Browser Cookie Patent 238
resistant writes "Here's more patent madness, this time on cookies used in browsers. (By now, even Forbes has a commendable attitude about this rampant greed)." This is actually a pretty interesting article for folks not so familiar with why patents are such a big deal in this day and age.
First Post! (Score:4, Funny)
Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Prior Art (Score:2)
If you set the threshold to -1 (how many FPs are above that?) and go right to the end (trial and improvement on the start parameter) you will find that there are at least 27 thousand [slashdot.org] first posts. You've created something really special here, Malda.
It DOES make sense! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It DOES make sense! (Score:2, Insightful)
Note that I don't care if the government's motivation for changes would purely be financial. In the end, the only thing that really matters is that no more of these extremely silly patents are granted.
The answer is obvious! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It DOES make sense! (Score:5, Informative)
Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Prior Art (Score:3, Interesting)
patent the "patent madness" (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know you could patent cookies (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I didn't know you could patent cookies (Score:2)
Re:I didn't know you could patent cookies (Score:2)
Re:I didn't know you could patent cookies (Score:2)
My next patten (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My next patten (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My next patten (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My next patten (Score:5, Funny)
Given the one-handed surfing some of these guys do, even a few actual children conceived should bring in a nice sum.
Re:My next patten (Score:5, Funny)
Actual real prior art from BBS days (Score:5, Interesting)
FSC-0056 (Score:5, Informative)
Need to Read the Patent (Score:5, Insightful)
They patented the ability to use and set information in cookies for load balancing decisions.
Re:Need to Read the Patent (Score:5, Insightful)
This has become a daily thing on Slashdot. Alarmist post, no-one reads the article, dozens of people complaining about the same set of high level problems.
Its evolved into an interesting business model. The ignorant masses (oh god, this has turned into an elitist post!!!) click and click and post their generic detail free complaints while those who care can still find useful information.
The marriage of paranoia and truth that other news outlets haven't mastered.
I'd complain, but a 'better' system would never stay in business.
And anyways, most of my jackass troll posts would never be accepted.
Re:Need to Read the Patent (Score:2)
Are you suggesting SlashDot patent "detail-free discussions" (if it hasn't already been done)?
Re:Need to Read the Patent (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's still shameless. I've worked with cookie persistence on F5's BigIP load balancers. It uses a cookie to identify which server out of a server pool a particular client should go to.
This is for load-balanced webservers that keep server-side session data, which is only on one server for any particular client. So the clients are distributed across the pool, but any particular client always goes to the same server in the pool. Simple.
This is what cookies were made for. Cookies were designed to solve problems where you need a particular HTTP client to keep a piece of data the server needs. This is a piece of data the F5 server needs, and so it uses a cookie to store it on the client. It's not any new innovation.
Any good developer would've come up with the same solution. This is just patenting "Using Cookies for Application X." Next we'll see "Using Cookies for Application Y." Humbug.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is not a patent on cookies (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't most patents look obvious after the fact? That seems to be the most difficult part about deciding whether these patents are valid - even for a non-technie, once you read the patent, the idea may seem obvious. This doesn't always make the patent invalid, though, right?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not a patent on cookies (Score:2)
I've heard that often software patents are often worded such that they describe a device which implements an alogorithm rather than describing the algorithm itself. Often patent examiners don't even realize that the application is intended for software and not hardware. I think it has something to do with a bias towards allowing patents on hardware and tangible inventions. Any program can probably be described in terms of mechanical objec
Marvin? (Score:5, Funny)
Cookies? Sheesh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Any web app developer can tell you that there's half a dozen more reliable and secure ways to persist data. Typically allowing a user to resume a session without apt verification is bound to lead to problems: data & identity theft, inappropriate disclosure...
Re:Cookies? Sheesh... (Score:2)
Re:Cookies? Sheesh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Any web app developer can tell you that there's half a dozen more reliable and secure ways to persist data.
Care to list them? Aside from making every simgle page a form, or re-writing pages to append an ID to every single URL link? Cookies are still the most convenient way to maintain a session with lower server-side overhead. Using session cookies is certainly no less secure than the above methods (possibly more so, if the browser history allows another user to continue the session due to bad coding on the server).
Re:Cookies? Sheesh... (Score:2)
2. Session based on URL- or POST-embedded token.
3. Session based on a session cookie *not* generated by the load balancer, but instead by the app(s) running behind it.
[Pound [apsis.ch], a very simple, elegant open-source load balancer, can handle these top three.]
4. Session based on Authorization/Authentication information send with each browser request.
5. Session based on browser-stored certificate. (This is sorta cheating; very similar to item 4.)
Well, damn. I can
Re:Cookies? Sheesh... (Score:2)
What if you disconnect and reconnect with a totally different IP address? (especially likely if you're a mobile user...you could be connecting to a completely different network).
What if it's a public computer? Your cookies might be stored separately from someone else's (presumably you have different logins) but then you connect from the same IP address..
2. Session based on URL- or POST-embedded token.
Cool, so if I want to get to your information, al
Which ones? (Score:2)
When it comes to keeping the session connection between a web app and a browser, I can't come up with any that is better. ID in url? Hidden form fields? Or god forbid, trying to keep track of a visitor via IP?
If you don't want people to have "remember me"-cookies or forget to close their browser, just time out the damn session then.
Re:Cookies? Sheesh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but you can't beat a cookie. All major dynamic web page schemes have easy cookie handling. ASP, PHP, Perl, etc. Most have built-in session capabilities. ASP and PHP have options for both cookie and url based sessions, and ASP will even do the autodetection for you. But URL rewriting will break when you have complex JavaScript generating URLs on the fly, or Shockwave menus, or Java applets. As long as it's the browser sending the request, the cookie is guaranteed to be sent.
You say major browsers have broken cookie support. Well, please, do tell us more, we're all waiting with baited breath. Just one example please. Personally I've never had a problem with cookies in all my years of web development. You set a cookie, you get it back on the next request. The reason people don't trust cookies, and turn them off completely, is because of a) very early security issues, and b) idiots like you spouting off bullshit.
If you're worried about cookies being hijacked, you have some very simple things you can do server side:
- Tie session to IP. If you receive a session id that does not match the IP that set it up initially, either redirect to a login page, or ignore the request.
- Time outs. If you get a session id, and last time you saw it was 30 minutes or whatever ago, time out the session and redirect to a login page.
These are just the extremely obvious ones, and I regularly use both in my web apps. There must be other methods, some more some less secure, out there.
Re:Cookies? Sheesh... (Score:2)
Oh yeah, and as for basing any sort of security around IP-address,
And in further news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And in further news... (Score:2)
This isn't madness (Score:3, Informative)
I highly recommend The Lever of Riches [amazon.com] to anyone who wants an accessible but rich economic analysis of innovation. The book attempts to answer the question of why different countries and civilizations have had varying levels of technological success. Patents are discussed, and in particular how different kinds of patent law influece the kind of innovation that is produced.
Re:This isn't madness (Score:4, Interesting)
You're kidding, right?
I got news for you. People innovate, engineer, program, research, etc., in large part because they have an itch to do so. Money is important as a motivater since it can allow people to feed themselves as they continue on with work, and it can allow people to buy better tools, work harder, or encourage people to keep plugging along during the drudge work that is inevitably involved in such enterprises. However, money is only a partial motivator.
Re:This isn't madness (Score:4, Interesting)
No, patents are a restriction on the freedom of markets - others are prevented from creating something which they could have done if the patent didn't exist. Patents are artificial monopolies. The idea behind patents was that the benefits to society by providing the incentive to create would outweigh the disadvantages of the freedom that they take away. Unfortunately, the way patents are now given out willy-nilly makes us better off without them.
Patents are not necessary for being profitable in software. Most software until about 5-6 years ago was created without the creators bothering to seek a patent. For protecting software, copyright is available. But there just isn't any software that would have not been created by the original creator or someone else if software patents didn't exist.
Not all fields benefit from patents (Score:5, Informative)
Some people forget that computing is one industry that did not always have to deal with patents as it does now. Computing was moving along perfectly well without them, so patents don't come off as necessary to spur innovation, but weapons to needlessly hobble competitors. Patents are being awarded for ridiculous and obvious ideas that stifle the development of software and hardware for all but the richest participants. The consumer does not benefit from this reduction in competition. Furthermore, your point suggests you think that if one industry has patents they all should have them. I suggest you examine the details on how patenting works in each field and you throw out such broad sweeping conclusions.
For a far more prescient, detailed, and learned view of patents specifically talking about patenting algorithms used in the production of computer software (sometimes inaccurately called "software patents"), listen to [gnu.org] or read [cam.ac.uk] RMS' talk on patents.
Re:Not all fields benefit from patents (Score:2)
I think Stallman wants the speech (and the recording of the speech) to be widely available and he doesn't want anyone to distort his view by editing what he said. I also think he wants his speech to be distributed even by people who license their derivative works differently than he licensed his speech. Leveraging his power under copyright law is the way to accomplish this.
Incentive does not a free market make (Score:2)
Patents are a critical part of the foundation of successful free markets. Why would anyone want to innovate if not to profit from his innovations?
So that they could pretend to innovate and squeze money out of other industries that have or would have come up with the same innovations anyhow. Free markets exist and prosper inspite of patents, not because of them. Patents monopolies are worthless, it is only now that it is becomming seriously notable.
Try - "necisity is the mother of invention" - for a r
Madness I say, madness (Score:2)
While I've generally agreed with your posts, I have to call you on this one. Patents do not assure that you will profit from your inovations. At best, they let you stop others from profiting from your inovations (or even, in many cases, from improving on them). Nowadays, the main thrust seems to have shifted to stopping other people from profiting from their
Why is it a surprise that Forbes ran this story? (Score:2, Insightful)
Forbes, that bastion of neoconservative thought, has rarely met a government granted monopoly they approved of (see telco deregulation, airline dereg, among others).
Judgement (Score:2)
Legal Protection of Digital Information [digital-law-online.com]
There will be a test on Monday.
This is like the Domain Name Land Grab (Score:5, Interesting)
By having a patent though... well, it can be bad news all around. I wonder, why didn't W3 try and pick up all these patents? Or are they out of their element here?
Re:This is like the Domain Name Land Grab (Score:2)
In an ideal world they would. In reality patents cost money. There are a few patents these days that truely deserve being issued, but that there are so many that shouldn't that it paints a bad picture of the whole system. These stupid patents are usually bought by companies and used on their competitors in the same way as the mafia threatens your life with a mob.
I am pesimistic that the government has any incentive to clean up the patent system (se
patent madness (Score:2, Interesting)
what about games? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what about games? (Score:2)
Re:what about games? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:what about games? (Score:2)
I would give up every Doom and Quake game ever made for Half-Life, Goldeneye and System Shock.
Needs to be a change! (Score:3, Interesting)
The company I work for was recently sued for patent infringement by some yahoo that claims that he invented hierarchal relationships in DBs. Every programmer there laughed. It was absurd since they were already in use at the time he claims to have invented it. But he WON! And the cost of an appeal could make it not worth while financially (appeals are heard in front of "experts", though).
Crazy. Things like this should never get to court!
OMFG (Score:4, Funny)
goon off it all (Score:5, Funny)
I recall a Goon Show [goons-online.org.uk] where the word 'Help' was copyrighted by Grytpype-Thynne who made a killing by pushing Moriarty (?) into the water and charging him royalties every time he Help!
Nothing changes :-(
Re:goon off it all (Score:2)
Why bureaucracies grow like cancer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that's how every government agency works. The top line, the amount of money coming in, through fees, funding, etc., is the amount controlled by the people in charge. And in bureaucracies, that's everything -- your worth as an administrator, your salary, and your political power, is defined by how big a budget you control, and how many people you have under you. So bureaucrats do whatever they can to increase their budgets.
Better would be (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Better would be (Score:2)
(The patent application number is 20020019834--you forgot a 2 at the beginning)
pretty picture version [uspto.gov]
In particular I like the diagram: START -> VIEWING A FIRST DISPLAY IN A FIRST PLATFORM OF THE MEDIA -> INITIATING A LOAD TRIGGERING EVENT -> OPENING A POST-SESSION PLATFORM IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE MEDIA -> INITIATING A VIEW TRIGGERING EVENT -> VIEWING A POST-SESSION DISPLAY IN THE POST-SESSION PLATFORM
Sheer BS, of course. I like parent's JavaScript better.
Patents not adversarial like other courts... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Patents not adversarial like other courts... (Score:2)
You are right: with the patent system, everybody who patents is a winner, and everybody else is a loser, never mind whether they show up
patents (Score:3, Insightful)
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
'Greed' not the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer is not to castigate individual companies for acting in the interest of their shareholders - even though their actions may be immoral, any one case of patent abuse will be a small part of the whole, and persuading one company to stop its actions for fear of bad PR does very little to stop other companies applying for bogus patents or to stop the patent office granting them. The answer is to fix the system.
true and it's older than Reback knows. (Score:5, Insightful)
For almost two centuries, the USPTO did a reasonable job balancing the need for incentive against the need for competition. But about 20 years ago the floodgates burst open, and the free-enterprise system has been thrashing in a tidal surge of patent claims ever since.
The glass bottle making industry shows that this problem is at least 100 years old. Patents were abused so that there were only two bottle making machine companies in the entire US for decades. They used many of the techniques we see in software today. They used their patent ownership to prevent others from making machines of any kind and tried to fence each other off by applying for patents needed to improve each other's machines. They used the non competitive market to demand that all of the equipment be leased, not owned, by actual bottle makers. "Price cutters" were denied the use of equipment and concesions to make bottles were handed out like gold mines to a selected few. The price of glass bottles remained artificially high until plastic and aluminum manufacture was available as a sustitute. The US government coluded with these companies. While they were tried and convicted of anti-trust violations, no real harm ever came to them and there were no gross problems of "over production", as if that were possible. While it's true that patents on busness methods and drawing squares electronically bring new lows to the method, the ends have been achievable for a century.
This seems simple to me! (Score:4, Interesting)
IIRC, Turing's Machine is describable in [relatively, for a mathematician] simple mathematical formulae. Given that all of today's computing machinery modus operandi, and therefore all software algorithms, can be described in terms of a turing machine, which in turn can be described in formulaic terms, it follows that all software is just insanely complex algebra simplified by a well-designed (for the task) notational convention.
Given that mathematical formulae cannot be patented, and that one also cannot patent simplifications by simple notation changes, all that needs to be done is hire a couple of renowned mathematicians, a bunch of lawyers with dark blue suits, and throw them at a judge.
Right? I can't possibly beleive I'm the first one to have tought of that.
-- MG
Re:This seems simple to me! (Score:3, Interesting)
To date, that interpretation is strictly an unchallenged administrative directive, and was neither mandated nor even implied by the cour decision about genetically engineered bacteria.
-- MA
When was it that people... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why patent office clerks (whose job, let's not forget, is to know enough about the technologies involved to make informed decisions) can't make this distinction is beyond me. My guess is it's not just a matter of throwing money at the problem. Remember, patents are a profitable business for the government, and somebody gets to spend that money.
Another reason why patent madness makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Applying for the patent can be a cost effective defensive move. Then you don't have to go to court and defend your position... you can choose not to enforce the patent and it cost you only the cost of the patent.
bring back patent models (Score:5, Funny)
IF these hucksters had to actually show the PTO examiner the implementation of their claims alot of these patents would be either thrown out for obviousness or prior art , or forced to drastically restrict their claims.
examiner : this looks like a hyperlink ?!?
huckster : no it's a user joy eliciting interaction actuator.
examiner : wha ?
huckster : our claim is on all interactions that make people happy , or result in greater happiness.
examiner : so if I click this link and it leads to a picture of a cute baby and that makes my smile , you want to own that interaction ?
huckster : right , that baby would be infinging on our patent.
examiner : ok then here's your patent for hyperlinking to pictures of smiling babies that make me happy. Good Day
Always look on the bright side .... (Score:2, Insightful)
If the mainstream media is starting to get clued in, that's a pretty good sign.
Software patent question (Score:2)
Will someone please clarify exactly what a patent covers? I thought a patent covered a particular implementation of something.
For example, can I not create my own online ordering system that allows a purchase with only one click? So long as I don't have the same object model or database schema as Amazon, I thought I was fine.
I also thought it was fine for me to create a system that charges toy race cars using magnetic inductance. Just because the Candela Rechargable Lamps [thinkgeek.com] use a "patented" magnetic ind
Tell Tony Orlando! (Score:2)
What now with the war going on, I'll bet Tony Orlando [tonyorlandoonline.com] wishes he had patented yellow ribbons [news14.com].
My Hope (Score:2, Insightful)
Incidentally, and only slightly off-topic, I hope (Or, at least, my karma hopes), can we have less hyperlinking in stories? It shouldn't take more than one guess to figure out wh
Freed patents page? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hate obvious patents? Out of work? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the short amount of time you spend reading slashdot and shaking your fist at "The Man" you could have reviewed (and rejected) an obvious patent.
Seriously, It is a nice government job, with benefits, and you'd be doing a lot of good.
Re:Hate obvious patents? Out of work? (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone bother to read it? (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't believe we get these submissions DAILY where both the submitter and the editor are too lazy to read the article.
Defense (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, of course. They're not stupid! (Score:2, Funny)
WHY would you want to patent something so hated?? (Score:2)
Why make false reports? RTFP! (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather, it is far more narrowly drawn to a particular use of cookies (acknowledged as prior art) for a particular load-balancing scheme in a particular manner.
Excellent proofreading. (Score:2)
From the article:
This computer animation, shown during the introduction of a conference on software patents yesterday, illustrates a nightmare haunting many software developers in Europe. They fear that what is described as "patent madness" by European and US patent offices will turn software development into Russian roulette. The bullets: trivial patents on obvious techniques; the revolver: lawyers of US software giants.
On the presenta
Re:Why stop at patenting cookies? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why stop at patenting cookies? (Score:2)
Of course, this is only for for domestic spammers, and we all know how many of those there are. I know there is something about patents which makes them vaugely international, but I'm not sure how that works.
Re:Why stop at patenting cookies? (Score:2, Informative)
Myself, I have to wonder what is the nature of the relationship between the US and WIPO?
Anyway, HTH with your "international patent" question.
Re:Why stop at patenting cookies? (Score:2)
What I meant to say was this:
"That idea [about patenting spam] came across better when I had thought about a second time. The first time around, it seemed to be a stupid troll. The second time, it didn't seem so bad."
Re:Why stop at patenting cookies? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why stop at patenting cookies? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hey (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:hey (Score:2)
Admittedly, what fooled me was the glossy happy-speak so characteristic of Miguel, so nice job.
GIF? (Score:2, Informative)
if someone puts a patent in my face I just laugh and code around it
Then do you think you can implement an LZW encoder by the end of May (i.e. before the U.S. patent runs out on June 21), without infringing U.S. Patent 4,558,302 [uspto.gov]? What about an MP3 encoder that doesn't infringe any of these [mp3licensing.com]?
Re:Double Paragraphs in article (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mozilla Problem? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Mozilla Problem? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Standard (Score:2)