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Patents Your Rights Online

AOL Patents IM 146

Posted by timothy from the eyebrows-to-celing-please dept.
ProgressiveCynic writes "CNet is reporting that AOL has recieved a patent on IM technologies. Specifically, any technology that provides "a network that allows multiple users to see when other users are present and then to communicate with them" is covered. While AOL was a leader in this space the patent was only filed in September 2002."
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AOL Patents IM More

AOL Patents IM

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  • past "art"?
    • It's called IRC.
    • The USPTO doesn't care anymore. They want someone to challenge a claim and go find it, rather than having the examiners look for it. Examiners are rated on how many patents they process and how many they approve, I believe.

      PLATO had this in the mid to late 70s. Burroughs mainframes had this in the early to mid 70s. I wrote software in the late 70s to do this on mainframes. The prior art is likely older than the examiner who let this by.

  • Ever hear of Finger & Talk? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Targa ( 14436 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:21PM (#4910952)
    Dumbass software patents...

  • What about "chat" and "talk"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick the Red ( 307103 ) <Rick.The.Red@ g m a il.com> on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:24PM (#4910980) Journal
    I seem to recall applications with names like chat and talk which allowed uses to communicate with anyone logged on at the same time. Do those not count as prior art because the users were all logged onto the same machine, and this patent covers multiple machines networked together? Do terminals hanging off a Vax or IBM mainframe constitute a "network"?
    • IBMers could query and talk with users on networked VM machines by the early 80's. I don't know whether the code (the "SMSG node CMD othernode CPQ NAMES" and "TELL" commands) was by IBM or by users. Back on the Open Source days many users wrote their own mods to VM. Users did not have to be on the same machine. I don't mean to imply that the VM commands were first, but they were the first that I came across.
    • I seem to recall applications with names like chat and talk which allowed uses to communicate with anyone logged on at the same time. Do those not count as prior art because the users were all logged onto the same machine, and this patent covers multiple machines networked together?
      Logged onto the same machine? What are you talking about? Have you never fingered an account on another machine to see if someone is logged in and then typed talk user@host.somewhere.org ? You should try it sometime. I've been doing it since 1992, at least. Both talk and ICQ easily count as prior art to this.
    • You can't forget to mention IRC, it is the "art" that came after "talk" and "ytalk", and it's bases are from 1987.
      1. To find out who's logged in: who
      2. To write a message to everyone: wall (write all)
      3. To write a message to everyone: write
      And then there's stuff to communicate over local networks, etc.

      And then there's the old-style bbs systems (fav. was grapevine).

      Dumb-ass patent office. :-(

  • prior art... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:25PM (#4910992)
    % finger <user>
    % talk <user>

  • Granted in 2002, NOT filed! (Score:5, Informative)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:27PM (#4911018)
    While AOL was a leader in this space the patent was only filed in September 2002.

    The article clearly states that the filing was done in 1997, and the patent was granted in Sept 200.

  • They've made a mistake. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:28PM (#4911030)
    Usually when companies get a stupid unenforcable patent, they go after small helpless companies that can't afford to defend themselves in court. However, this time, AOL has made a mistake. Not only are they not able to prove this is a valid patent in court, any company they sue is likely to have the resources to defend themselves, not to mention these companie's IM software will predate the patent. I'd love to see what happened if AOL decided to try to sue Microsoft over Windows/MSN messenger. It'd be pretty funny.
  • What the hell? This patent according to the vague terminology covers the unix who/talk command, almost all online video games, the Battle.Net system, IRC, Gamespy.com, as well as a few others. Now I may not be the most intelligent guy in the world, but I'm pretty sure that -somewhere- there has to be some previous art.

    nems

    • It would infringe on my patent for the combination of simple symbols, representing sound parts, into fundemental conceptual building blocks that are then aranged within a formal structure to clearly communicate any and all manner of information. It was granted last week.

      I wonder how much I owe AOL in back royalties for all that mudding I did in the 90's?

  • This is insane!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cs668 ( 89484 ) <cservin AT cromagnon DOT com> on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:30PM (#4911063)
    I remember multi-line BBSs in the early 80's doing this. I think the Citadel systems could do this arround 84.

  • IRC? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fweeky ( 41046 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:36PM (#4911096) Homepage
    The ISON command was implemented to provide a quick and efficient means to get a response about whether a given nickname was currently on IRC. ...


    PRIVMSG is used to send private messages between users. <receiver> is the nickname of the receiver of the message.

    In rfc1459, dated May 1993, after 4 years of development. Although it is described as a "teleconferencing system", it does sound like it'd match:
    "The claim is it's a system where you have a network; you have a way to monitor who's on the network; and if you want to talk to them you hook them up,"
    • AOL definitely predates 1993. I knew AOL users in 1988. Try again.
      • The patent was filed in 1997.
      • AOL definitely predates 1993. I knew AOL users in 1988. Try again.

        As I recall, IRC was available as early as 1987-1988. It was definitely around in early 1990, so it certainly predates the patent.

        Also, there are older CMC systems (Computer Mediated Communication [december.com] systems) invented by members of the student ACM chapter at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). (Not all of these CMC systems were Internet-based.)

        In particular, CONNECT was a network server (but not Internet-based) which allowed users to connect to the server over the network and login, see what other people are signed on, and send public and/or private messages to other online users. CONNECT dates back to the spring of 1986, and replaced ACM:CB, a program which students previously used to chat -- but that program only worked between users logged into the MTS mainframe system; CONNECT was a true network server. (It, in turn, took the place of "vamp-mode" on *FORUM -- that is, people used to use the MTS forum software for interactive conversations, although it wasn't designed for that purpose. ACM:CB was, and CONNECT even moreso.)

        After CONNECT was shutdown in 1991 for political reasons, another program called Clover took its place. Clover was an Internet-based server running on a Unix machine, licensed under the GPL. It had a client-server architecture and used a UDP-based protocol. Clover ran for several years until about 1994, when it was replaced by lily, a MOO-based server using a TCP-based protocol and new client software. Lily remains active today and is the current home of the online community which formed on the MTS mainframe in the mid-1980s.

        I myself wrote a Unix-based server imitating CONNECT. This server was started in 1992, running on a server open to public access (via guest access) since early 1993, and eventually released [gangplank.org] last year. This server uses the standard TELNET protocol to avoid the need for a custom client.
    • <quote>The claim is it's a system where you have a network; you have a way to monitor who's on the network; and if you want to talk to them you hook them up,"</quote>

      Isn't this what the telephone company does? It monitors who's using their network, sends people who want in a dial tone, then connects the two parties.

      And haven't they been doing this for decades?

      Doh! The Baby Bells vs. AOL. Coming to a court near you!

  • /usr/bin/who /usr/bin/write

    not to mention ytalk and bbses
  • I know its not what we wanna talk about, but what about Micro$oft Messenger?
    I know I dont use it, but someone probably does, and I dont think that micro$oft will like aol doing this

    yes, i know all about the finger user and talk user commands, but microsoft has power, wether we like it or not, and might be useful in this situation?

  • Filing date is not important (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tor ( 2685 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:40PM (#4911123) Homepage
    A patent can be filed "post mortem", as long as the person or entity that files for it were the primary (first) inventor. For instance, if AOL can prove that they invented IM before, say, IRC (circa 1987), they have a case.

    Only then.
    • if AOL can prove that they invented IM before, say, IRC (circa 1987), they have a case.

      I am trying to believe that IRC relates to this patent, but I'm having a little trouble. It is very easy to difference between Instant Message, and what IRC is.

      -Brent
      • the ui is different, but the system is very similar.

        you have a list of users who are online (ie irc's ison), and you can send them messages (ie irc's privmsg), and additionally there are chatrooms (ie irc's #blah)

        what features am i leaving out of im?

      • "I am trying to believe that IRC relates to this patent, but I'm having a little trouble. It is very easy to difference between Instant Message, and what IRC is."

        Interesting. Though IRC is quite different from IM systems (note, though, that it supports a superset of any current IM system), it seems that the broad overly-vague language used in patent applications is double-edged.

        I.e., it's vague enough to apply to nearly everything, including prior art, though IM systems are quite different from IRC.
    • The rights to the first multi-user, multi-node chat program that I know of were sold to a small software development house in 1985 (or so).

      This program pre-dated IRC, and it's predecessor, Relay.

      A.
    • no one has mentioned bitnet relay.. now we are talking ol school.
    • No. If they were first, and nobody has copied them, then they can file for patent.

      Once someone else has it out, you cant retroactivly kick them out.

      However you can file for a pantent, someone copies, then patent is granted. but you have to have filed, before they have their art out.
  • Hey, we are joking now.

    Prior art: who/rusers/talk.

    This is really a joke of a patent application.
    • Prior art: who/rusers/talk.

      Huh? How does this relate to AOL's patent? The patent is more then just sending a text message to another user.

      -Brent
      • The patent is more then just sending a text message to another user.

        How about this, then?

        Specifically, any technology that provides "a network that allows multiple users to see when other users are present and then to communicate with them" is covered.

        There. It's the who/rusers part of who/rusers/talk that makes this patent sillier than most.

        • It's the who/rusers part of who/rusers/talk that makes this patent sillier than most.

          I've got who and rusers installed on my linux client. Now where's the network that who/rusers provides? Oh wait, it doesn't technically provide a network. I think that AOL has this patent clean.

          -Brent
          • *Any* network will do for who/rusers/talk.
            Their pate(tic)nt is for a network that allows users to see and chat with eachother, any network can do that with talk and finger. Just because they have another way of doing the same thing, and perhaps doing it a bit easyer by stitching it all up in a nice GUI doesn't mean they should be awarded a patent (there is no invention there, putting to well known apps together and use another protocol is not an invention).

            Granting a patent to AOL for this is bad enough, but they had to go the whole way, and make it so broad the telcos will get in trouble for their sms service.

            - Ost
          • Now where's the network that who/rusers provides?
            Back in 1993, I was a student at University of Illinois. Every student got a dial-up unix shell account that included such services as finger, who, ytalk, mail, etc. Finger or who would automatically query the school's master server (or some other server if you specify) to check the login status of the other person. Anyone with a modicum of scripting knowledge could make a batch file to check the status of all their friends when they execute it. Then type 'ytalk {friend}' and you're off. The most absurd part of AOL's patent is that back in '93, the most useful part of the internet for my friends and I was e-mail (not that AOL users could receive internet e-mail back then), IRC and ytalk.
            The 'network' consisted of any unix server on the internet running those (free) basic services and protocols. As opposed to AOL's IM that pigeonholes you into using their server and client (hopefully they make one for their OS).

            I suppose the next patent AOL will be getting is:
            A universal identification system such that a user can send messages or other data via servers to any other user so that they may download it immediately if they are connected to the internet. The servers will also be designed in such a way to hold the data until the recipient is prepared to receive it at a later date.











            Of course, I'm referring to e-mail.

  • How much is a patent worth? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fnurk ( 13412 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @05:49PM (#4911202) Homepage
    There was a show on swedish television earlier tonight where all the nobel prize winners discussed among many other things intellectual property. One of them said that a patents worth amounts to how much money it will cost to challenge it in court. You probably dont have to be one of the nobel prize winners to realize that but its a good point.

    What he didnt say was that it probably works the other way too. A patent left undefended (in case mirabilis and microsoft decides to ignore it) is not worth more than the paper it written on.
    • Sadly, I believe Mirabilis (ICQ) is owned by AOL at this point.
      • Ah, i forgot. Its a bit like a cheesy soap opera sometimes. Its hard to remember whos sleeping with who :) No matter what, microsoft could probably handle the bills for the lawyers alone if it comes to that.

        What I dont understand is what they want to achieve with this. (If its just not about being as much of a hassle as possible...)

  • Two words... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    MIT's Zephyr [mit.edu].
  • Why not patent using sounds to alert people? Since normal non-legal poeople aren't allowed to run the legal system, why should non-techies control the IT industry... cough DMCA cough...

  • OK That settles it... (Score:4, Funny)

    by EricV314a ( 581711 ) <(ten.llebws) (ta) (v_cire)> on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @06:12PM (#4911417)
    I hereby officially serve notice that I intend to file an application to patent the technology behind taking a shit. Everyone out there needs to pay up or just explode
  • I think you guys missed something: this patent was filed for in 1997, by Mirabilis before AOL acquired them.

    For that matter, the patent is not on the chatting, per se, but on monitoring who is on the chat network. That may or may not change anything, but it's not the same as 'write.'

    I think ICQ will have a hard time proving that BBSs didn't have the ability to tell you who was online before that, though.
  • ...is filing for a patent on the use of ones and zeros to represent data.
  • Virtual Places is a community co-presense system which is patented (IBM now owns it). =\
  • Ha'aretz [haaretzdaily.com] (Israeli newspaper) has written about this before Cnet. More info available there (In English!).
    Hebrew version [haaretz.co.il] is also available.
  • ...state that your invention can be something new, a new use, or an improvement on a previous invention or patent. Instant Messaging is certainly an improvement on any messaging system that everyone is bitching about predating IM's.
    • Instant Messaging is certainly an improvement on any messaging system that everyone is bitching about predating IM's.

      If you were to read the story posted at the top of this page, you might feel stupid:
      Specifically, any technology that provides "a network that allows multiple users to see when other users are present and then to communicate with them" is covered.

      I'm not even going mention your apostrophe, as that would be too easy.

    • How so? What does IM provide that Zephyr didn't back in '94?

  • Bitnet (Score:3)

    by krow ( 129804 ) <brian AT tangent DOT org> on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @07:11PM (#4911951) Homepage Journal
    I doubt that any of their work predates Bitnet or for that matter possibly "PHONE" on decnet. I remember passing messages back and forth on Bitnet long before Compuserve existed.

    Of course.... if I remember correctly compuserve first ran on DEC 10's running.... TOPS? Long time ago. They certainly were not the first though.

  • Galacticomm BBS's (Score:2, Informative)

    by CFBMoo1 ( 157453 )
    I remember the Galacticomm or Major BBS systems had an instant message type system for their setups... /page Message.

    I know I was using it around the late 80's. May not predate unix stuff but it's another prior art. From what I can tell they are still around too. http://www.gcomm.com/

  • From the descriptions in the story they haven't got a leg to stand on in court, but maybe it's a patent on some particular way to run the servers that makes them more efficient than the prior art. It's possible it is an overbroad patent, none of the earlier stuff was patented because it would have been unpatentable before the patent office decided to just let everything through and let the courts sort it out in the late 80's early 90's. Plus, in the early days of commercial software there were no big guys trying to kill capitalism, so the prior art on trivial things isn't documented anywhere an overworked, underpaid, undereducated and unexperienced patent clerk might look.



    But without looking at the patent can we really just assume it's another bad patent?

  • I'm filing: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fat Casper ( 260409 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @07:16PM (#4911993) Homepage
    Specifically, "Technology allowing the use of barricade-like devices at all exit points of the USP&TO building while simultaneously applying incindiary devices to same structure."

    I know you're all thinking it, but I'm filing it, and it'll always be (legally) my idea.

    Doesn't the Guide define USP&TO as "a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes?"

  • MIT Zephyr service (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bzzzzzt -- sorry. Gotta call bullshit on this AOL patent.

    MIT had an instant messaging service called Zephyr [mit.edu] when I was an undergrad there starting in 1989. And MIT's Project Athena [mit.edu], from which the Zephyr service was developed, started in 1983.

    -FP

    • from the 1987 Athena documentation:
      "Zephyr is an experimental notice transport and delivery system. It . . . uses something called windowgrams to display messages on your screen."

  • 1970's on a Data General Nova + Teletype (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We had a computer in high school, SYLMAR HIGH in So. California and the first thing we wanted to do is talk to other terminals, what fun!
    I think most people would think of this its too obvious. Other schools were using this computer from remote so we could chat with other schools.
    One of the gamer dudes wrote a game you could play with others via "chat" so there goes the patent for that!
    It's a OBVIOUS use for a computer network of any kind (terminals wired to central system is a network, sort of)
    SCREW YOU AOL!!! WE DID IT FIRST!!! HAHAHAHA
  • talk/who/finger aren't integrated like ICQ, but Broadcast for Macintosh sure is.

    Have a look at some screenshots [uiuc.edu]. (the Mac version is up front).

    For those unfamiliar with the Chooser, in the upper left you select your tool, in this case Broadcast. Then you select your Zone, in this case departments (automatic buddy lists, you might say...). Then you select your chatee. You double-click the person, type in your message, and click send. If you want to hear back from him, you check the 'receiver' button. If you want to be able to get messages while other programs are runinng (this is late 80's, after all) you click 'Background'. Easy. Simple. Done. Prior art.

  • Not what you might think.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Tuesday December 17, 2002 @08:45PM (#4912561)
    Unfortunately people don't read the actual claims, rather they read the abstract or some other part of the patent and draw conclusions about what is covered from this material.

    These conclusions are invariably wrong. What a patent covers is described in the claims, and nowhere else. If you don't read the claim, you don't have a clue as to what a patent covers.

    Reading the actual claim in this case, it is quite clear that AOL's patent is not affected by prior art such as BBSs chat systems that don't require a communications network. Nor is functionality like Apple's broadcast because the users are tied to specific machines. IRC also relavant as it does not maintain a list of users that you are interested in talking to, an notify you when they go online.

    Following is Claim 1, what AOL actually has a patent on:

    What is claimed is:

    1. A communications system comprising:

    a communications network;

    a multiplicity of communications terminals which are connectable to said communications network and which can be employed concurrently by multiple seeking users and multiple sought users to communicate via said communications network, wherein each user is identified independently of a given communications terminal address by a unique identification code predefined for said user, which code is independent of which of said multiplicity of communications terminals that user is employing;

    a monitor operative to monitor whether or not a user is connected to said communications network; and

    an annunciator operative to annunciate to a seeking user, currently connected to said communications network via any of said multiplicity of communications terminals, network connection status information relating to other users who are in a list of sought users which list includes identification indicia of the sought users, which list is defined by and sent by said seeking user without using verbal requests, and for providing to said seeking user the current network address currently assigned to each of said other users for that other user's current connection to said communications network;

    a user communication selector enabling the seeking user to establish communication with at least one sought user on said list.

    • IRC also relavant as it does not maintain a list of users that you are interested in talking to, an notify you when they go online.

      That's what the ISON command is for, most clients do have a notify function. Just because almost nobody uses it anymore doesn't mean it isn't there.

      -- iCEBaLM
    • Hell, sounds like Bitnet to me...a network (the collection of school machines with bitnet or jnet software on them), a monitor (the o/s itself, actually, which was queried with the bitnet version of "finger"). all that's missing is the user communication "selector list" user interface...in bitnet days you just sent to them as-is through the command line. IM to me always just came across as a centralized version of bitnet "send" with a GUI. Had the internet software for unix systems a better, bitnet-send-like daemon for this sort of thing besides "talk", it would have standardized on it, windows would have picked it up to be compatible, and the fact of its distributed nature would have dropped costs and removed any need for central servers and advertisers except for a way to see who's on where since everybody's on their own machine nowadays (they weren't back then)...and basic naming registry servers are so common (CORBA, anyone) they shouldn't be patentable anymore...
  • MBBS let you do that very thing back in the late 80's. That would be prior art.
  • can be found at the Patent Office web site, here [uspto.gov].

    Abstract:

    The present invention discloses a communication system including a communications network, a multiplicity of communications terminals which are connectable to the communications network and which can be employed by users to communicate via the communications network, the user not necessarily being identified with a given communications terminal, apparatus for monitoring whether or not a user is connected to the communications network irrespective of which of the multiplicity of communications terminals that user is employing, and apparatus for annunciating to a seeking user, currently connected to the communications network via any of the multiplicity of communications terminals, network connection status information relating to other users who are in a set of sought users, which set is definable by the seeking user, and for providing the seeking user connection address information relating to those sought users who are currently connected to the communications network.

  • You could also say of course unix talk + finger + who, but those are seperate tools. IRC is an integrated chat client/server system that does everything they've patented about IM.
  • "Method of inserting cranium into defecatory orifice of multicellular lifeforms."

    Shit. There's at least 536 cases of prior art in Congress, one in Jack Valenti's office, and one in Hilary Rosen's office.

  • This is a ridiculously broad patent, and they were definitely not even the first to come up with this sort of thing. This is the kind of invention that any idiot would have come up with given the requisite technology, therefore it should not be patentable. They should only be ably to profit from their software/service that they actually develop, not bogus claims to ridiculously general categories of products that they didn't even invent.
  • What next? I bet Al Gore will try to patent The Internet!!!
  • I found one piece of prior art that predates the ICQ filing by five years: Broadcast 2.1, a shareware program for the Mac that let users instantly communicate with one or more other active Broadcast users in one or more zones of an AppleTalk network. Being a 2.1 release, I'm sure there were earlier ones....
  • I'm sure someone will tell me why this can't work, but what about a system like this?

    1. Company X wants to file a patent asserting that they own IP rights to Idea/Product Y.

    2. At the time the patent application is filed, Company X is legally obligated to place $10 million US (or some other suitably large amount) in an escrow account. Without this escrow deposit, the patent is considered as not having been filed.

    3. If the patent application is rejected or if it is granted but later successfully challenged (on prior art, obviousness, etc), that $10 million instantly goes away, as the escrow company gives it to the government.

    This system would still allow corporations to have IP for things they truly invented, but would make it financially suicidal to file a patent unless they were CERTAIN they deserved it. It would put the responsibility for discovering prior art on the filing corporation. (Ideally, the PTO should have the responsibility, but the corporations have the money and incentive to be much more thorough.)

    What do you think?

    Also, how can we solve the obvious problem with this idea, that being: ordinary people couldn't file a patent on a new idea if they had to put up $10 million, so where can we draw some lines between the megacorps and bright individuals?

    • So what you're saying is that companies that don't have $10M loose change to put in escrow can't file patents?

      I think a better solution would be to require the applicant to file a research showing examples of similar prior inventions, and how the invention they're applying for is unique. If a prior art becomes available the owner of the prior art can then hold the applicant liable for damages, based on the applicant's investment/return rather than the prior art's return (so the penalty relates to the amount made through mischief)

      imho
  • ...if they ever try any real inforcement of it....
    Humm Quickly...
    Unix Talk and IRC jump out at me.

    Bad patent Office, no cookie.

    • ...is ewtoo and Playground (pgplus.ewtoo.org). These are telnet-based chat systems that allow people to inquire, and be informed automatically by creating lists, of the connection status of other users, and to exchange messages with them.

      ewtoo (and cheeseplant's house) were running from '92, and the source of Playground+ is available at http://pgplus.ewtoo.org - PG was released in 96 as a quite late derivitive.

      There are hundreds of these talkers and many are far order than ICQ, and still run today - eg: telnet://valdemar.org:2345

      So yes, there is prior art that exactly matches this patent to the smallest detail.

  • $ who
    $ talk someuser

    Would that be covered too? Is my Linux box suddenly no longer free? Will I need to pay royalties to AOL?

    I ask you, is AOL trying to protect and profit from AOL Instant Messenger, or are they trying to siphon license and royalty fees out of the developers of all the other IM systems?

    I just cannot believe how woefully unsalvageable our Patent and Trademark Office has become. I believe that patenting software techniques should be forbidden internationally. I'll stand up for copyrighted source code, but not patents. Computer systems are designed to be multi-purpose, and so they uniquely lend themselves to overly-broad patent creation when people attempt to patent a technique they implemented within a computer.

    Somewhere there has to exist a more articulate commentary on what I'm trying to say. I think it's appropriate to patent the specific computer system itself, but not the software techniques used to do work with it.

    Patents were designed to protect innovators and allow them to profit from their development work, not as a means of making money by trying to subvert the work of others.
  • I remember back in 1990 or so having a script in my .cshrc file that would automatically "finger" all my friends to see if they were logged on, parse the finger output and spit out a simple list of who was on. I could then use "talk" to chat with them. There was no GUI, but it's the same functionality. And of course, it worked over the internet. Not that it was revolutionary or anything to take csh, finger and talk and combine them in this way...

  • PowWow (Score:1)

    by drom ( 26464 )
    Since 1995.

    Mirabilis wasn't first.

    What ever happened to prior art?

    --
  • I just want to strangle, mangle, and kill people that apply for, grant, hold and license software patents. ARRGGHHHHHH!!!!! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE KILL KILL KILL KILL
  • MIT has had a instant messaging system for years before ICQ came out.
    It has been in use in other major universities including Caltech and
    Stanford.

    This system is called Zephyr.
    http://web.mit.edu/answers/zephyr/
    http://web.mit.edu/olh//Zephyr/

    There is a web page that describes the similarities and differences
    between ICQ and Zephyr (and notes that Zephyr came first)
    http://web.media.mit.edu/~kkarahal/generals/VSpace s/zeph-icq.html

    The differences are subtle and probably inconsequential;
    I believe the similarities nullify the value of the patent.
  • In 1986-1989 timeframe, at the University of Central Florida, a student/employee there wrote an application called "friends". It would compare a list of your friends' Novell logins to logged-in users and list them. You could send a message to anyone on your friends list, which would appear on their screen. They could respond to you in kind. I believe there was some kind of two-way chat capability available, as well. I'm pretty sure this is not the only program of this type from the Novell networking days.
    I believe the "friends" program is prior art that relates directly to the claims in AOL's patent. If someone with more knowledge of old Novell apps could find more concrete evidence, perhaps MSN, Yahoo, and others could use that evidence to mount a challenge to AOL's patent.

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