Intellectual property Toolkit
Story: Microsoft frowned at for smiley patent
Posted by: Anonymous (Sunday 24 July 2005, 11:47 AM)
A true technical innovation (not)
At first I thought, Microsoft had invented al algorithm to convert a Bitmap into a Smiley of the reduced form that we are used to know. That would have been a limited innovation, even though I am strictly against allowing to patent that, for many other reasons.
Then I realized that something like that (even though not generating reduced smiley) already exists since years. It's called aalib and can even play DVDs on a large console! (That's the "DOS command prompt" for the Windows people.) See http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/gallery/. And that's even open-source, and has not been patented.
Then I read the summary of the Microsoft patent in the original and saw that it's simply about sending the *bitmap* itself and the text is primarily a placeholder. If you read further, you see that it's not a text representation of the smiley, the text is rather just an ID and a URL! Thank you, but we could do that with AIM (HTML msg with img alt="..." title="..." id="..." src="...") and other systems. And with email, that was possible before "IM" even existed. The embedding of images in messages is truely nothing new.
Basically, this is just am img-tag and the publication of small PNGs.
Full Talkback thread
Story: Microsoft frowned at for smiley patent
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That language parsing patent's only technical aspe... Trevor Simms -
Perhaps Microsoft should apply for copyright... Dave Stover -
Microsoft did think the internet would grow to wha... robobright
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This is the kind of shit I want to keep out of Eur... Samuel,UK
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Well said, Samuel,UK
wasn't there somthing ab... JhonSmith
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Microsoft is dead. Software Patents are dead. The... Still Balates
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Screw Microsoft. Actions like these are why the te... Joey A.
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I wondered how this differed from what a lot of op... Richard
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The item you link to is a patent application, not... Anonymous
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What's next? Microsoft attempts to patent fonts an... Last Angelman
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that sort of shit gives me a microsofton! kapster
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I think Microsoft is lacking talent, thats why the... Anonymous
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A true technical innovation (not)
At first I thoug... Anonymous -
PRIOR ART -- what Microsoft is patenting has alrea... Randolf Richardson
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If microsolf truly does patent this, I hope that a... Anonymous
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... for me just another very good reason to defina... Lothar Velling
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Dont the patents office have some form of prosecut... Tony
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Is it April 1 ? John Sims
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Huh, say what? If a technique has been used "widel... Michiel NL
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Hey, I think I'll just patent the alphabet and mak... Anonymous
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Of course as usual the article writer and anti-M$... Jason M. Knight
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The primary claim for the patent application... Ingrid Marson
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The first claim must be read as a whole.... Tom Olszewski -
The problem is the US patent laws. They are simply... Beast
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A couple of points regarding the article post... Lonnie E. Holder
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Another commentor stated that pharmaceutical... Lonnie E. Holder
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I agree with Microsoft !!!! Apple sucks Anonymous
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Microsoft can patent smilies? Oh, I forgot. Micros... Kinney
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I think it's crazy, trying to own everything. Inte... Anonymous
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so patent for using FONTS will be next...
after al... Dustie
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Wtf, those guys are gonna make us change the names... Adam
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This has been up for consideration for a year and... Nik
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Gee. I can include whatever image in whatever mes... Arthur B.
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hahahahahahahhahahahahaahahaha omg...
this will in... d34d
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One of my forefathers invented the kiss and fart.... Ken Davies
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SH**! I just realised that Microsoft may be able t... Ken Davies
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Can't blame them for doing something that the gove... Peter Ritchie
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It seems that people are continuing to miss t... Lonnie E. Holder
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Microsoft,
please please don't ty this.
Yahoo use... Anonymous
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Well back in 1968 I did create a 'Smiley Face' bad... Chris Dunne
