Facebook's Broad Patent On Digital Media Tagging 61
bizwriter writes "Facebook has done well with the Friendster patents and patent applications that it acquired. Just last week, a patent application for passing personal info between users based on degrees of separation became public. Now, thanks to the Friendster IP purchase, Facebook
pretty much owns the technology for publicly identity-tagging digital media of any sort in a database."
bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
I've been tagging people in photos in iphoto for years.
but we've been zucked.
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the hilary is the comment of "owning" anything due to a patent. Tells you how out of wack intellectual property is as a concept.
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If you legally collect the rent on something, you own it. That's pretty much what own means. You have the right to chase other people away from your property, and to give it, sell it, lend it, or lease it to someone else. A patent is temporary ownership of a technology.
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No. You, at your death, have the right to give it to someone else. You own it until you give it away, even after you're dead. Nobody else owns it until you give it to them. It's possible for things to remain in your estate and owned by you for decades until the legal issues are wrung out in probate court.
Re:bullshit (Score:4, Funny)
Just to enlarge upon your "temporarily" in your final sentence, isn't everything we own temporarily owned? After all, its not ours after death.
I'm a corporation, you insensitive clod!
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What was the third word in my post, and why do you think I took the trouble to include it there?
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Yeah but patents are supposed to be clever things which are "non obvious" to professionals who work in the associated trade.
If my boss asked me to come up with a way to tag media files I wouldn't need six months of hard R&D to figure out how to do it, I'd have some ideas right away, a basic plan in a couple of minutes and the specs written the same day.
THIS is why the patent system is broken, not because the basic concept of owning ideas is wrong.
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-No one at the USPTO has ever used iphoto
-No one at the USPTO has any understanding of his or her job
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-interkin3tic is a Slashdot troll who has no idea that a patent application is not a patent.
The article specifically points out this is a patent application and with that status comes no legal protection of any sort. The case either has yet to be reviewed or is in the process of being reviewed by anyone at the USPTO. It is only the applicant at this point who shows broad ignorance of iphoto or other similar tagging applications. This application will most likely be shot down or highl
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There are still many rounds of prosecution to go and the claim language will doubtfully look anything like it currently does.
Patent Applications != Patents.
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Yes, but did your system automatically contact the person being tagged and then refuse to work if the other person declined?
TFA says the patent is broad, but it sounds pretty narrow to me. IMHO, it's not only narrow, but narrow to the point of completely uselessness. I would never want to violate this patent (not that a programmer doing his job ever has that choice or even the knowledge of how many dozenss of patents they routinely and unwittingly violate every day).
Patent this... (Score:2)
Short sell technology stock 'o the day
Scare blog o' sphere
Profit
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Just sayin'.
Good. (Score:2)
Good. When shit hits the fan now I can point my finger at one entity. Make my life easier!
Re:Good. (Score:5, Funny)
No, it just makes you the one covered in shit and pointing a finger.
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I believe the term for this state is "winkelvossed".
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Sir, I do not have a Facebook account.
Although pointing a finger at the angry mob covered in shit surrounding me also may not be wise haha
Nothing new to say (Score:3)
Software patents retarded. Idea obvious. Prior art exists. And so on and so forth...
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Software patents retarded. Idea obvious. Prior art exists. And so on and so forth...
Dr. Solus??!!
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Guess it sucks to be Twitter or LinkedIn (Score:2)
Time to pay up to the Zuck!
This kind of shakedown economy seems to be the norm. I ought to get a patent on chewing gum "while on the internet", incorporate and then sell out for big $$$.
Access Control Group? (Score:3)
Isn't this the same concept as being a member of a group and gaining a variety of access permissions?
How is this not the same just changing the naming semantics of the general idea?
I mean can i just patent any idea and substitute a previously defined terms with my own made up one?
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How is this not the same just changing the naming semantics of the general idea? I mean can i just patent any idea and substitute a previously defined terms with my own made up one?
Sure you can. Whether the patent will stand in court is another matter.
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You can patent the radio.
You can patent the potentiometer.
You can patent the variable capacitor.
You can patent the variable inductor.
You can patent using the potentiometer to control the volume on the radio.
You can patent using the variable capacitor or variable inductor or both to control the tuning of the radio.
Start throwing transistors in and you can patent any number of combinations of radio, control, tuning, and amplification.
Get this concept early and you can claim all of it in one big patent.
They di
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The question is not whether it's different. It's different, hence patentable.
The question is whether the difference is worth anything. Nominally it isn't. You don't proffer it with a price tag. You wait until someone uses it without mentioning that you patented it before they used it. Then you walk in and sue them, and they pay you more than if you'd just negotiated.
The part that's broken isn't the patenting. It's the arbitration of value.
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Not as broad as described (Score:2)
Disclaimer: Software patents are stupid.
That said, after reading the patent excerpt, it appears as though it requires 2nd-party notification of the tagging to be covered. That limits the scope incredibly, and seems as though it would make it fairly easy to avoid.
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Disclaimer: Software patents are stupid.
That said, after reading the patent excerpt, it appears as though it requires 2nd-party notification of the tagging to be covered. That limits the scope incredibly, and seems as though it would make it fairly easy to avoid.
Until it's made illegal for privacy reasons to tag photos w/o notifying the people being identified in the tag.
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I know there are a lot of stupid laws out there, but that's pretty far-fetched. Privacy has a vanishingly small number of supporters (at least those with any influence at all in politics). The likelihood of a law that strongly protecting a specific privacy interest being passed is pretty close to zero.
Software patents - why so long (Score:1)
There is a lot of discussion about whether software should be patentable or not...
I wonder, why nobody discusses, well, for how long such patents should be granted.
In the end, if software patent would be good for 5 years, it would not be as big issue. Time in IT flies faster than in other disciplines.
Patent APPLICATION (Score:1)
This piece is so sensationalist. The "patent" that is the subject of this silly rant is just an application for patent, filed 5 months ago. A patent application gives no rights at all. Every patent that is filed starts off broad like this and then gets narrowed down. I don't know why I even click patent related links on slashdot...
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What are the intention? (Score:3)
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That's good and all, until someone ups and acquires your company. Suddenly, that "defensive" patent portfolio your company's been keeping becomes somebody else's offensive one. Look at the Sun acquisition if you want more details.
It's not a bad thing for your company to keep a nice portfolio handy for when it gets sued. However, the Sun acquisition is something for your upper management to be aware of in case there's some kind of hostile or otherwise takeover.
At least it's only for PUBLIC tagging... (Score:1)
...as befits Facebook's privacy flaws.
Prior Art (Score:1)
Lucrative? (Score:2)
Facebook (Score:1)
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Even a plain text file with data in some structure or extractable order is a database.
Strange ... (Score:2)
What an insane patent.
I've tagged things in delicio.us for years, in my gmail for years, Slashdot tags, my photo organizing software that came with my digital camera I bought 6 or so years ago ... I'm sure in probably more examples if I think about it ...
Depending on how far reaching this patent is, that pretty much sums up half of the "Web 2.0" stuff -- tag clouds are pretty much used everywhere nowadays.
It really is hard to believe that patents are providing any of the benefits they're supposed to. I can