IBM's Teri-is-a-Girl-and-Terry-is-a-Boy Patent

theodp writes "The USPTO has granted IBM a patent for utilizing naming conventions to assign gender-based avatars for instant messaging. A user named Teri, IBM explains, would be given a girl avatar, while a user named Terry would be provided with a boy avatar. The three IBM 'inventors' were stymied by users named Pat, who as a result will be assigned a 'generic, genderless human figure image as his or her avatar.' Way to honor that significant-technical-content patent pledge, Big Blue!"

English names only?

[NotQuiteReal]

What about odd spellings?

Re:English names only?

[catch23]

Yeah, what about Xie Hua? Is Xie a male or female?

Re:English names only?

[Bieeanda]

You mean like my aunt Terry, who would be categorized as a man by that system?

Re:English names only?

[mackyrae]

Or my step-mom Terry?

Standard Behaviour

[Nerdfest]

Like most companies, IBM is only 'not evil' when it's extremely convenient, or there's some marketing value to be had.

Re:English names only?

[ozamosi]

My name is Robin, which is basically exclusively male here in Sweden (I've never met any females called Robin, but it's among the top ten most common boys names), which is mostly male in England, and which is mostly female in the US.

Oh, and I run all my software in (US) English.

I'd like to see the software that figures out the gender of all the Robin in the world!

No one uses boring avatar names

[Gizzmonic]

Give me a break, no one uses names like "Jill" and "Steve" for their avatars! They use names like xXDeath_StalkerXx and KillMurder_415 and awesome stuff like that. This patent ain't worth a case of Bawls.

"Way to honor that significant-technical-content"

[DavidR1991]

Maybe I missed something, but the link in this article shows IBM will "sharply reduce business method patent filings and instead stress significant technical content in its patents". If you actually care to read the patent filing a little bit, it actually does seem to have a technical basis (e.g. repetition of letters used to scan for feminine names). Whether that's 'significant' or not, who knows, but it's still not a business method. Stop hurting big blue for no reason :(

Re:No one uses boring avatar names

[e9th]

Unless the names are xXDeath_StalkeretteXx and KillMurderess_415, assigning a male avatar is probably a safe bet.

Re:English names only?

[Nasajin]

I was going to say that Marilyn Manson might get annoyed with the automated gender mixup, but then I realised that he probably wouldn't.

Re:English names only?

[orclevegam]

Likewise Kyle, which although often male, is occasionally used as a female name. Then there are those that come up with entirely new names, or that use nicknames, or handles to contend with. Yeah, sorry, this sounds like it's utterly useless, you've taken what once was a simple question of "Are you male or female?", and turned it into "Based on your name our software thinks you're X, is this correct?". All they've done is taken a simple question and reworked it so that it makes a potentially embarrassing/insulting/annoying assumption about a person, which then needs to have steps put in place to insure that it's made the correct assumption, all for the sake of avoiding a simple binary question.

Re:What about me?

[mr_mischief]

Anyone who implemented this would probably be smart enough to let you change the avatar during the sign-up process. This is a way to placate the ladies who get all upset that the systems tend to default to male avatars which is slightly more accurate than randomly assigning one or the other. A checkbox before the avatar default is chosen I'd think would be even more accurate, though.

Re:English names only?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

Keep reading. It's about tyranny, not taxes. Why do some people find it so hard to distinguish between symptom and disease?

Re:English names only?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about tyranny, not taxes.

If you want an equal mix of tyranny AND taxes you should come back here to England.

Re:Standard Behaviour

[nine-times]

Geeze, here we go again. Listen, patenting stupid crap isn't evil. *Suing* other people for your stupid crap patents is evil. Countersuing other people for violating your stupid crap patents after they've sued you for violating their stupid crap patents is simply a business reality these days.

Big companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Novell have to patent any little thing that floats into their heads that the patent office will let them patent. They all do it, and the purpose is mostly for the sake of maintaining a defensive-patent war chest to keep the other big companies at bay with mutually assured destruction.

Start complaining about them being evil when they sue someone.

Re:Not even that.

[shermo]

I always thought it was a black and white issue.

You simply refer to people how they want you to refer to them.

Wouldn't it be easier.....

[Yuan-Lung]

...to just ASK the user during the sign up?

Are you [ ]Male [ ]Female

Would you like to use a avatar that is
[ ] Male
[ ] Female
[ ] Generic Genderless
[ ] Tentacle Monster
[ ] Cowboyneal

Why not just ASK?!?

[Locke2005]

My friends Gail and Carol might have a problem with this method, since both of them are male... Sam and Mel might have problem too, since Sam is short for Samantha and Mel is short for Melonie.
I prefer the solution used in the interactive game "Leather Goddesses of Phobos": at the start of the game, you have a sudden urge to use the restroom. Your gender for the rest of the game depends on which restroom door you choose.
Really, I think arbitrarily guessing people's gender is just going to alienate them when you guess wrong.

Offended by a computer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who gets offended by a computer program misinterpreting their gender doesn't have enough sense for me to care about anyways. I say assign EVERYONE asexual jellyfish avatars.