Microsoft's iPhoney patent is phoney

Microsoft's new iPhone patent is probably a piece of pure excrement, once you subtract out all of the nonsense in claim 1 and focus on the last two clauses that might be an invention, except for the fact that the patent ignores tons of prior art. The Microsoft patent is: United States Patent 7,225,409 Graphical user interface for a screen telephone (filed August 1999, based on August 1998 provisional) and the only possible "innovation" (someone can explain that to a company that thinks innovation is putting a touch tablet in a coffee table) are the last two clauses of claim 1: and wherein execution of the one or more methods of the application programming interface is responsive to the input from the application for customizing the customizable visual user interface, wherein the telephony module includes an operator agent for determining a media mode of an incoming call. So Microsoft is proud to have invented a customizable telephony app that switches handlers depending on the type of incoming call. This patent so outraged a discriminating member of the patenting community, that he reviewed the filewrapper, and found out the "innovation" is even less - just the last clause, since the examiner rightfully argued the rest of the claim was anticipated by an earlier patent, U.S. patent 5850433. Pathetically, and as an abuse of the PTO's resources, it took Microsoft 8 (non-final) rejections to get this allowance. Worse, this last clause is invalid in light of yet another patent, 5,493,609, the abstract of which talks about media mode switching for incoming calls: A telecommunication system provides voice and data communications over a conventional telephone line that can be dynamically switched from voice mode to any of a plurality of data modes (e.g., fax, modem, or VoiceView protocols) during a single conversation. Each station includes a telephone for voice communications and switching means for selectively connecting the telephone to the telephone line in voice mode and disconnecting the telephone while operating in one of the data modes. A modem provides data communications over the telephone line in any of a plurality of data modes. Voice is the default mode of operation. Prior to switching into a data mode, the originating station first transmits a start signal over the telephone line that includes a mode signal indicating one of the data modes. If a station detects a start signal transmitted by a remote station, a controller directs the switching means and modem to automatically switch from voice mode to the selected data mode in preparation for receiving data from the originating station. The stations also can also query one another to exchange information on their respective capabilities. Now, the switching goes on outside of the conventional telephone, but it is trivial and KSR-like obvious-to-try move the switching into a computer telephony application (for which there is also prior art). So after 8 (non-final) rejections, Microsoft gets a patent claim that with a little more searching can be invalidated. And Microsoft knows this. So why is Microsoft utilizing limited PTO resources pursuing such crap? It is yet another example of Microsoft's lack of interest in patent quality, and makes a mockery of Microsoft's participation in IBM's scam of a prior art project, scam in that both companies could better support patent quality by doing better searches for their own patent applications, instead of abusing the PTO. Both companies lie about their support for patent quality, one reason they are silent on people who lie about their professional experience to become PTO (Deputy) Directors (as if you thought I could resist the sarcasm!)

George Lucas to patent movies and music

Wall Street Journal, page R6, on 18th of June 2007 has an interview with George Lucas, the inventor of the "Star Wars" industrial complex (it is, isn't it?). Here some of his answers, with comments. Lucas: Painting, music, any kind of art form is essentially technological. The most important part is to be able to communicate emotions. That is the key to what we do.

Greg Aharonian would ask: who is more qualified to assess whether the arts are technological, comprising technical effects: a master artist like Lucas, on non-artistic, non-engineering judges and policies makers in the USPTO, UKPO, EPO, and courts? I think Lucas. Maybe some aspects are mostly "non-technological", whatever that means, but then - who cares - LUNDGREN!! Especially if one considers the growing avalanche of papers in science and engineering journals on the production of the arts. "Painting, music, any kind of art form is essentially technological." It is - Lucas is right. And technology is subject to the patent system.

Lucas: I liken digital technology to going from fresco to oil painting. If you are doing a fresco, you needed about at least two dozen people. It was done by candlelight, and it was very hard to do. The fact that they can make it consistent over a long time is a marvel. But if you use oil paints, you can go outside. You can see the light play on your subject, which completely revolutionized art [a technology revolution]. At the same time, if you don't like what you're doing, you can paint right over it and start over. You can't do that with frescoes.

With film, that's what happened. It used to be [with] film, you went out and shot it, whatever you got was what you got. Sometimes people would sit out there for days and days and days trying to get it right because they knew they only had one shot at it and they weren't gong to be able to come back.

With digital technology, we can go in and shoot it, the way would an oil painting. Then you can go back to your studio and touch it up. You can completely manipulate it. It's much more like a painting than it is like photography.

It's also more like a circuit diagram, a computer program, architectural design - you can completely manipulate it. And you can have libraries of stock components, which when functionally combined can be automatically optimized. Etc., etc., etc. - Lucas is talking about engineered production - technology, which everywhere else is protected with patents.

Q: "Jurassic Park" was shot entirely digitally? LUCAS: No, but the dinosaurs were digital. Compared to stop motion, which is what we did before, they [the digital versions] were so real looking that that was the breakthrough. A technological breakthrough. LUCAS: We could actually create real things digitally that would fool anybody. [Then] I said I want to shoot digitally. I can cut digitally. I can do the effects digitally. I want to work the whole way digitally.

That is, the whole way technologically. And new articles of manufacture are patentable.

Patenting Ergonomically

I have been thinking about remodeling for years. I have admired Brinks Hofer Gilson et al.'s classic American style, which predisposed me to stay and chat with their paralegals and have some of their own coffee brew of their own invention. Then, at a patent boutique, I saw a great Eurostyle interior. I loved it for being so light and functional, however, it made me daydream of Frankfurt and Shprockets.

Then I found at Spacify exactly what I have been looking for. The solution is OFFICE FURNITURE. Just the right look for a creative, personal, yet very professional environment, from boardroom to reception room, my own office, and our coffee lounge. I think this photo captures both decor and furniture style I am looking for:

File cabinets. How about peace of mind through departing from a conventional sheet metal file cabinets? This one is neutral, yet comforting for someone like me, an overachieving, scatterbrained procrastinator who gets gets easily annoyed by having to grab a plain squarish handle and slide a latch just to open a file cabinet. I look at this and imagine myself working at an ad firm, not a patent mill.

I think this chair is right for the reception area and our lounge as well.

Haven't we been talking about Buster Bob? They call it a Buster Bobo! What a coincidence! It goes well with the black espresso machine we ordered from Austria:

Our chief paralegal has been moonlighting as an interior decorator.