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Microsoft Your Rights Online

Microsoft Patents Interactive Entertainment 466

Posted by timothy from the getcher-patents-get-'em-while-they're-hot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Embedded-Watch is carrying a story regarding the award of patent number 6,571,390 to Microsoft. The patent would seem to cover pretty much any implementation of a video-on-demand system that you (or at least I) can think of. Read for yourself to decide whether this patent either is not original work or is blatantly obvious to the most casual observer. The patent could certainly be invalidated by the courts on either point, but that'd take a fight in court that won't be cheap."
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Microsoft Patents Interactive Entertainment More

Microsoft Patents Interactive Entertainment

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  • big surprise... (Score:5, Funny)

    by double_plus_ungod ( 678733 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:42PM (#6117860) Journal
    ... from the people who wanted exclusive rights for the common word "windows"

    • Re:big surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jrl87 ( 669651 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:47PM (#6117927)
      ... or anything that sounds like windows *cough* Lindows *cough*

      • Re:big surprise... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by larien ( 5608 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:03PM (#6118144) Homepage Journal
        First of all, the history is that they made several attempts to trademark the word "Windows" but were rebuffed repeatedly until their bribes, sorry, campaign contributions finally paid off.

        Given that trademark, they have to protect it; similar sounding names trying to cash in on that name have to be pursued, just as Pepsi would undoubtably chase a company makeing "Bepsi cola" or whatever.

        The Lindows defence is trying to use the leverage that "Windows" should never have been trademarked, which I don't believe it should have, since WIMP was a term dating back to, IIRC, the late 80's (or possibly earlier) and the trademark wasn't approved until the 90's.

        • WIMP (Score:3, Informative)

          by larien ( 5608 )
          Oops, replying to my own post: For those that don't know, WIMP="Windows Icon Mouse Pointer", an acronym for windowing environments such as Macs and AmigaOS etc of the time.

        • Re:big surprise... (Score:3, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          ...just as Pepsi would undoubtably chase a company makeing "Bepsi cola" or whatever.

          I wonder if a Cola-flavored brown liquid named "Poopsie" would sell...

  • It's been done before... (Score:4, Informative)

    by _Sharp'r_ ( 649297 ) <sharper AT booksunderreview DOT com> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:44PM (#6117891) Homepage Journal
    Two words:

    "Prior Art".

    I had "Video on Demand" working on my C64 sometime circa 1983 in conjunction with a couple of VCRs.
    • Two more words:

      "Fat Chance"

    • WRONG (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:53PM (#6118028)
      the patentable feature in this patent is not VOD. check out class 725/87 for a number of VOD systems.

      Read claim 1, the patentable feature is dealing with scroll rates and adding/removingfor a number of listings in a VOD environment. This is not a patent for VOD itself there are several hundred existing patents for that.

      VOD by the way is streaming to a user on demmand imediatly after a program is selected, this is not a patent for just that function rather it builds on it to deal with entries/scrolling.

      • Re:WRONG (Score:3, Informative)

        by GeoGreg ( 631708 )
        Agreed. I am not a lawyer (patent or otherwise), but it seems to be a patent for allowing one to "fast forward" through customized lists of VOD programs. I'm not sure if it's really worth a patent, but I doubt it's a particular MS ploy to get huge licensing revenues, put anyone out of business, etc. Just another marginal patent of the sort that many businesses get.

      • Re:WRONG (Score:5, Funny)

        by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:34PM (#6118443)
        Read claim 1, the patentable feature is dealing with scroll rates and adding/removingfor a number of listings in a VOD environment. This is not a patent for VOD itself there are several hundred existing patents for that.

        I'm guessing you're new around here. Slashbots don't bother to read articles; they just see the words "Microsoft" and "patent" on the same page and start frothing at the keyboard.

        I've said it a hundred times on here, you can't patent an idea, only the specific implementation of an idea. Patents are all about what seem like minor details, but are actually things that are important, and they've all got very vague, general names. S'why you have to read 'em before commenting.

        • I agree, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by siskbc ( 598067 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:04PM (#6118742) Homepage
          I'm guessing you're new around here. Slashbots don't bother to read articles; they just see the words "Microsoft" and "patent" on the same page and start frothing at the keyboard.

          I'm sorry, this discussion board is specifically for people who have never read a patent filing. ;)

          I've said it a hundred times on here, you can't patent an idea, only the specific implementation of an idea.

          You're right, in that that's the general idea of the patent system - but specific incidents have proven this to be no longer necessarily the case. The most oft-cited and egregious example is the one-click patent. If ever there was a patent on an idea, it's that one. If I were Ford, I'd go patent an engine with more than 40 MPG, because it's the same thing: efficiency of use. And that isn't an implementation.

    • Re:It's been done before... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara@hudson.barbara-hudson@com> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:54PM (#6118049) Journal
      The patent says that it was filed Oct 6th, 1998. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the "prior art" includes Microsofts' own first attempt at video-on-demand several years prior.

      Do a search on google for "microsoft tiger video on demand server" and you'll see they had this out in 1995, years before they filed the patent. Sorry, it's in the public domain, microsnot.

      • Do a search on google for "microsoft tiger video on demand server" and you'll see they had this out in 1995, years before they filed the patent. Sorry, it's in the public domain, microsnot.

        And Microsoft's VOD experiments postdated the fully operational SGI Time-Warner Orlando VOD system, as well as losing in a VOD "bake-off" to an SGI VOD-over-fiber system in an NTT trial near Tokyo Disneyworld.

      • Re:It's been done before... (Score:5, Informative)

        by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:09PM (#6118213)
        Do a search on google for "microsoft tiger video on demand server" and you'll see they had this out in 1995, years before they filed the patent.

        Actually, the patent in question is a continuation of patent 5,861,906 [uspto.gov], which was filed May 5, 1995.

    • "Microsoft's patent lays claim to a browsable movie program guide."

      Hotel chains have doing this with in-room movies for years. I can't say for certain how long, but well before Microsoft's 1998 filing of the patent application. I feel almost certain that I was probably browsing a porn movie program guide while travelling a lot and living out of hotel rooms in 1997.

    • Re:It's been done before... (Score:5, Informative)

      by BillyJoJimBob ( 626104 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:06PM (#6118182)
      If you bother to actually read the patent, I have not come across any examples of prior art. Not that prior art may not exist, but I've never seen or heard of it.

      The patent is for the storage of your preferences and selections from a database of available digital and/or broadband content, which you may or may not decide to order at some point. If/when you do order the content is delivered on-demand. The point being that subsequent "visits" do not require you to start from scratch indicating what types of content you want to browse/select from, and previously marked items of interest are immediately available to order without the user having to "search" for them again.

      • It doesn't matter, because Slashdot wanted an attention-grabbing headline with an attention-grabbing summary that paints Microsoft as evil in some way. So it gets posted with no forethought, so as to generate page hits and draw out the pseudo-intellectuals who will espouse patent laws they know nothing about and the anti-Microsoft Slashbots to come out of the woodwork for the day.

        We get a Microsoft article at least once a day now, often more. Remember when it was more like once a week and even less?

  • What this patent is. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hackwrench ( 573697 ) <hackwrench@hotmail.com> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:45PM (#6117896) Homepage Journal
    So they patented a directory of videos in thumbnail view?

  • Its more than one would think (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Badgerman ( 19207 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:46PM (#6117904)
    This isn't just going to affect the big boys. There are companies that make various kinds of useful video-delivery, conferencing, and broadcast software that do the exact same things. Not a big market, but a market nonetheless.

    This patent covers what they're doing too. I've seen at least two hardware/software suites designed to create similar functionality on a smaller scale.

    If Microsoft gets aggressive, I wonder who they'll go after first . .

    As to the patent, I'd say I'm surprised . . . but I'm not surprised.

  • ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)

    by d_strand ( 674412 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:46PM (#6117906)
    i'm pretty sure both RealPlayer and Apples QT in online mode would fit the description of the 'available programs list'..

    And they where both doing it looong befor MS started trying.. the software patents are becoming more and more ridiculous.. cant somebody with som time and money to spend just sue MS for 'deliberately sabotaging market' or something ?

  • Quick! (Score:5, Funny)

    by appleLaserWriter ( 91994 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:47PM (#6117918)
    Someone patent the Blue Screen of Death. Then you can cross license with Microsoft!

  • Adult Content Industry? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bame Flait ( 672982 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:47PM (#6117919)
    The adult entertainment industry has been doing this for years. Surely all manner of pr0n video-on-demand services must fall under this (rather large) umbrella. It seems to me that pr0n led the way in this department, and that Larry Flynt should make Bill Gates star in one of his films if he wants to keep this patent.

    On a related note, I wonder what Bill's name would be if he appeared in one of Flynt's works?

  • Hmm.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 )

    Who will patent "Superfluous Patents" first and start hurling lawsuits; SCO or MS?
  • I was wondering why MS continued to stake their XBox claims on XBox live, while PS/2 and Gamecube were offering freestanding systems.

    Legally, this will allow MS to shut down EA from providing a portal to all their sports games on PS/2, and Sony and Nintendo will not be allowed to provide a one-stop front end for their modem services either.

    Tivo may already have prior art here (Starz on demand) as well as Compuserves networked games and AOL. (Depends on what a "set top box" is).

  • I fully expect that MS will be sued (Score:5, Funny)

    by rock_climbing_guy ( 630276 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:48PM (#6117947) Journal
    I fully expect that MS will be sued for infringing on Amazon's patent on patenting obvious things with tons of prior art.
  • I remember my old ATI-TV card that displayed 30 channels at once, I wonder if that counts, I mean i don't think it is non-obvious to anyone skilled in the art. I mean didn't people have lists of MPEG's before 1998?

  • Damn, VOD users will have to pay higher fees! (Score:5, Funny)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:49PM (#6117953) Journal
    ... both of them.

    • Err... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Yebyen ( 59663 )
      I don't know what kind of hick area you're living in *chuckles*, but out here in the middle of nowhere, Time Warner cable has had VOD for a while now. I've got HBO On Demand, pay something like $7/mo as a flat rate, and I get all of the stuff they've got on there.

      Yeah, if you're wondering where the middle of nowhere is... Warsaw, NY, pop ~4000. It's between Buffalo and Rochester, it's about an hour from any city with >20000 people. The middle of nowhere.

      • Re:Err... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
        Yeah, you're in what's known as a test market. It's small and insignificant so they can use you to test their betas. Just one way the cable industry is different from microsoft...
  • Why is this kind of thing still actively going on? The EFF should be patenting every kind of DRM and such similiar thing that they can think of. Beyond that, we should also be doing what we can. We need to deny these patents for these really bad business practices and DRM's to the companies that will abuse them.


    Simple really, think of a way that MS or another company can screw you. Than all you need to do is get this patented. Once patented the EFF should have a fund to reimburse people for the cost of the patent. At which point the patent should be placed into an EFF trust dedicated to making sure that particular bad idea can't be used. Come on people, let's use their system against them instead of getting it used against us again. For not that much money we could head off a lot of DRM and other such madness before it does it's damage.

  • AOL will.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Flamesplash ( 469287 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:49PM (#6117962) Homepage Journal
    The patent could certainly be invalidated by the courts on either point, but that'd take a fight in court that won't be cheap.

    I'm sure AOL will happily buy Tivo and sue MS for any sort of award a la the Netscape vs. IE award.
  • Microsoft Patents Entertainment

  • any lawyers here? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by theoramus ( 592848 )
    If MS were to use this patent against other companies, how easy would it be for the companies to overturn/invalidate the patent? Would it take lots of money for a big legal team or could you just have one good(but not exceptional) lawyer? And if it takes a big legal team, then why on earth does it take a bunch of lawyers and a bunch of money to uphold the law? Something is wrong with this country if you need to spend money to uphold the law.

    • Re:any lawyers here? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:37PM (#6118476) Journal
      "Would it take lots of money for a big legal team or could you just have one good(but not exceptional) lawyer?"

      That is precisely the problem with the US legal system. It is a distinction which the Dutch language captures rather effectively with "gelijk hebben" and "gelijk krijgen". The first means to be right. The second means others acknowledging that you are right, deservedly or not. (lit. "to obtain/be given right") "Gelijk krijgen" in a US court is the hard part...

      You can have the full strength of the law on your side, but without legal clout and stamina (i.e. a well-filled war chest) you will end up face down in the dirt against a powerful opponent. If some company takes on Microsoft, MS will simply draw the battle out with every legal trick in the books that their team of lawyers can dig up, until the plaintiff runs out of money. Then they'll make you settle or they just buy your company outright to make the lawsuit go away. A settlement is a double win for Microsoft: one less opponent in this matter, and their patent stands as strongly as it did before.
  • When did Microsoft hire Jeff Bezos?

  • This is a fraud (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is definitely a fraud. I doubt the patent is even from Microsoft. You can see an obvious error, if you refer to figure 4. See the button labeled '78' 'Choices?' See the problem? We all know no Microsoft interface would ever feature a button labeled 'choices.'

    I would believe it's a Microsoft interface if figure 4 consisted of the single button labeled '76' that took up the whole screen.

  • File for an invalid patent and pay? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kefoo ( 254567 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:52PM (#6117999)
    Cases like this make me wish people who file for obviously invalid patents were held responsible for the costs of litigation to throw their patent out (watch out for the borderline cases that honestly believed their application was valid, though). Of course, we wouldn't have this problem if the patent office didn't grant them in the first place.

  • From the article... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ebh ( 116526 ) * <ed&horch,org> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:52PM (#6118010) Journal
    A casual observer might question whether Microsoft's patent is anything original, especially since most cable systems offer movies on demand along with viewer program guides. However, the patent inspectors employed by the U.S. government apparently felt Microsoft's work was original.

    Then the inspectors were given bananas and spent the rest of the night swinging in trees by their prehensile tails.

  • Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:52PM (#6118011)
    If this patent really does cover any and all media on demand stuff, it'll get shot down quick. Not because our legal system is somehow honest, but because there are powerful interests that won't want to pay Microsoft licensing fees. i.e. the momment MS tries to demand cash from AOL/Time Warner this'll be slapped down.

    • Re:Not a problem (Score:3, Informative)

      by gwernol ( 167574 )
      If this patent really does cover any and all media on demand stuff, it'll get shot down quick.

      It doesn't. It doesn't even come close to trying to cover those things. It covers a very particular kind of media listing that is scrollable and where the scroll rate is user defined in a preference and where that media view is part of the UI of a VOD system.

    • Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by lspd ( 566786 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:10PM (#6118224) Journal
      I was under the impression that the BIG companies just cross-license all the stupid patents like this. That way it provides a nice barrier to entry for upcoming companies. A new company will have to develop a product, find a market, and fight it's way through 300 obvious, stupid patents...or they can just sell out to the big boys.

      Amazon's One-Click patent was never invalidated. Faced with a certain defeat in court, Amazon licensed the patent to Barnes and Noble, and as a result if YOU want to compete with Amazon YOU will have to shell out for a legal team to prove the patent is bullshit.
  • Step 1: Lock the Cable Companies out of providing content on demand, or at least raise more barriers to entry so that they don't crash the party later.

    Step 2: Push the Windows Media edition and provide tv schedule info free over the internet

    Step 3: Drive Tivo out of business

    Step 4: Profit!
  • but, I thought that patent office had to actually validate the possibility of a patent before accepting it.

    I may just be naive, and they accept every patent application until proven wrong, but I honestly beileved this was the case.

  • WTH? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by OrangeGoo ( 678478 )
    Did the US Patent Office hire Rip van Winkle, or what? Hell, I live in Mississippi and the cable companies here even have video-on-demand, so I know the whole rest of the country has it. The guy that investigated this patent request must not have a television. Or indeed electricity. Or eyes or ears, for that matter. I'd say it's even debatable whether he had half a brain.

    It's pretty well established that you can't patent something that you didn't invent, and you certainly can't patent something that

  • And in related news . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by CaptainStormfield ( 444795 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @02:55PM (#6118051)
    The popular geek-news site Slashdot has applied for a patent on alarmist patent stories. One anonymous editor was quoted as saying: "What can we say -- overstating the scope of a patent makes for good news -- it keeps the nerds coming back!"
  • From the article

    "Upon expiration of the rental period, however, the program is no longer readily accessible until ordered again."

    This is pay-per-view for Windows Media Player and cie. This is "blatantly obvious" because it talks about customizable SCROLL BARS. Quit bashing the patent case, it's not for what you think. It doesn't englobe EVERYTHING. You'll still be able to enjoy pay per view porn. As long as it doesn't have any scroll bars and any order, LOL have you read that?

  • Dish On Demand (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Phreakiture ( 547094 )

    I wonder if there is partial prior art in my satellite provider's pay-per-view system? You select programs from a scrollable list. Speed of scrolling is variable based on how fast you hit the buttons on the remote (and how fresh the remote batteries are). Previews are peppered all over every channel during commercial breaks. You never wait more than 30 minutes for the start of a show. A feature called "themes" groups content.

    It might not wash, but it might be worth a shot.

  • Back in the mid 90's, I wrote a number of programs using IBM's OS/2, ActionMedia2 cards and a langauge called AudioVisualConnection, or AVC. With it, I wrote Touch Ottawa/Hull, an interactive tourist infromation application running on Kiosks around Ottawa..in Hotels, Bus station, etc. All the data - graphics, audio and video was served off a central server (running BSDI) and cached on the kiosks. I also wrote a stand-alone system for use at Trade shows...it was called The Interactive Business Show, and was
  • I *KNOW* TimeWarner has prior art on this. As in, WAY before October 1998. My dad, a Veep of Engineering at ATC cum TWC cum AOL, was demo'd VOD systems when I was in high school (1996). I know, because he was telling me how cool things were going to be, how DVD was going to revolutionize media, how digital cable was coming and addressable boxes were night, etc.

    I seem to recall an online "public domain" film site in 1997 as well.

    How MS got the patent worries me. They had NOTHING to do with the world of

  • Did anybody RTFA?! (Score:5, Informative)

    by shroudedmoon ( 533918 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:04PM (#6118162)
    The patent isn't for Video on demand, in fact they stipulate the fact that vide on demand is common. The patent is for their system of categorizing and selecting items. I know it's fun to bash MS off the cuff, but cmon...

    • There is even plenty of prior art even for a limited interpretation of the two main patent claims. We KIT [kitv.co.uk] have been doing this for about 5 years and we where not the first.

      In one application we have aggregated news clips, they are displayed down the screen in a list and are played from the top at normal speed. When pressing fast-forward >| jumps to the start of the next clip, each pressing of >> accelerates the stream by a factor of two (2x/4x/8x/16x/32x) for each press. Another version allowe

  • yah sure (Score:2, Funny)

    by drfrog ( 145882 )
    i mean
    come on
    intereactive entertainment is older than spin the bottle

  • This is a Very limited patent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by asmithmd1 ( 239950 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:05PM (#6118175) Homepage Journal
    To see what is patented you have to look at the claims. The fewer clauses in a claim the more broad the patent. If you come up with a competing invention that does not have any one of the clauses, your invention does not infringe. It seems the key thing they patenting is this clause

    the user interface enabling a viewer to adjust the selected rate according to personal preference; and
    So you can have everything listed in their claim and as long as the user can't adjust the rate of scrolling, you don't infringe. That seems like a pretty limited (ang obvious) patent

  • Has anyone read the patent yet? (Score:5, Informative)

    by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:06PM (#6118184)
    People here are apopleptic because Microsoft patented video on demand. But look at the claims. They are patenting a program guide with an adjustable scroll rate. That's it. The parent patent [uspto.gov] is a lot more broad, but has been out there since 1999. Has MS tried to assert it?

    Here are the claims to the patent:

    1. A user interface unit for use in an individual home, the user interface unit being connected to an interactive entertainment network system having a content provider, the content provider providing video content programs to the user interface unit, the user interface unit comprising:

    a processor;

    a user interface which executes on the processor to display at least one list of entries pertaining to the video content programs;

    the processor causing the list to visually scroll at a selected rate while being displayed whereby one entry is removed as another entry is added;

    the user interface enabling a viewer to adjust the selected rate according to personal preference; and

    the processor being programmable, in response to the viewer's inputs to adjust the selected rate at which the list is scrolled.

    2. A method for operating a user interface used in interactive entertainment network system, the interactive entertainment network system having a content provider which is connected to provide video content programs to a plurality of user interface units in individual homes, the user interface being executed on a processor provided at each user interface unit, the method comprising the following steps:

    generating a list of entries pertaining to the video content programs;

    displaying a number of entries on the list;

    scrolling through the list by continually updating the displayed entries, whereby one entry on the list is removed as another entry on the list is added; and

    enabling a viewer to adjust a rate at which entries are removed and added to thereby modify a rate at which the list visually appears to be scrolling.

    3. In an interactive entertainment network system having a content provider that is connected to provide video content programs to a plurality of user interface units in individual homes, a computer-readable medium having computer-readable instructions for performing the steps comprising:

    generating a list of entries pertaining to the video content programs;

    displaying a number of entries on the list;

    scrolling through the list by continually updating the displayed entries, whereby one entry on the list is removed as another entry on the list is added; and

    enabling a viewer to adjust a rate at which entries are removed and added to thereby modify a rate at which the list visually appears to be scrolling.

  • Easy to implement around. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:06PM (#6118193)
    This patent is and interface patent on an interface that allows you to scroll through a list of videos one item at a time. You could make a system that didn't violate it by only displaying one video item at a time in a page style instead of list style, or by displaying a multiple item list but change the entire list on a button press instead of scrolling one at a time, which is arguably more useful anyway. This patent is pretty narrow as to the type of interface it covers. Congratualtions Microsoft, you have exclusive rights to an annoying interface.

    Somebody should patent exactly this, but add a claim for a "page down" feature. Microsoft will be forced to cross license that patent in order to implement this one in a user-pleasing fashion.

  • Prior "Art" (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobdehnhardt ( 18286 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:07PM (#6118198)
    Hell, I was ordering porn^H^H^H^H"art films" in motels back in the 80's....
  • Is it just me, or is the US Patent Office totally worthless? Well, maybe not worthless, but you have to wonder if they even bother to think about the implications that these broadly described processes may affect, or whether you should be able to lay claim to something so general in the first place.

    It seems like there's been a whole slew of stupid patents running across Slashdot's front page the past while, and it just boggles my mind each time I see a new one, how open-ended all of these are.

    Is the purp
  • Both the writer of the article and most of the respondants here seem to be confused about how patents work. If you read the actual patent, the things MicroSoft is attempting to patent are spelled in the "claims" section. They are claiming the actual interface and the interface box as the things they are protecting. They clearly are not attempting to patent all VOD. Hell, they even describe interactive television as the field of their patent. Clearly you can't claim to patent the entire field, the paten

  • Submitted story is incorrect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gwernol ( 167574 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:12PM (#6118242)
    I just read the patent and although I am not a patent lawyer, I have written patent applications and hold two so I know something about reading them.

    This patent does not cover video on demand systems. Read the claims of the patent, which describe the novel features covered. These boil down to:

    A user interface widget that allows you to see a list of available items, where the UI widget is scrollable and the user can control the scroll rate via a preference and the widget shows videos available on a back-end VOD system.

    This is so far from a "patent [that] would seem to cover pretty much any implementation of a video-on-demand system" that its laughable. It covers a very specific feature that is used in a proscribed and specific way. Most VOD system's probably don't have this UI and even if they did it would be easy to work around it.

    The short story: don't over-react, this is not a patent on VODs.
  • The article about this patent is both more and less hysterical than the reality.

    Before you post, make sure to read the actual claims at the USPTO site.

    They haven't patented video on demand at all, in spite of all the description in the patent.

    They've patented scrolling

    What gives them the idea that these claims will hold up for even a minute is anybody's guess.

    But besides that, the claims are quite narrow. An implementation that scrolled smoothly or 2 items at a time would completely avoid this pat

  • Prior Art: Time Warner, 1994, Orlando (Score:5, Informative)

    by hirschma ( 187820 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:24PM (#6118350)
    This is just stupid, and WILL be challenged by the other 500 pound gorilla in this space.

    I'm pretty certain that any NDA i signed expired, and much of this is publically known anyway...

    I worked at Time Inc. New Media in 1995. At the time, Time Warner had a fully functional video on demand system rolled out to a few neighborhoods in Orlando, Fl. It was both a source of pride and joy, but also seen as largely unworkable given the economics of the day.

    It had features that included random access video, over fiber, distributed from a head-end, an electronic program guide, I believe, that showed either image or video previews, a remote control, pausing, ff/rw, the whole shebang.

    The thing was run by an army of centrally located SGI Onyx servers, and the set top box was an SGI workstation, with a lot of stuff stripped out. It even included video games on demand, downloaded to an included Atari Jaguar. It had its own remote control design optimized for VOD. I think that they recycled the design for TW's current on-demand service; I'm guessing that a lot of Orlando tech and know-how is in there, too.

    It should be mentioned that it featured an interface that was totally based on 3D imagery, and would appear advanced today. 8 years ago, it was just science fiction come to life.

    This was not just pie-in-sky - it was completely functional. It just wasn't economically scaleable given the computational and compression limitations of the tme. Which is why I think that they mothballed it - to wait for cheaper servers, cheaper storage, cheaper bandwidth, better compression. And $200 set top boxes to display the video and interface.

    Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Time-Warner, but they did, at least in the 90's, do some innovation.

    Now, INAPE (not a patent examiner), but I'd say that Orlando pretty much invalidates this patent, from the EPG to the actual video-on-demand aspects. More importantly, the prior art has a muscle bound organization behind it to hopefully invalidate this straight away.

    Jonathan

  • OK, this is getting rediculous... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doobian Coedifier ( 316239 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:24PM (#6118356)
    Posters: READ THE GODDAMN ARTICLE! You look like an idiot is you reply based on just the summary. It's pretty ovious a good number of posters haven't read it.

    Editors: Stop posting stories with misleading summaries! It confuses the Slashdot community, who likes to post their knee-jerk reactions.

    I'm gonna lose my karma for this, so be it. Slashdot sucks more and more every day, with duplicates, misleading summaries, and Ask Slashdots that could be solved by Googling, eopinions.com (Color laser printer), or reading your manual ("broken" V-chip is actually CC text mode). Check out "Not Slashdot", kuro5hin.org [kuro5hin.org]

  • restraint of trade/ideas (Score:5, Informative)

    by cdn-programmer ( 468978 ) <terrNO@SPAMterralogic.net> on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:25PM (#6118364)
    The validity of this patent is not really the issue here. Regardless of whether there is prior art the problem is that programmers cannot generally afford to fight invalid patents. M$ accomplishes its objective which is to prevent programmers from doing their jobs.

    This patent is just another example of why WE NEED TO ORGANISE an OPEN SOURCE PATENT ASSOCIATION and each of us needs to throw in $100 bux or $1000 or whatever it takes to finance an organisation that can both patent and fight for us. As a member of an organzation like this we would have the right to use any patents that we hold and we _CAN_ prevent M$ and TI and IBM and everyone else from using these patents. If _our_ organisation simply picks the best ideas we come up with and patents them in very short order we'll have a rather mean shief of patents up our collective sleeves.

  • USP doesn't care about prior art (Score:4, Funny)

    by jabbadabbadoo ( 599681 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:34PM (#6118449)
    The software department of the U.S. patent office is a joke, and I doubt prior art has stopped anyone eager enough from getting a patent.

    After all, someones once patented a XOR cursor routine (patent #4,197,590)

    You may be amused, or horrified, by some of these software patent examples [base.com]. It appears that Europe is not really that much better, something the Patent Horror Gallery [ffii.org] explicates.

    So Be Aware: If my karma drops below good, I may issue a patent for a system that karmafies people and then sue the hell out of OSDN ;-)

  • Link to prior art. (Score:3, Informative)

    by ducktape ( 178839 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:38PM (#6118489) Homepage

    Prior Art [ieee.org]

  • Not much Different from Motel Systems (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lcsjk ( 143581 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:43PM (#6118543)
    This patent includes being able to look at Previews After Selection etc., The motels/hotels have had VOD systems which scrolled lists (but not a "scroll bar" for some 15 years. They also allow previews of selections although you could not select a subset of programs like the patent seems to call for. The patent looks like an attempt to control the on-screen setup for making VOD selections. It seems to me that that should have been "obvious to a person familiar with the industry" especially since scroll bars are already the norm for selecting nearly anything done with computers.
    Didn't Apple have scroll bars before MS reverse engineered the windows interface? Have they waited too long to patent them? Has anyone yet decided to patent those scroll arrows at the end of the scroll bars?
    Perhaps the use of scroll and VOD and a couple of other things make the application unique, but I don't see anything that seems to be "not obvious".
  • Notice stupid patents getting applied for and gotten? The Patent Office is all about $$$; they will grant you a patent for anything, because they no longer have to defend their decisions. The gov loves a profit, especially when it's made of your backs!

    Bitch-slappin', 12 sandwich-eatin', high-priced laywers paid for by larger and larger companies make deals to keep the kids out of the sandbox.

    Why would you change if you were the patent office? You get your money, the companies battle it out, the lawyers are red-eyed with hookers and blow - everybody wins!

    Oh, except for that pesky citezenry.

  • The Real Question (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mobileskimo ( 461008 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:50PM (#6118611) Journal
    There's a reason for patents.

    If this patent was rejected, would it have stopped MS from developing and rolling this out and collecting profits from it? Would it have given competition unfair market share away from MS? Does the award of the patent justify return on investment for developing this new invention?

    Who the FUCK are these people in the patent office? I'm a noob when it comes to law and patents, and I don't know much about VOD, but even I can tell you to chuck this out. Can someone with some clout or maybe who has a friend in the news industry or technews (online or paper) please convince a reporter to go visit the patent office and find out what they are doing? It doesn't appear to be that the people with decision making roles in vital positions, whether they are in the seat of power or not (it may just be a paper-pushin dweeb like me) has any moral, ethical or mental capacity to defer judgement of this sort of thing. Either that or he knows nothing about technology (and he works in the patent office?). I'd like his name, face, address and phone number plastered all over slashdot so we can harass him from time to time. People must be accountable for their actions or we continue this path. It doesn't take alot of imagination or visionary forsight to see where it leads.

    "What are you doing."

    "I'm processing a patent for..."

    "What are you doing."

    "Well I was telli..."

    "What are you doing."

    "Wa... I..."

    "What are you doing."

    "I'm just..."

    Smack!

    "Ow... that hur..."

    Please see previous article: Auction Patent [slashdot.org]

  • Whew! (Score:5, Funny)

    by LittleGuy ( 267282 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:54PM (#6118654)
    Headline: Microsoft Patents Interactive Entertainment

    *me sweats bullets*

    Summary:The patent would seem to cover pretty much any implementation of a video-on-demand system that you (or at least I) can think of.

    * me breathes sigh of relief *

    For a moment, I though M$ finally had the means to patent the sexual act.

  • I don't think so. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Keith Russell ( 4440 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @03:55PM (#6118660) Journal

    Now, correct me if you've delved deeper into the details than I.

    After reading the Claims and Summary of the Invention sections, it appears that the inventions Microsoft is claiming are:

    1. A user-specific, persistent "favorites" list, to be stored at the headend
    2. An auto-scrolling UI for managing that favorites list, provided by the STB.

    That is all.

    It may seem that Microsoft is claiming world+dog in the VOD realm, but that's only because they have to describe the entire system to provide the appropriate context for their claimed inventions. This is the mistake Mr. Wolfe makes in the linked article on Embedded Watch. He seems to think everything in the detailed description is part of the claim.

  • Patent Number 6,570,390? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lostchicken ( 226656 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @04:59PM (#6119209)
    Does it disturb anyone else that we're talking about patent number 6,570,390 when 6,000,000 was awarded for HotSync just a couple of years ago?

    And I though the tech economy had collapsed? Perhaps now that they can't make money on real products, they have to make money on royalties.

  • MS: Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don't... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2003 @07:44PM (#6120145) Journal

    ...patent, that is. If MS didn't patent this, AOL/TW or some other company might have. If MS patents it, everybody accuses them of being part of the patent problem.

    The companies aren't the problem. The system is the problem. The patent system is set up to encourage an escalation of silly patents. Patents are the weapons, the patent office is the arms merchant, and small companies are buffer states between superpowers. Until that changes, MS, SBC, AOL/TW, IBM, and every other corporation on the planet will be filing silly patents to get ahead of their enemies who might file the same silly patent.

    There are plenty of reasons to point fingers at MS, this isn't one of them.

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