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Google and Others Sued For Automating Email
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Aug 28, 2007 08:08 PM
from the promoting-the-progress-of-science-and-the-useful-arts dept.
from the promoting-the-progress-of-science-and-the-useful-arts dept.
Dotnaught sends us to InformationWeek for news of the latest lawsuit by Polaris IP, which holds a patent on the idea of responding automatically to emails. The company has no products. It brought suit in the Eastern District in Texas, as many patent trolls do — though the article informs us that that venue has been getting less friendly of late to IP interests, and has actually invalidated some patents. The six companies being sued are AOL, Amazon, Borders, Google, IAC, and Yahoo. All previous suits based on this patent have been settled.
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Procmail v1.0 released in 1991 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991 (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991 (Score:5, Informative)
This sounds an *awful* lot like what pretty much *every* mailing list manager has been doing for at least 15 years. This includes Procmail's SmartList, MajorDomo, and the
venerable BITNET LISTSERV which I was using in the mid-to-late 1980's. Anything
hooked up to -owner filtered the mail for administrivia and often sent mail
back in response to an admin request.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure prior art does exist, though -- when usenet was king, moderated newsgroups did something similar.
No, they didn't. This patent is describing an intelligent SPAM filter.
I'm sure procmail can do that, but unless they procmail included an example of doing just that, it's not prior art.
Time to read the patent much closer, they list procmail as prior art.
:(
They have patented something like SPAM filters with a lot of extensions.
I can see why google would settle than fight it.
We have been kdawson'ed again. This looks to me like a valid patent with only a sensational but meaningless title.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991 (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which isn't what this patent is about. This patent is about running a message through a text classification algorithm to determine what kind of message it's likely to be, pulling a canned response from a database if it matches a known category and sending that response, otherwise flagging it for human attention. Did
Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991 (Score:4, Informative)
Which isn't what this patent is about. This patent is about running a message through a text classification algorithm to determine what kind of message it's likely to be, pulling a canned response from a database if it matches a known category and sending that response, otherwise flagging it for human attention. Did the example do all of these things? If not, it isn't useful prior art.
Parent
Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991 (Score:5, Interesting)
On a broader topic, I can see the day when law firms engaged to provide legal defences against software patent claims start to employ older geeks specifically to identify prior art solutions. It's gotta be cheaper to keep a bunch of us around on some sort of "professional retainer" basis than to engage paralegals to trawl through old patent documents (and I'd "Procmail" probably wouldn't come up in a patent document search anyway) - many of us who've been around for a while would've thought "Procmail" before we'd finished reading this summary.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> free prior art guidance you need.
Try explaining to one of your non-geek acquaintances what procmail does, and why it's useful. About 4 hours into the explanation, it'll dawn on you that non-geeks won't ever be able to comprehend stuff in Slashdot - we speak/write in a language that isn't recognisable as English to 99% of people out there.
There's a *huge* impedance mismatch between IT people and l
Re: (Score:2)
vacation(1) released in 1983 (Score:5, Informative)
[snip]
AUTHOR
vacation is Copyright (c) 1983 by Eric P. Allman, University of Berkeley, California, and Copyright (c) 1993 by Harald Milz
(hm@seneca.ix.de). Tiny patches 1998 by Mark Seuffert (moak@pirate.de).
Now maintained by Sean Rima (thecivvie@softhome.net)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A method for automatically interpreting an electronic message, including the steps of (a) receiving the electronic message from a source; (b) interpreting the electronic message using a rule base and case base knowledge engine; and (c) classifying the electronic message as at least one of (i) being able to be responded to automatically; and (ii) requiring assistance from a human operator. The method for automatically interpreting an electronic message may also include the step of retrieving one or more predetermined responses corresponding to the interpretation of the electronic message from a repository for automatic delivery to the source.
That's abstract the patent. If you think that vacation meets even that then you're an idiot. And we haven't even started looking at the claims yet.
This is what is wrong with Slashdot.
Re:vacation(1) released in 1983 (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Can you be more specific? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you be more specific on exactly where he is an "idiot"?
So far, so good.
Yes.
Yes. If recipient == X then do Y.
Not only "classifying" but also responding.
Seems like he was right and you were wrong.
Parent
WOW! (Score:5, Funny)
As opposed have PEOPLE sort ELECTRONIC data?
Seriously, I'm glad to see someone hop on this in such a timely manner, because if Polaris IP doesn't nip this in the bud now, automated email response could become widespread in no time!!
jesus - sendmail IS prior art / concept (Score:3, Informative)
sendmail looks up in it's address base and either a) forwards to appropriate mailbox or b) replies with undeliverable.
further details within the rule base may determine whether additional copies need to be forwarded to other mailboxes, or further responses are necessary.
integration with things like spamlists, virus scanners all add to the *automated* handling of e-mail based on rules.
just because they are adding additional automation to the last leg in the e-mail journey doesn't mean that the mail was already processed, scanned, had rules applied and copies made/forwarded by the server before the client ever saw the message.
Obvious patent - apply server rule processing to email client.... BFD.
Re: (Score:2)
Only thing is that they say "the electronic message 11 may take on a variety of data formats including digital formats, voice data, dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones, or the like"
Procmail (Score:4, Interesting)
This file contains a summary of changes made in various versions of procmail up to and including the current release. It is derived from the HISTORY file that is included in source distributions. For information on downloading the current release please see the Procmail homepage.
Only the last entry is complete, the others might have been condensed.
1990/12/07: v1.00
1990/12/12: v1.01
1991/02/04: v1.02
1991/02/13: v1.10
1991/02/21: v1.20
1991/02/22: v1.21
1991/03/01: v1.30
1991/03/15: v1.35
Usually patents that seem stupid aren't quite ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that *well* before procmail there were products and academic papers covering exactly this subject matter in detail. How a patent like this ever passes the laugh test, I don't know.
Re:Usually patents that seem stupid aren't quite . (Score:3, Interesting)
Others precede it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Others precede it (Score:5, Informative)
99% of the people who post a reply have never filed a patent in their life. Yes, they're idiots.
The problem with idiots is that they are usually too stupid to recognise their own idiocy.
In my experience it is idiots that file patents believing their trivial, worthless idea actually merits one. Smart people are more likely to realise that what while they may have been pretty clever coming up with a particular thing, that doesn't mean it's so innovative it merits the protection of a statutory monopoly, and are less likely (for a variety of social reasons that I am sure are beyond you) to pretend otherwise in order to cheat the system.
Based on the abstract, LISTSERV would seem to be prior art. As I recall LISTSERV could indeed respond to commands in the content of messages, forwarding messages lacking valid commands to the list operator. Even if LISTSERV and Majordomo do not implement all of the claims, they would certainly provide part of the evidentiary basis for invalidating the patent on grounds of obviousness.
Going through the claim, many of the claims are obviously just plain silly. Take as an example claim 5 which is for "The method of claim 4, wherein the sub-categories include product service subject matter and product sales subject matter". That adds nothing even remotely capable of being described as an inventive step to claim 4 and so it necessarily stands or falls together with claim 4.
Even if there is some implementation that is much more involved and complex than the descriptions in the patent, the patent has to be interpreted standing alone, not in the context of an external implementation, and in that context the stuff that's there involves no innovation, let alone invention, and lacks anything even slightly complex.
I am not going to go through all 66 claims since the first 20 or so are so silly as to make it not worth my time examining all of them in detail. Suffice it to say, Amy Rice and Julie Hsu (the "inventors") are indeed idiots if they think there's anything meriting a patent here.
Parent
Majordomo (Score:5, Informative)
Clearly their intent is an "Ask Jeeves" type service that is email based. You send a support query to an email address and the server tries to guess at what canned FAQ is most appropriate and sends it.
--Perry
Re: (Score:2)
Unbelievable (Score:2)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
2. award patents with the magic 8 ball procedure (pat. pend.)
3. nobody fires you for that!
4. profit!!!
5. ??? (these are coming from those being sued for infringement)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Clearly they aren't using a magic 8 ball. The magic 8 ball sometimes says no.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
That thing was way ahead of its time.
Parent
Related Arcitles (Score:5, Funny)
Who'da thunk it... Betrayed by one of our own...
Any differentiated automated response? (Score:2)
Dueling Automated Email Replies in 1995 (Score:5, Funny)
WHO? (Score:2)
Who the hell would settle something like this with such a well established history of "prior art"?
Re:WHO? (Score:5, Informative)
Someone who, when they appeared ready to fight it, was offered a settlement and patent license for a very nominal sum. Easier and cheaper to pay even a few hundred bucks and walk away than pay for lawyers and months of a lawsuit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But doesn't that mark you as an easy target?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And that's not only in patent cases. As the CEO of a small (6-person) German company, all my contracts are strictly with German subsidiaries of US companies, never with the mother company itself. The financial risk is simply too high, no project is worth that.
Those who forget history... (Score:3, Insightful)
To puff and look important and to say:--
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
This is almost as stupid as one click shopping. (Score:3, Insightful)
Software Patents are acts of fraud against the consumer and users.
http://threeseas.net/abstraction_physics.html [threeseas.net]
I'm against the death penalty but.... (Score:5, Funny)
And this is Texas after all....
stop settling with patent trolls (Score:3, Insightful)
IETF doing this in 1984? (Score:3, Informative)
I can't recall the exact year, but it was around 1984 (scary, eh?). The DECsystem-2060 system running TOPS-20 at The Ohio State University Computer Science Department was connected via a network I believe was CSNET. While using that system I learned of a facility to obtain RFC documents that described things like the format of email headers ... by sending email to a specific email address. It would them email the document back. I received over 20 some RFCs that way. They came back within a couple minutes, so I doubt they had someone just sitting there answering it. I suspect this was an early IETF or ARPA facility. Maybe they have some documentation that still remains about this. Maybe it's in an RFC itself. I'll have to Google for more of this.
Not just listserv, majordomo, and vacation (Score:4, Informative)
prev. art: Debian Bugs tracking system (Score:3, Interesting)
Listserv [lsoft.com] might also apply, if they had advanced mailinglist management in the beginning.
Re:I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, I'm on a vacation to Italy,
I might respond to your post during the week if I get a chance.
Otherwise I will respond over the weekend.
Good luck,
Parent
Polaris? Can't be patent troll (Score:2)
Developing products on someone else's insight ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Normally, conventional practices and ethics dictate that when you make money by thinking, you use some kind of original thought.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)