--> From http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040406/1349225.shtml
Microsoft Patents Saving The Name Of A Game
Contributed by Mike on Tuesday, April 6th, 2004 @ 01:49PM
from the yeah,-that's-non-obvious dept.
theodp writes "As if there weren't enough dodgy patents, here's an
excerpt from one granted to Microsoft Tuesday for a 'Method and
apparatus for displaying information regarding stored data in a gaming
system': 'When saving a game, the saved game data may include a
descriptive name of the saved game, a graphic representation of the
state of the game when the game was saved, a description of the game
state when the game was saved, and a date and time that the game was
saved.'" I'm trying to figure out if there's more to this patent, but
the more I read, the worse it seems. How is this possibly
"non-obvious"?
--> Link to Patent http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...mber=6,716,102
--> Link to Patent File History (Shows Two Earlier Rejections) http://pair.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/final/...mber=6,716,102
Jul 20 '05
138  6595 
>>>>> On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 09:06:06 GMT, Bruce Hayden ("Bruce") writes:
Bruce> Remember, UNIX was essentially a port of MULTICS from a
Bruce> mainframe to a minicomputer.
That is not at all accurate: Multics and UNIX have almost nothing in
common; UNIX was a reaction against the directions that Multics went.
They do not share any programs whatsoever; no "porting" was involved.
In article <u8***********@ news.dtpq.com>, cs****@news.dtp q.com (Christopher C. Stacy) wrote: >> On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 09:06:06 GMT, Bruce Hayden ("Bruce") writes:
Bruce> Remember, UNIX was essentially a port of MULTICS from a
Bruce> mainframe to a minicomputer.
That is not at all accurate: Multics and UNIX have almost nothing in
common; UNIX was a reaction against the directions that Multics went.
They do not share any programs whatsoever; no "porting" was involved.
They "ported" some of the concepts. It was not a reaction against it;
the Unix developers were former Multics developers, and when they were
designing their OS for a minicomputer, they adopted some of the ideas
that they had previously developed for Multics. But since the new
system was much on less powerful hardware, they simplified many of them.
--
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
In article <u8***********@ news.dtpq.com>, cs****@news.dtp q.com (Christopher C. Stacy) wrote: >> On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 09:06:06 GMT, Bruce Hayden ("Bruce") writes:
Bruce> Remember, UNIX was essentially a port of MULTICS from a
Bruce> mainframe to a minicomputer.
That is not at all accurate: Multics and UNIX have almost nothing in
common; UNIX was a reaction against the directions that Multics went.
They do not share any programs whatsoever; no "porting" was involved.
They "ported" some of the concepts. It was not a reaction against it;
the Unix developers were former Multics developers, and when they were
designing their OS for a minicomputer, they adopted some of the ideas
that they had previously developed for Multics. But since the new
system was much on less powerful hardware, they simplified many of them.
--
Barry Margolin, ba****@alum.mit .edu
Arlington, MA
Barry Margolin wrote: In article <u8***********@ news.dtpq.com>,
cs****@news.dtp q.com (Christopher C. Stacy) wrote: Bruce> Remember, UNIX was essentially a port of MULTICS from a
Bruce> mainframe to a minicomputer.
That is not at all accurate: Multics and UNIX have almost nothing in
common; UNIX was a reaction against the directions that Multics went.
They do not share any programs whatsoever; no "porting" was involved.
They "ported" some of the concepts. It was not a reaction against it;
the Unix developers were former Multics developers, and when they were
designing their OS for a minicomputer, they adopted some of the ideas
that they had previously developed for Multics. But since the new
system was much on less powerful hardware, they simplified many of them.
I admit to simplifying here. Yes, it wasn't a true port, but
arguably a downgrade of sorts. My Multics background is that
it was my first OS, back in the late 1960's - for less than a
year, and thus, I was never able to appreciate it. And then,
I had the honor of helping finally shut it down, somewhere around
2000. I was the attorney negotiating termination of the last
support agreement for it - the support had been farmed out to
a Canadian company. At the time, I worked for Bull, which had
acquired Honeywell's computer systems, that included both GCOS
and Multics. 20-25 years later, there was still resentment in
the developer ranks about Honeywell's decision to give priority
to GCOS over Multics, and essentially to kill the later. Many
of the Multics features did make it into GCOS (after all, many
of the Multics developers moved over to GCOS), including much
more sophisticated security than probably anywhere else at the
time. This was one thing that did not make it into UNIX.
I also got to dig through the original contracts with the
government so that I could show ownership of both the source
code and the Multics mark, in case it was donated to science.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
Barry Margolin wrote: In article <u8***********@ news.dtpq.com>,
cs****@news.dtp q.com (Christopher C. Stacy) wrote: Bruce> Remember, UNIX was essentially a port of MULTICS from a
Bruce> mainframe to a minicomputer.
That is not at all accurate: Multics and UNIX have almost nothing in
common; UNIX was a reaction against the directions that Multics went.
They do not share any programs whatsoever; no "porting" was involved.
They "ported" some of the concepts. It was not a reaction against it;
the Unix developers were former Multics developers, and when they were
designing their OS for a minicomputer, they adopted some of the ideas
that they had previously developed for Multics. But since the new
system was much on less powerful hardware, they simplified many of them.
I admit to simplifying here. Yes, it wasn't a true port, but
arguably a downgrade of sorts. My Multics background is that
it was my first OS, back in the late 1960's - for less than a
year, and thus, I was never able to appreciate it. And then,
I had the honor of helping finally shut it down, somewhere around
2000. I was the attorney negotiating termination of the last
support agreement for it - the support had been farmed out to
a Canadian company. At the time, I worked for Bull, which had
acquired Honeywell's computer systems, that included both GCOS
and Multics. 20-25 years later, there was still resentment in
the developer ranks about Honeywell's decision to give priority
to GCOS over Multics, and essentially to kill the later. Many
of the Multics features did make it into GCOS (after all, many
of the Multics developers moved over to GCOS), including much
more sophisticated security than probably anywhere else at the
time. This was one thing that did not make it into UNIX.
I also got to dig through the original contracts with the
government so that I could show ownership of both the source
code and the Multics mark, in case it was donated to science.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com
On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 20:32:12 GMT, cs****@news.dtp q.com (Christopher C.
Stacy) wrote: >> On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 09:06:06 GMT, Bruce Hayden ("Bruce") writes: Bruce> Remember, UNIX was essentially a port of MULTICS from a
Bruce> mainframe to a minicomputer.
That is not at all accurate: Multics and UNIX have almost nothing in
common; UNIX was a reaction against the directions that Multics went.
They do not share any programs whatsoever; no "porting" was involved.
A few highlights to support that...
UNIX was first _publicly_ introduced in 1974 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken
Thompson but it was originally created by Ken in 1969. Others joined in
on Ken's idea shortly after.
Bell Labs had an unsettled computing situation in the period 1968-69 and
pulled out of the Multics project since it showed that it was unable to
deliver anything practically usable within a reasonable time frame.
UNIX in 1969 existed as blackboard scribbles, paper notes and general
discussions among those involved in the "project" where most of the
"design" actually came from Ken. He had this idea of "informatio n
filing" as being the most important part of a new OS and as an addition
to that Dennis came up with the idea that it was feasible to look on
input/output devices as units that handled "informatio n filing" too, and
thus could be incorporated in a generic OS filing system mechanism [1].
Also in 1969, Ken wrote a fairly detailed simulation, on Multics, of
this new proposed filing system.
The practical birth date of UNIX is not possible to pin down, but a
basic "UNIX" file system ran on a Digital Equipment PDP-7 in 1970
(practically as the result of the "Space Travel" game that Ken first
wrote on Multics and then ported to a PDP-7 in 1969-70).
Source;
Volume-5/Number-10 of "Microsyste ms", October 1984.
ISSN #0199-7955
Which really went into depth on the history of UNIX.
[1] Believe it or not, even Gary Kildall of CP/M fame, was not unaware
of Bell Lab's developments in the UNIX area and even though most of
Gary's efforts on CP/M had its roots in Digital Equipment software of
the time, he did implement ways to "tweak" CP/M to behave a bit like
UNIX for a single user environment. Why Intel turned down Gary's CP/M
proposal? I don't know. Intel produced their own "ISIS" system for the
"Blue Box" and I have used them both extensively "back in the olden
days" but still think that Gary's CP/M had the better approach as
compared to ISIS.
(I still have an 8085 based "Blue Box" that runs both ISIS-II and
CP/M-80, any one out there that have some unused, not rusted, 8 inch
floppy's to sell? :-)
--
Rex
On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 20:32:12 GMT, cs****@news.dtp q.com (Christopher C.
Stacy) wrote: >> On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 09:06:06 GMT, Bruce Hayden ("Bruce") writes: Bruce> Remember, UNIX was essentially a port of MULTICS from a
Bruce> mainframe to a minicomputer.
That is not at all accurate: Multics and UNIX have almost nothing in
common; UNIX was a reaction against the directions that Multics went.
They do not share any programs whatsoever; no "porting" was involved.
A few highlights to support that...
UNIX was first _publicly_ introduced in 1974 by Dennis Ritchie and Ken
Thompson but it was originally created by Ken in 1969. Others joined in
on Ken's idea shortly after.
Bell Labs had an unsettled computing situation in the period 1968-69 and
pulled out of the Multics project since it showed that it was unable to
deliver anything practically usable within a reasonable time frame.
UNIX in 1969 existed as blackboard scribbles, paper notes and general
discussions among those involved in the "project" where most of the
"design" actually came from Ken. He had this idea of "informatio n
filing" as being the most important part of a new OS and as an addition
to that Dennis came up with the idea that it was feasible to look on
input/output devices as units that handled "informatio n filing" too, and
thus could be incorporated in a generic OS filing system mechanism [1].
Also in 1969, Ken wrote a fairly detailed simulation, on Multics, of
this new proposed filing system.
The practical birth date of UNIX is not possible to pin down, but a
basic "UNIX" file system ran on a Digital Equipment PDP-7 in 1970
(practically as the result of the "Space Travel" game that Ken first
wrote on Multics and then ported to a PDP-7 in 1969-70).
Source;
Volume-5/Number-10 of "Microsyste ms", October 1984.
ISSN #0199-7955
Which really went into depth on the history of UNIX.
[1] Believe it or not, even Gary Kildall of CP/M fame, was not unaware
of Bell Lab's developments in the UNIX area and even though most of
Gary's efforts on CP/M had its roots in Digital Equipment software of
the time, he did implement ways to "tweak" CP/M to behave a bit like
UNIX for a single user environment. Why Intel turned down Gary's CP/M
proposal? I don't know. Intel produced their own "ISIS" system for the
"Blue Box" and I have used them both extensively "back in the olden
days" but still think that Gary's CP/M had the better approach as
compared to ISIS.
(I still have an 8085 based "Blue Box" that runs both ISIS-II and
CP/M-80, any one out there that have some unused, not rusted, 8 inch
floppy's to sell? :-)
--
Rex
"Bruce Hayden" <no************ @ieee.org> wrote: Assuming that a Msft patent lawyer could investigate a patent
and send a dozen letters relating to that patent in a week, then
I figure a cost of about $250 per letter.
Doesn't work that way, at least in my experience in the real world.
A $250 infringement investigation and letter is not going to be
sufficient to overcome being frivilous. Also, why should they
bother? Where is the monetary return to MSFT?
Usually there is no monetary return to Msft, and Msft doesn't
bother. My point was only that Msft's cost for sending a letter
can be as low as $250.
It does occasionally happen that Msft has a business reason for
going after a small company. Not often, but occasionally.
"Bruce Hayden" <no************ @ieee.org> wrote: Assuming that a Msft patent lawyer could investigate a patent
and send a dozen letters relating to that patent in a week, then
I figure a cost of about $250 per letter.
Doesn't work that way, at least in my experience in the real world.
A $250 infringement investigation and letter is not going to be
sufficient to overcome being frivilous. Also, why should they
bother? Where is the monetary return to MSFT?
Usually there is no monetary return to Msft, and Msft doesn't
bother. My point was only that Msft's cost for sending a letter
can be as low as $250.
It does occasionally happen that Msft has a business reason for
going after a small company. Not often, but occasionally.
Jan Roland Eriksson wrote: [1] Believe it or not, even Gary Kildall of CP/M fame, was not unaware
of Bell Lab's developments in the UNIX area and even though most of
Gary's efforts on CP/M had its roots in Digital Equipment software of
the time, he did implement ways to "tweak" CP/M to behave a bit like
UNIX for a single user environment. Why Intel turned down Gary's CP/M
proposal? I don't know. Intel produced their own "ISIS" system for the
"Blue Box" and I have used them both extensively "back in the olden
days" but still think that Gary's CP/M had the better approach as
compared to ISIS.
I was frankly surprised when I found CP/M and DOS looking
a bit like UNIX, first time I used them.
Did Gary make a proposal before the IBM/MSFT fiasco?
What makes interesting reading is Gary's unpublished autobiography.
I was lucky enough to read a copy of it owned by a guy who
was with Gary when he was injured and close when he died.
The autobiography paints an unsurprisingly negative picture
of both IBM and MSFT, with a lot of details that did not make
it into the TV special concerning those events. Hopefully,
some day it will get published....
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 2004 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
My work may be copied in whole or part, with proper attribution,
as long as the copying is not for commercial gain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce E. Hayden bh*****@ieee.or g
Dillon, Colorado bh*****@highdow n.com
Phoenix, Arizona bh*****@copatla w.com This thread has been closed and replies have been disabled. Please start a new discussion. |
