5 ms·

A system in which a software module called an event consumer can indicate an interest in receiving notifications about a specific set of events, and it provides

A system in which a software module called an event consumer can indicate an interest in receiving notifications about a specific set of events, and it provides an architecture for efficiently providing notifications to the [event] consumer Hmmm, Smalltalk implemented this. All objects in Smalltalk implement listening and notification. Apple licensed certain concepts from Xerox, so this may or may not apply. How about Java? Do Java programs that use its notifications violate the patent? Or what about Javascript libraries? How about Windows programs? It seems to me that event-driven architectures with listeners are everywhere. This is the natural consequence of software patents. Just as the inner workings of a physical engine can be patented, the inner workings of software can be patented, which means things like patterns. I wonder if future versions of books like the GoF patterns book will be annotated with warnings that some or all of the patterns are covered by patent and must be licensed?

vaporstun 17y ago
I wish more people would read the actual patent claims before coming to conclusions about them based solely on their titles. It seems that many news organizations have articles claiming this is a ridiculous lawsuit based on the titles which they claim are overly broad. If however they took the time to read the patent claims, they would see that they are relatively specific. For example: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,566,337 http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5... Now I'm not saying that software patents are necessarily right, but I am growing weary of people making broad generalizations based on the titles of these patents and having them perpetuated. That is somewhat like a book review discussing the book's title and deciding whether or not it's a good book without having read the book or having any knowledge of its contents. In other words, leave it to the lawyers. If you went to LN (Lawyer News - doesn't exist, but let's pretend for my analogy) and there was a lawyer claiming that Javascript is stupid because it has the word Java in it and therefore must have all the attributes of Java and he hates Java, we'd all cringe at his lack of knowledge of the subject and wish he'd leave it up to the Hackers who actually know what they're talking about to criticize.
- sern 17y ago
  That patent is on NeXTSTEP's NSDistributedNotificationCenter [1], which admittedly might actually be enforceable (I'm not sure of any prior art in this regard). That said, after reading the claims of a lot of the other patents Apple is citing it is apparent that they are complete rubbish, for example [2] (the observer pattern applied to a desktop environment), [3] (generic proxy objects for IPC/RPC - Smalltalk/CORBA did it), and [4] (WTF???????). 1. http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Notifications/Articles/NotificationCenters.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000216 http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/C... 2. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ 3. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ 4. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ
  - protomyth 17y ago
    When you say "rubish", are you going off the description or the actual patent claim? Descriptions are always written in broad strokes and never really seem enforceable.
- markkanof 17y ago
  Sure, broad generalizations are always a problem, but in this particular case I'm not sure that it matters. The patent description that you linked to doesn't really seem specific enough to make it unique. It seems to be talking about eventing systems in an operating system (as opposed to a language). The idea that there isn't prior art seems dubious. Also, I think leaving it to the lawyers is part of what got us into this situation in the first place. We have a bunch of lawyers and patent clerks that don't understand the technology so we end up with a lot of silly patents that shouldn't exist.
- ynniv 17y ago
  I can't upvote this enough. Making any conclusion about a patent without concentrating on the claims (at least the independent ones) is ignorant. I admit that I used to do the same, but once you understand the mechanics of a patent (just like any technical system), you are immediately put off when someone is angry over a summary.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

vaporstun 17y ago

I wish more people would read the actual patent claims before coming to conclusions about them based solely on their titles. It seems that many news organizations have articles claiming this is a ridiculous lawsuit based on the titles which they claim are overly broad. If however they took the time to read the patent claims, they would see that they are relatively specific. For example: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,566,337 http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-IeAAAAEBAJ&dq=5... Now I'm not saying that software patents are necessarily right, but I am growing weary of people making broad generalizations based on the titles of these patents and having them perpetuated. That is somewhat like a book review discussing the book's title and deciding whether or not it's a good book without having read the book or having any knowledge of its contents. In other words, leave it to the lawyers. If you went to LN (Lawyer News - doesn't exist, but let's pretend for my analogy) and there was a lawyer claiming that Javascript is stupid because it has the word Java in it and therefore must have all the attributes of Java and he hates Java, we'd all cringe at his lack of knowledge of the subject and wish he'd leave it up to the Hackers who actually know what they're talking about to criticize.

sern 17y ago
That patent is on NeXTSTEP's NSDistributedNotificationCenter [1], which admittedly might actually be enforceable (I'm not sure of any prior art in this regard). That said, after reading the claims of a lot of the other patents Apple is citing it is apparent that they are complete rubbish, for example [2] (the observer pattern applied to a desktop environment), [3] (generic proxy objects for IPC/RPC - Smalltalk/CORBA did it), and [4] (WTF???????). 1. http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Notifications/Articles/NotificationCenters.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000216 http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/C... 2. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=zIwLAAAAEBAJ 3. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7d4aAAAAEBAJ 4. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=HrobAAAAEBAJ
- protomyth 17y ago
  When you say "rubish", are you going off the description or the actual patent claim? Descriptions are always written in broad strokes and never really seem enforceable.
markkanof 17y ago
Sure, broad generalizations are always a problem, but in this particular case I'm not sure that it matters. The patent description that you linked to doesn't really seem specific enough to make it unique. It seems to be talking about eventing systems in an operating system (as opposed to a language). The idea that there isn't prior art seems dubious. Also, I think leaving it to the lawyers is part of what got us into this situation in the first place. We have a bunch of lawyers and patent clerks that don't understand the technology so we end up with a lot of silly patents that shouldn't exist.
ynniv 17y ago
I can't upvote this enough. Making any conclusion about a patent without concentrating on the claims (at least the independent ones) is ignorant. I admit that I used to do the same, but once you understand the mechanics of a patent (just like any technical system), you are immediately put off when someone is angry over a summary.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]