradle by using infrared with GSM modem...
        I guess what I meant to say was that you need your Palm physically connected to the internet to gather content using AvantGo. With Plucker, you do not.

        You can set up a "gather server" or a cronjob or whatever you wish to gather Plucker content, come home, and sync away. You don't have to have a "real-time" connection at the time you gather content.

    • After reading this string of articles I have decided (and I hope you will to) to summarily remove Advantgo from my palmpilot on monday and replace it with plucker. I wasn't aware this alternative existed and given the licensing pressure Advantgo appears to be using and the filing of the patent I no longer feel willing to support them.
  • From a cursory glance, all the patent seems to say is:
    • A server communicates with a conduit, the client. Communications is done using HTTP over the internet; the underlying protocols are formulated in XML.
    • The client can send the server information regarding what content it wants synced. It can also send a request to "sync now," and the server's reply is a set of instructions to the conduit. I suspect "instructions" are similar to what I do with my own client/server conduit - generic actions like "open this database, add a record, alter this record, create a database..". This makes it easier to add functionality on the serverside without requiring end users to upgrade their clients.
    • The server will not sync a page if it has not changed. It "maintains state" ie has a database of information about user's past syncs. The state of a page (changed/the same) is determined by the comparison of a hash of it's content at different points in time.

    It's a fundamental requirement that patents be non-obvious to someone skilled in the art. I really don't see how this is so.

  • Keep in mind that we used to beat clothes on a rock in a stream to do our laundry. Now we throw it into a cylinder that holds water and spins back and forth with an 'agitator' to stir things up a bit. How simple does the washing machine seem? Did someone get a patent on it? Hell yes. Are we paying $5,000 for a washing machine? Hell no! But some people did shell out big bucks when they first came out. So don't waste your time - in 10 years no one is going to care anyway. Well, not untill they go to Avant their palm. So go buy some "klenix" to blow your nose, use a "bandaid" to cover your scrapes, and be glad that no one is suing you to use their brand name.
  • Valuable information about the FreeSoftware/OpenSource/Linux movements can be and their excellent, superior software can be found here [granroth.org], here [linuxplanet.com], here [aol.com], here [linuxsucks.com] and here [aol.com].

    Examples of the excellent community spirit within that movement that will help us bring down the illegal Microsoft monopoly: here [deadly.org], here [monkey.org], here [tuxedo.org], here [oreillynet.com], here [oreillynet.com], here [lwn.net], here [oreillynet.com].

    Let's all work together to improve free software.

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