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Prior Art to Pinpoint vs. Amazon, from 1980's? 139

Posted by timothy from the first-person-singular dept.
Gary Robinson writes "I'm in a fairly unique position with regard to the Pinpoint vs. Amazon case since I built a system in the mid-1980's which is commonly regarded as the first active service based on collaborative filtering. It was a voice-mail-based dating service called 212-ROMANCE. I still have the 8-inch CP/M source code disks as insurance against CF-related patent lawsuits. Today I've posted a discussion of the Pinpoint vs. Amazon case in the context of that prior art as well other prior art from the 1980's."
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Prior Art to Pinpoint vs. Amazon, from 1980's? More

Prior Art to Pinpoint vs. Amazon, from 1980's?

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  • This is the philisophical argument against "intellectual property". How can one say that nobody has written that exact same song, book, whatever? Have you checked everything that has ever been expressed since the beginning of time? The only logical thing to conclude is that nobody ever creates ideas. Ideas exist outside of time, so there is always "prior art".
    • Basic rule of logic, It is impossible to prove a negative.
      • Well you can prove a negative, like, I did not see a purple monkey fly at me in the last second. But here it is nearly impossible to actually determine everything that is expressed or even thought to determine if you are "original".
        • No, you can't even prove that. The basic supposition of logic is that facts will tend to point to a correct answer. This is why you can't prove a negative, because your non-event has no facts associated with it. Your monkey doesn't exist, therefore there are no facts that lead to the conclusion that he doesn't exist, therefore there is nothing to base a decision on.

          I realize that is a bit theoretical in this absurd case, but, goto Mexico and prove you *didn't* commit a crime you're charged with, and yo

          • How about, an object with mass cannot move at the speed of light. Doing so would take infinite energy.
            • The parent of your post is I think being rediculous, but this is an example of how science never "proves" laws. You cannot scientifically say that an object with mass will never move at the speed of light (expressed in hexadecimal of course), all you can say is that you have never observed it to happen yet.
              • 'Scientifically' say it? There's alot of theoretical proof that this is the case. As well as some observed results of time dilation. Not only has it not been observed, but it would also be impossible to observe. (The act of observing disturbs the observed!) If you accept the premise that light speed travel would require infinite energy, then it's obvious that it is impossible based on the definition of infinite. So, the only way to refute the claim is to prove mass dilation false. Go for it!
              • I have a disk with a program on it. My program can look at any program and the input you want to give it. It will then tell you whether that program will ever terminate, or if it will run forever.

                Turing proved that the above paragraph is a fabrication. Such a disk cannot exist; Google for "halting problem". This is an example of proving non-existence.

      • Re:One should have to prove "no prior art"! (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It is impossible to prove a negative.

        basic logic rule: your statement is self-contridictory and therefore irrelevant. How can you say it's impossible (a negative statement) to prove a negative??? You cannot prove this statement is true now can you since it implies something in the negative...

        please leave the logic to people who understand it (not me)

      • Urban legend (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Theatetus ( 521747 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @05:51PM (#6480744) Journal

        That's hardly a "basic rule of logic"; reductio ad absurdam is one of the most basic kinds of proof.

        Remember geometry in high school? You probably proved that no triangle has interior angles greater than 180 degrees. Proof of a negative. Where did the ridiculous claim "you can't prove a negative" come from, anyways?

        • Re:Urban legend (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Monkelectric ( 546685 )
          actually, Reductio ad Absurdum is a method of indirect proof where one seeks to prove a statement by proving that accepting or rejecting the statement is absurd. Now we both agree that flying monkeys are absurd. But can you prove that there has been no prior art for a patent with the same logic?

          • But can you prove that there has been no prior art for a patent with the same logic?

            Actually, in theory you can prove it. This world is finite, and (to all of our knowledge) mankind only exists for a finite time. So, the universe is closed and you can prove by using "negation as failure".

            Whether this all is possible in reasonable time is a different matter.:-)

            BTW: Here is something that you cannot prove: "Ravens are black", or paraphrased: "There exist no white ravens". Unless you did in fact se

            • I was thinking of (as I mentioned) classical geometry where about 75% of the proofs in, for example, Euclid's Elements are proofs showing that the existence of X implies premises contrary to the axioms (which, like an early EULA, are accepted by reading the book). Therefore, X cannot exist. QED.

        • Remember geometry in high school? You probably proved that no triangle has interior angles greater than 180 degrees.

          Strictly speaking, to prove that you need to assume the truth of the parallel postulate, which is true only for euclidean geometries.

          Proof of a negative. Where did the ridiculous claim "you can't prove a negative" come from, anyways?

          I believe it is a misinterpretation of "naive falsificationism" from Karl Popper's theory of knowledge.
          Basically, his standpoint was that a (scientific) sta
        • I can't prove a negative, but I can prove a positive which eliminates the posibility of a negative.

          Prove a Square doesn't have three sides. I can't prove that per se, but what I can do is prove that a square has ONLY four sides, thus eliminating the posibility of a three sided square.

          In your case, you point to a triangle and the interior angles and such. But there is an absolute answer that a triangle interior angles are always the same (180 degrees). You did not derive proof against the negative, until y

      • This is most certainly not a rule of logic, neither basic nor anything else. I'd recommend you take a good book (e.g. Eliott Mendelson, "An Introduction into Mathematical Logic") and get a clue before doing such statements!

        Sebastian
      • That's odd, as as a physicist I know that we can never 'prove' a theory (can't prove a positive), only disprove it (ie prove the negative).

        Furthermore, in predicate elgebra one can always form a negative from a positive (the 'null hypothesis'), and vice versa, and if one is proved the other is disproved (etc etc), so anytime you prove a positive you are proving a negative (and vice versa).

        Thus to say it is 'impossible to prove a negative' is clearly nonsensical. However, please feel free to give me refere
    • First, IANAL.

      AFAIK: The USPTO uses databases of inventions both patented and non patented to determine "Prior Art". Things are considered prior art only if the USPTO knows about them. However, prior art and business method patents have come under question and the USPTO is seeking comment on the issue.

      Comment info here [uspto.gov] And here [uspto.gov]
      • Randomly generate every sentence that could be a patent summary. If someone happens upon one, then there's prior art!

    • Patents still serve a purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Meat Blaster ( 578650 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:24PM (#6480239)
      Obtaining a patent is already a lengthy and expensive process. Door-to-door inquiries are only going to make it costlier.

      Look, there are still things that are patent worthy. I was just watching on the news where some kid and his dad made a device that would kill mosquito larvae using sound waves through water -- no chemicals. I question the overall usefulness of such a device (getting rid of standing water around your house may be smarter, although I suppose this would be helpful if you had a small pond) but it seemed pretty unique and clever.

      The process of proving prior art should be more streamlined, perhaps, and the level of interest at the patent office of yanking improperly issued patents definitely needs to be increased, but doing away with this system is only going to punish the small inventor as illustrated above.

    • Re:One should have to prove "no prior art"! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:45PM (#6480387)
      One should have to prove "no prior art"!

      The way it works is exactly the opposite of that. Prior art does not invalidate a patent, it just make the patent dependent on having the rights to the prior art as well.

      Unless your patent is exactly what the prior art is (hardly anything is exactly something else (!)) or some subset of it, finding prior art will not prevent the granting of a patent. Also, many patents that are flaged as outrageous by armchair lawyers on slashdot are not as broad of scope as they seem due to the prior art that is listed in the patent.

      The process may be broken, but not as badly as you'd think from all the postings you see around here.
      • The process may be broken, but not as badly as you'd think from all the postings you see around here.

        The process is, however, very badly broken from the perspective of the people actually having to spend enormous amounts of money on filing the patents in order to make their patent portfolio sufficiently thick for trading, or getting sued over bogus patents on decades old technology. And plenty of people on Slashdot have been in either or both situations (myself included). For that, it doesn't take "armch
      • Prior art does not invalidate a patent, it just make the patent dependent on having the rights to the prior art as well.

        The poster must have meant something entirely different: the above statement is simply false. Prior art by definition isn't secret stuff- that comment would imply I could come around later and get a patent on something I published years ago. Prior art is used to prove that an 'invention' has not taken an inventive step, meaning someone skilled in the relevant art could reasonably be ex
        • Can you be close to the prior art but add something that goes the extra mile? If so, patentable. If not, you're in the dustbin.

          I've read this a few times now, and it seems like you're saying the same thing I said.

          Prior art by definition isn't secret stuff- that comment would imply

          I don't understand how I could be implying that prior art is secret when I specifically say it's disclosed right in the application...

          Prior art is used to prove that an 'invention' has not taken an inventive step, meaning s

    • Re:One should have to prove "no prior art"! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by alangmead ( 109702 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @07:34PM (#6481233)

      Patent examimers are supposed to do a check for prior art. Unfortunately, their usual body of work to check from is other patents. From their point of view, useful items are patented, so examining other patent filings is the best place to find already existing inventions.

      The problem is, there patent office refused patents on software until forced to by the Supreme Court in the 1981 case Diamond v. Diehr [bitlaw.com] The software industry developed without any consideration to patents, and now the patent office is missing decades of the basic building blocks needed for determing the novel from the mundane.

    • How can one say that nobody has written that exact same song, book, whatever? Have you checked everything that has ever been expressed since the beginning of time? The only logical thing to conclude is that nobody ever creates ideas. Ideas exist outside of time, so there is always "prior art".
      That's probably one of the worst abuses of "philosophy" I've heard in a while. Your conclusion that ideas exist outside of time isn't justified by your hand wavey "proof." Besides, even if they did exist outside

  • 8" floppy media? (Score:5, Funny)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:10PM (#6480139)
    I hope that you made some backups. That form of media doesn't exactly have an infinite shelf life.

    • Re:8" floppy media? (Score:5, Informative)

      by cyb97 ( 520582 ) <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:19PM (#6480198) Homepage Journal
      I guess submitting it to USPTO would count as a pretty good backup...
      Patent # 5,884,282 [uspto.gov]
      Patent # 5,790,426 [uspto.gov]
      Both held by Gary B. Robinson aka. the poster of this story ;-)
      • Well, then, if his work in the 1980s counts as published prior art for the Pinpoint patent, then they also invalidate his own patents from 1998 and 1999.

        In any case, collaborative filtering goes back a long way; I doubt any of these patents are valid, and it doesn't take Robinson's work to invalidate them.
        • If you create something at one time, and choose to patent it later in life when you realise its usefulness, it does not remove the fact it was invented in the 1st place.
          • If you don't publish your invention in some form, it doesn't count as prior art for the purposes of the patent system; if it did, it would undermine the whole purpose of the patent system, which is to get people to document and publish their inventions.
      • Just reading the abstract of Patent # 5,884,282 [uspto.gov] shows how fucked up the US patent system is. And US is pressurizing EU to introduce similar patent practices. Yuck!
        • The abstract isn't meaningful legally. If you look at what is actually claimed and read the specification to see what it really means, you'll see that it does not have the admittedly crappy overly broad meaning that you took from the abstract. But the abstract just doesn't matter. This is an extremely narrow, mathematically-oriented patent.
        • I feel moved to say more on those patents. I really thought they might have value if anybody wanted to take advantage of my long and hard work in developing certain arcane mathematical techniques. But I made NO effort to make them readable, presentable, etc. I had NO time to give it. My lawyer put some meaningless gobbledegook in the abstract and in the intro, etc., and I just didn't care what it said because it had no legal bearing I had other things to do. It was just nonsense as far as I was concerned.
      • Er, you did notice that from the moment this story was originally posted, it contained: " Full disclosure: I have a couple of patents of my own in the CF space. However, these patents are for highly specific mathematical techniques and are of no interest to anyone using different mathematical techniques, of which many are freely available." Right? And they aren't "backup" to the 8-inch media since they were filed in 1997 -- too late to do anything with respect to the 1994 root of the Pinpoint stream of co

    • Re:8" floppy media? (Score:5, Funny)

      by tds67 ( 670584 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:44PM (#6480376)
      Any man with an 8" floppy should consider himself very lucky.

    • Re:8" floppy media? (Score:3, Informative)

      by garyrob ( 606786 )
      Yeah, actually I copied it to 3.5-inch mac floppies at some point as well as to DAT. And I probably have it somewhere on my hard disk on the laptop I'm typing this from as well.
    • Yup...a backup copy on another 8" floppy. It's over there on the file cabinet, being held up by that magnet :)

      I have a box of 5.25" disks I need to get some stuff off of. If I don't get a drive in my machine and do it soon, I may be out of luck.
    • The sad thing is, those 8" Floppies are probably still more reliable than a brand new 3.5" I bought from the store yesterday. They just don't build them like they used to.
      • Ain't that the truth.

        I dropped a few (3.5) two feet onto carpeted floor, the result being they were unusable, could not even be formatted.
        But, after I beat on one for a while, they tend to last. Basically, I'm seeing over a 20% failure rate with various brands. These are cheap, lightweight, and I'm happy if over %50 work these days.

        • What's worse is they changed the box. They used to be designed to be used to store the disks. Now they have tear off tops and you have to buy some big plastic thang to have a decent place to keep them.

  • Floppy disks (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Krelnik ( 69751 )
    I hope you copied the source code off those 8" floppies onto some other media. 15+ year old floppy disks are not that reliable. You might be in for a nasty surprise.
  • It's interesting that he still has the source code floating around. Normally you'd not hang on to something like that; but, I don't think it's going to help them out.

    Now, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you need to file patent suits ASAP, or you lose your ability to do so. And, Amazon has been using this tech for a while.

    Hey, but he should post the source! Then we could see it!

    • Did you read the article ?
      especially the last paragraph called "full disclosure" (or something to that effect), where the writer "discloses" that he is the holder of Patent # 5,884,282 and Patent # 5,790,426... So I guess he got there before Amazon....
    • but then caldera would throw it in their kernel, and prior versions thereof, and accuse him of piracy.

      If you do sorting with CP/M and don't pay them money, you're a common thief!
    • Now, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you need to file patent suits ASAP, or you lose your ability to do so.

      Nope, you're thinking of Trademarks, which are "defend or lose".

      Patent suits can be filed at any time during the life of the patent, and can even be selectively enforced if the patent holder wishes (meaning they can sue one person for infringement and ignore another).

      • Well there is the danger of laches, etc. If you do hold a patent it is wise to pursue your legal remedies anyway.
      • Sorry, Mr Resistor, your posting illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of patents and how they work.

        You are right that patent suits can be filed anytime, but you will LOSE if you have not actively and vigorously defended your IP prior to the suit. This is to say that you cannot ignore little company X infringement for 5 years, and then sue Microsoft for infringing. Microsoft just has to show that you knew there were others infringing, and you didn't do anything about it.

        There are a lot of compani
  • Ah -- collaborative filtering, now where else is that used [slashdot.org]?

    Anyway, the Pinpoint patents are obviously not worth the paper they're printed on. The Firefly collaborative music recommendation system was widely published out of MIT in '94, and should be the easiest stick with which to L.A.R.T. the Pinpoint bozos.

    But gee, a telephon date line running under CP/M from the 80's, now there's some extra points for overwhelming geekitude. Who needs Firefly when you've got 212-ROMANCE?

    • "RINGO" (Score:3, Informative)

      by js7a ( 579872 ) *
      s/Firefly/RINGO [jolomo.net]/
    • I created one of Amazon's collaborative filtering systems (not the shopping cart one, the other big one). In my opinion, a collaborative filtering system in a domain like dating is unlikely to take away from a patent for collaborative filtering in an area like shopping.

      Why? Because while you may have similar sources of data in both areas, namely personal profiles or "shopping" transactions, there is no guarantee that the data has the same properties in these different domains, and so there is no guarantee

      • Oh come on. That there is no guarantee that the same algorithms will work with different data won't mean squat to a jury if, in fact, the algorithms do work with the different data sets.

        Don't try to convince me that there is anything fundamental going on here beyond sparce matrix distance metric theory. Trying to recommend dates is essentially similar in Joe Random Juror's mind to trying to recommend music and books. Even if one algorithm is entirely unsupervised and the other depends on a huge preferenc

        • Don't try to convince me that there is anything fundamental going on here beyond sparce matrix distance metric theory.

          Is the data distributed the same way? Does it represent a random process or not? Do users generate the same number of selections in the domains? Are there orders of magnitude more objects to recommend in one domain than in the other?

          Are the rules that a user follows for deciding whether two things are similar or not the same in the two domains?

          All these factors, and more, come into play

          • " Is the data distributed the same way? Does it represent a random process or not? Do users generate the same number of selections in the domains? Are there orders of magnitude more objects to recommend in one domain than in the other? " The 1980 technologies were nearest-neighbor technologies. They provide prior art to somebody doing recommendations by nearest neighbors, no matter what the domain, I believe, because they will work, if not optimally, in domains with different distributions (frankly they ar
      • So it wounds like it may be YOUR work in particular that is coming under attack? Can you see any way Pinpoint can claim to have come up IP that covers your specific technology? Responding to the point you made above: The technologies being discussed in my piece as prior art, the 212-ROMANCE one and the Hey one, could be used in those different domains. They would not be the best possible ones in those domains -- in particular 212-ROMANCE did have a very robust mathematical basis -- but they would WORK if
    • So, poor old amazon go and patent the idea of the impulse buy on the internet and use it to screw their competitors, now we are supposed to feel sorry for them because some other moron managed to patent the idea of stacking related items on the same shelf using the internet? I am just waiting for the guy who has patented selling related items on the same website using the internet to come and roll over the lot of em. BTW, anyone else like the way this guy approached amazon to see if they would like to lice

  • Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:15PM (#6480175) Homepage
    "That project used techniques that do not seem fundamentally not unlike some of the basic principles used in the Pinpoint patents." Do not seem fundamentally not unlike? What the fuck?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I once used the phrase "non-women" in a student union general meeting.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by jonman_d ( 465049 ) <nemilar&optonline,net> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:30PM (#6480279) Homepage Journal
      Whenever you even discuss patents, you have to use obfusticated speech. How else do you patent using a laser to play with a cat [uspto.gov], but with language like:
      "directing an intense coherent beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus to produce a bright highly-focused pattern of light at the intersection of the beam and an opaque surface, said pattern being of visual interest to a cat;"?

      • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cyb97 ( 520582 ) <cyb97@noxtension.com> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:41PM (#6480354) Homepage Journal
        In the old days, the patent office used to be staffed with various engineers that between themselves knew "everything" and could decide whether a patent was in conflict with "prior art" or if it was too general/generally known...
        Today patenting is a legal business and therefore putting things in legalese would stop the engineers form seeing straight through the patent and stamping REFUSED on things like "using a laser to play with a cat" before even reading the patentapplication... Putting it in legalese would make anything seem "new" and radically different from everything...
      • If you look at the patents that reference patent 5,443,036, you'll see several people have already built upon the concept. What's sad isn't the concepts that people patent but the extents to which a corporation will go purely for extortion. Maybe they need a new department that will determine the generality of a patent and decide if it needs to be public domain/free. Yay more government. :p

      • Re:Huh? (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        oops I think I infringed that one :)

        Poor Fluffy and me will go to jail!
      • > How else do you patent using a laser to play with a cat [uspto.gov]

        What I don't understand is why anyone would spend the time and money to file this patent in the first place. It's totally worthless. First, any sane judge or jury, even in our messed-up system, would probably throw it out as non-obvious. Second, and more importantly, the patent's claims (the only part that really counts) are incredibly limited. Claim 1, which all the others are based on, specifically requires a "a hand-held laser apparatus".

      • you mean like my [howstuffworks.com]
        Entropy Accelerators?

        Always learning again.
        What were we talking about?
      • directing an intense coherent beam of invisible light...of visual interest to a cat

        That's alright, I'm safe. My cat tends to prefer visible light.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
      You've gotta be careful about using double negatives, but triple negatives are OK.
    • The project also uses techniques that are fundamentally similar to the basic principles of running a (book)store... You recommend customers other titles in hope that they'll buy more products from your store. Experience will allow you to recommend titles based on what (other) customers buy, or in otherwords exactly what these patents cover...
    • Thanks, I'll fix that. :-p

  • Wow, the patent office has fessed up! (Score:3, Funny)

    by macshune ( 628296 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:21PM (#6480221) Journal
    From the article:" Last fall, the head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office admitted that many business method patents had been wrongfully awarded in the past."

    This line could be a slashdot story in and of itself!:)

  • Business Plan (Score:5, Insightful)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug@RABBIT ... minus herbivore> on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:39PM (#6480345) Homepage
    1. Patent something fairly obvious but non-trivial.
    2. Wait until other people do the actual work.
    3. Sue one of the largest ones, settling for a license fee they can easily afford and which is far cheaper than litigation.
    4. Sue the smaller ones on the strength of the first suit.
    5. PROFIT!
    • It makes me wonder what other things we could patent. Maybe a system of purchasing goods over an integrated network by depressing a button on a point and click input device.

      /me prepares for many lawsuits

      • Re:Business Plan (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Click patents are so nineties. My patent pending mouse gesture shopping concept will be all the hype soon.
    • Actually I think you got steps 3 and 4 mixed up. Lots of people who do the kind of thing you have outlined in your "business plan" go after small companies first. Since they can't afford to fight it (in most cases) they just settle. Then they go after the big companies and use those other cases as precidence.
    • Sorry can't patent this! too much prior art, this and a variant (step3 - buy or bankrupt originating company/inventor)have been used for years! you can't patent M$ofts buisness model......hang on has anybody checked?
  • > It is possible to keep an invention secret for
    > years after an actual reduction to practice and
    > before filing a patent application, and still keep
    > the date of conception as the date of the
    > invention, as long as the patent is applied for
    > within one year of the invention becoming public.

    Not true. Look up "diligence".

    • Re:Diligence (Score:3, Informative)

      by garyrob ( 606786 )
      You're incorrect. The diligence is required between the date of conception and the actual reduction to practice. After that, you are merely required not to "abandon" the invention. Abandonment does not occur if you even have an intention of working on it again.

    • Re:Diligence (Score:4, Informative)

      by garyrob ( 606786 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @06:07PM (#6480838) Homepage
      One other aspect, since we're discussing these legal technicalities... if you create an actual reduction to practice, and then use the invention publicly, you have one year to file a patent application or your own public use becomes prior art. So if you want to wait years, you have to keep it totally under wraps, but have solid proof of the relevant dates.

  • Why has he waited so long? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kleine18 ( 675867 ) on Saturday July 19, 2003 @04:52PM (#6480419)
    Why did he wait so long. Hasnt Amazon and others been using this for quite a while now? He just new decides to do something about this.

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