Should Salesforce's Tableau Be Granted a Patent On 'Visualizing Hierarchical Data'? 58
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp says America's Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a patent to Tableau (Salesforce's visual analytics platform) — for a patent covering "Data Processing For Visualizing Hierarchical Data":
"A provided data model may include a tree specification that declares parent-child relationships between objects in the data model. In response to a query associated with objects in the data model: employing the parent-child relationships to determine a tree that includes parent objects and child objects from the objects based on the parent-child relationships; determining a root object based on the query and the tree; traversing the tree from the root object to visit the child objects in the tree; determining partial results based on characteristics of the visited child objects such that the partial results are stored in an intermediate table; and providing a response to the query that includes values based on the intermediate table and the partial results."
A set of 15 simple drawings is provided to support the legal and tech gobbledygook of the invention claims. A person can have a manager, Tableau explains in Figures 5-6 of its accompanying drawings, and that manager can also manage and be managed by other people. Not only that, Tableau illustrates in Figures 7-10 that computers can be used to count how many people report to a manager. How does this magic work, you ask? Well, you "generate [a] tree" [Fig. 13] and "traverse a tree" [Fig. 15], Tableau explains. But wait, there's more — you can also display the people who report to a manager in multi-level or nested pie charts (aka Sunburst charts), Tableau demonstrates in Fig. 11.
Interestingly, Tableau released a "pre-Beta" Sunburst chart type in late April 2023 but yanked it at the end of June 2023 (others have long-supported Sunburst charts, including Plotly). So, do you think Tableau should be awarded a patent in 2025 on a concept that has roots in circa-1921 Sunburst charts and tree algorithms taught to first-year CS students in circa-1975 Data Structures courses?
A set of 15 simple drawings is provided to support the legal and tech gobbledygook of the invention claims. A person can have a manager, Tableau explains in Figures 5-6 of its accompanying drawings, and that manager can also manage and be managed by other people. Not only that, Tableau illustrates in Figures 7-10 that computers can be used to count how many people report to a manager. How does this magic work, you ask? Well, you "generate [a] tree" [Fig. 13] and "traverse a tree" [Fig. 15], Tableau explains. But wait, there's more — you can also display the people who report to a manager in multi-level or nested pie charts (aka Sunburst charts), Tableau demonstrates in Fig. 11.
Interestingly, Tableau released a "pre-Beta" Sunburst chart type in late April 2023 but yanked it at the end of June 2023 (others have long-supported Sunburst charts, including Plotly). So, do you think Tableau should be awarded a patent in 2025 on a concept that has roots in circa-1921 Sunburst charts and tree algorithms taught to first-year CS students in circa-1975 Data Structures courses?
where's the knife and fork icon ? (Score:3)
or is that just when someone sues over it ?
No (Score:1)
Re: No (Score:1)
Agreed. +25dB Ãver 1TW.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Our patent system is broken beyond repair, you shouldn't be able to patent anything short of revolutionary. The answer is NO and Tableau is a cancer.
Re: No (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Although I agree that this chart type shouldn't be patentable, I don't agree with the "revolutionary" yardstick.
This patent should have been disallowed due to prior art. Org charts have been around for decades.
As for "revolutionary," nearly all inventions ever, are incremental, not revolutionary. The humble farm windmill, for example, has a long history of innovation, adding features that do things like turning it sideways in high winds to keep it from being destroyed in storms. We only think of it as munda
Re: (Score:2)
This patent should have been disallowed due to prior art.
The problem with that is two fold:
1) The US Patent Office is regularly underfunded and subject to the whims of politicians looking for savings to give to billionaires directly. Which means the amount of time an inspector at the Patent Office has to review each patent application is ridiculously short, and hardly, if ever, done by someone who knows anything about the state of the industry.
2) Prior Art only really comes into play in practice after the patent is granted and expensive lawyers battle it out
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subject to the whims of politicians looking for savings to give to billionaires directly
These are simply conspiracy theories. If this were really happening, it would be possible to name specific perpetrators.
The USPTO is not funded through tax dollars. Rather, it is funded through fees charged to applicants for trademarks and patents. Influence follows the money, so since neither Congress nor the President have money to give in order to influence its spending, that type of influence is largely eliminated.
While there is certainly plenty of corruption going around in the current administration,
link to the patent is missing (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A system designed to render a collapsable tree on a server
My Android menu system does that. So do UIs like Windows Device Manager, if my memory serves me correctly.
on a server and present it to the user's computing device
X11 is prior art.
Re: (Score:2)
The claims are extremely detailed, which is what I would do if I were required to get a patent for work: make it so detailed that their is no prior art, and no one will likely ever do the same configuration again.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not going to look at the claims because that's a good way to treble damages (by committing "willful infringement"), but adding details should not be sufficient. The threshold for patentability isn't doing something for the first time, but doing something novel and not taught by prior art. Detailed claims aren't needed for that unless prior art teaches so much as to suggest that the present invention was taught by the prior art.
Re: (Score:2)
A device that has A and B and C and D and E and F
Add enough letters and the patent is unique. It also becomes easy for other people to avoid violating the patent.
I'm not going to look at the claims because that's a good way to treble damages (by committing "willful infringement"),
You're just being lazy, merely hearing the title is enough, see for explanation: https://www.dority-manning.com... [dority-manning.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Adding "and F (and ...)" isn't sufficient to escape prior art. There needs to be something more to establish that it wasn't an application that could be deduced by a practitioner with ordinary skill in the art based on knowledge of any prior art.
And speaking of lazy, maybe you want to find some source that (a) mentions merely knowing the title of a patent and/or (b) isn't about summary judgment in favor of a defense on willful infringement.
Re: (Score:2)
Adding "and F (and ...)" isn't sufficient to escape prior art.
Obviously it was enough for this patent.
And speaking of lazy, maybe you want to find some source that (a) mentions merely knowing the title of a patent and/or (b) isn't about summary judgment in favor of a defense on willful infringement.
You're more at risk of willful infringement than I am. I read the patent, so I know how to avoid infringing the patent. You, on the other hand, put in writing that you refuse to read it, although have some idea of what is in it. If you're doing anything related to "visualizing hierarchical data," then avoiding reading the patent isn't going to help you. Living in Europe might help you.
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You're more at risk of willful infringement than I am.
This is exactly as true as your earlier claims that "You're just being lazy, merely hearing the title is enough, see for explanation" -- namely, totally false.
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It also becomes easy for other people to avoid violating the patent.
The way patents work is that an applications has letters A, B, C, D, E, and F in order to get the patent. Then the patent holder sues anyone who does A, B, C, D, E, or F; in any combination. Then they argue that not all elements need to be present at the same time to constitute patent infringement. And then, if they lose, they suffer no consequences aside from the money they put into the suit. And then they write that off as a business expense.
That this piece of shit was even considered for submission is an
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's corrupt. It's lazy. Patent examiners are overworked and are probably aware that what they do doesn't really matter. They're prone to rubber stamp things because it's ultimately up to a court anyway.
Is it too late ... (Score:2)
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Then the patent holder sues anyone who does A, B, C, D, E, or F; in any combination. Then they argue that not all elements need to be present at the same time to constitute patent infringement.
In this case, the patent is very clear that all of those elements do need to be present. They go out of their way in the patent to define the word "and" which is kind of unusual.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure why you say that. The claims are very broad, as they are in most patents. Patent claims arent "all of these things" they're "any of these things" with some limited (lol) hierarchical relationships as specified.
Usually the way it goes is that the actual person who made the thing gets to explain it to a lawyer and the lawyer draws up claims that vaguely resemble their impression of the thing in the broadest possible terms. Broad terms let you intimidate and maybe actually sue the largest variety
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, I did look at the claims, and, well, it does seem pretty stupid. The independent claims don't actually have much more than what's in the abstract. The file history might be interesting, but not enough for me to bother digging though it.
USPTO has blocked guest access to Patent Center (Score:2)
Was surprised to learn the USPTO started blocking unregistered user access to the Patent Center on 9/11 [uspto.gov] (including file history). To become a 'verified user', the USPTO recommends submitting one's social security number and photo of your driver's license to ID.me, a private company, who will also pull data from your credit report header to complete the required verification process needed before you can request USPTO Patent Center access. The USPTO alternative is a 2+ week snail mail process requiring submi
Re: USPTO has blocked guest access to Patent Cente (Score:2)
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Data Processing For Visualizing Hierarchical Data [google.com] Here you go - hopefully got the access rights correct this time!
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines (Score:2)
Well, when you put it that way... (Score:2)
It's likely Tableau's founders learned this stuff when they were taking their CS intro courses at Stanford [wikipedia.org] in the first place.
Prior art in antiquity (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Antiquity and the Middle Ages – Early Outlines
2. Medieval and Scholastic Outlines (12th–15th centuries)
3. Early Printed Encyclopedias and Tables of Contents
4. Early Modern Systems
5. Library Classification Systems
TL;DR – Earliest Examples
Re: Prior art in antiquity (Score:2)
ShatGPT missed my second year Pascal program that used recursion to traverse a tree of arbitrary depth, circa 1982.
Fair point. (Score:2)
And yes, we did something similar in uni in Pascal in the 1990s.
And yes, I did Shit a fair amount of GPT to get that summary.
But yeah, that company attempting to patent tree views is insane. Especially when they only shipped the feature in beta on 2023 and then pulled the feature.
Re: (Score:2)
prior art? I think I drew a tree with a crayon in the first grade!!
Yeah, these guys have to be just bullshitting the system to see what they can get away with.
Hopefully, the system works well enough.
Re: (Score:1)
Prior art in antiquity
The US is first-to-file now, not first-to-invent.
Examples of usage like you show is called "prior art" which has no legal weight for anything.
None of your examples include patent filings, now required to challenge a patent.
The prior patent filing also has to be within 20 years of "now" (the 23rd actually)
So even if your examples actually were patented in the US, your newest example of 1897* would have expired in 1917 and available to patent again anytime after 1994
*(Apologies if I glossed over and missed a
No (Score:2)
There is obviously prior art, so it's not patentable. Since we are seeing more and more of these malicious attempts to patent common practices, I would propose that the patent authority can issue penalties for it. Like, let them issue a fine up to 5 percent of the business' turnover of something for really egregious behaviour like this. Make them feel it.
As it is now, there is no reason not to try, which is kinda ridiculous.
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There is obviously prior art, so it's not patentable.
Too late:
Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted
Patent clerks used to be smart [wordpress.com] and familiar with the state of the art. Not so much anymore, I guess.
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I'm sure the so-called "DOGE" only helped solve that problem...
https://www.ipla.com/news/doge... [ipla.com]
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bread Browning Patent a.k.a. Toast (Score:3)
Abstract: This groundbreaking invention tackles the age-old crisis of bread being too soft, too edible, and frankly too boring. By blasting bread with weaponized levels of heat until it cries out in crispy anguish, this system produces what humanity calls "toast." Said toast can then be smeared with salted fats, sticky fruits, or whichever condiment is least expired in one’s fridge. The invention supersedes all prior methods of “leaving bread near fire and hoping for the best.”
Re: (Score:3)
I've seen this before (Score:3)
It's called an "org chart."
Oh wait this is an org chart "with a computer."
What am I missing here?
Re: (Score:2)
They added.., (Score:2)
â¦On a computer
Patent granted.
so, they want to patent ls ? (Score:2)
for real, they want control of the directory! this is b u l l s h i t.
Rene Descartes has prior art (Score:2)
no patents for software should exist (Score:1)
Just like a million or more of others, who have done the same, I have personally, singlehandedly used the same exact principles and techniques to construct in a dynamic manner, not only visual representations of parent/child relationships as visual trees, but created entire systems that relied on these concepts for both, reporting and control.
I am absolutely capable of displaying my work, results of my work, people using result of my work, my work used in production on daily basis. I built a retail managem
YES (Score:2)
"So, do you think Tableau should be awarded a patent in 2025 on a concept that has roots in circa-1921 Sunburst charts and tree algorithms taught to first-year CS students in circa-1975 Data Structures courses?"
Absolutely, as long as they also accept my patenting the letter "e" and my groundbreaking idea of "making things hotter or colder by using electricity".
Pay me, bitches!!
Link to Full Patent Document (PDF) (Score:2)
Data Processing For Visualizing Hierarchical Data [google.com]
Re: Link to Full Patent Document (PDF) (Score:2)
I can already go to my relational DB of choice, and query across multiple databases, and pretty much anything that exposes data in a ODBC compliant sort of way, and I can already visualize the resulting data sets in a number of diffe
Simple answer: no (Score:2)
This is one of those "practitioner skilled in the art" kind of things. We've had SQL and UML for ages that use and visualize parent-child relationships. Once you know them, this is an obvious application for making queries about the relationships. Given how ubiquitous trees of various kinds are, I doubt their specific implementation is particularly novel.
What the hell? (Score:2)
I did code something pretty much like that 20 or 30 years ago. Simple, yes. Coded on a weekend to experiment with a graph drawing library. But the thing in this patent? Yes, as far as I can see.
Look at Others Saleforce Patents--pure absurdity (Score:2)
Look at the long list of utterly absurd Salesforce patents. It is hard to find a single one that could be even arguably unique. It is mostly just a list of common things any and typically every CRM does. I looked through these long ago and saw--at a glance--what a joke it is. Yes. The patent system is near completely dysfunctional, even after so many reforms. Nobody in government seems to care.
Just understand this: A major part of any business plan is legal. Contracts, leases, or patents are not, in
Old hat (Score:1)
Back in the Dark Ages of 40-odd years ago, when I studied Computer Science, I can remember that as well as the more widely discussed, and used, Relational Databases, we did also briefly touch on Hierarchical Databases -- which would seem to be very close to what Salesforce is attempting to patent.
I'd suggest that the likelihood of Prior Art not existing for this idea is zero.