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IBM Patents Half-day Out of Office Notifications
- skymt 15y agoIf I'm reading it correctly, the patent covers a very specific implementation, even mentioning use of EJB. Presumably an implementation on a different stack couldn't infringe.
- abalone 15y agoNot necessarily. Patents commonly discuss specific implementations but qualify them as just one of many possible "embodiments" of the invention.
- garbowza 15y agoIncorrect. Only what is specifically claimed (in the claims themselves) holds up in court.
- lucisferre 15y agoThe key requirement in that is going to court.
- saulrh 15y agoExactly - no matter now badwrong the patent, it still takes time and money to go to court, and the kind of people that IBM will be using this patent against don't have that time or that money.
- chime 15y agoEvery patent application needs these three questions answered: 1. What's novel about this? 2. What's not obvious about this to an average professional in this field? 3. What is useful about this? In this case, 3 is a given but I can't seem to figure out 1 and 2.
- funthree 15y agoI think open sourcing this wouldnt take long. Basically a transaction-al email is sent based on data in a user system. The fact that the patent is for email communication that contains a "notification containing a portion of a da out of office notice. " ... is just ... ridiculous.
- mrlase 15y agoI'd go as far as to add a "Why should we give this to you?" question, because honestly, why should IBM get a patent over this?
- reitzensteinm 15y agoWhat kind of patent is novel, non obvious and useful, but should not be patentable?
- fooandbarify 15y agoA software patent.
- anamax 15y agoWhy should an invention that is novel, non obvious and useful, be patentable if it's hardware but not if it's software?
- fooandbarify 15y agoSorry I didn't get to this earlier, no idea if you'll see it. One aspect to the answer (and I am not a patent expert by any means) has to do with the much longer time-to-market represented by hardware development--hardware innovation would not be economically viable without the protection that patents provide. The same is not generally true of software development, and many argue that software patents are instead an impediment to progress (because other programmers are unable to build on existing innovations). Note that software is still protected by copyright regardless of its patent status.
- gerggerg 15y ago"This invention relates in general to personal information management applications, and more particularly, to a system that generates an electronic notice that displays a portion of a day out of office notice." Surely this quote is actually from a Monty Python sketch and not an official patent issued by the USA.
- noonespecial 15y agoYou haven't seen their "method and process for swinging a mackerel at high angular velocity in the direction of a colleague's face" yet then, have you?
- ThaddeusQuay2 15y agoIt's not, and don't call me "Shirley".
- jroseattle 15y agoI patent in your general direction.
- a_a_r_o_n 15y agoExclamation. Adjective adjective noun, exclamation.
- ansonparker 15y ago6 minute abs!
- Roboprog 15y agoMy second thought was how I will be required to set this up anytime my schedule for a day is a bit unusual :-( Method and device for making office life suck even more...
- garbowza 15y agoThe key is to read the claims (particularly the independent ones) - that is the only part of a patent that holds water. In this case, the first independent claim is seriously narrow. The OP's title is extremely misleading.
- acak 15y agoThis is what I read in the claims section: "What is claimed is: 1. A system for generating an electronic notification containing a portion of a day out of office notice, ..." (and then goes on to explain its implementation). Could you please tell me how the title is misleading?
- esurc 15y agoSounds like the patent examiner was test-driving this invention himself. Would explain quite a bit about PTO.
- lrizzo 15y agoA very thorough examination: filed 2006 granted 2012. But i understand why it took so long, they also had to invent multi-base fractional numbers (days hours and minutes: "timestamp to-the-minute" is repeated eight times in the claim) to support the invention. Who had heard that before. Coming next: a patent that supports notifications accurate "to the second".