From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 14:44:41 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA09115; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:39:05 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:39:05 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508211839.OAA09115@www19.w3.org> Message-Id: <199508211835.LAA27893@netcom10.netcom.com> X-Sender: info@boru.eolas.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 11:42:41 -0700 To: www-talk@w3.org From: info@eolas.com (Information) Subject: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT X-Mailer: Content-Length: 3728 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1591 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list ============================================================================ PRESS RELEASE **************** PRESS RELEASE ***************** PRESS RELEASE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- EOLAS ACQUIRES COMMERCIAL RIGHTS TO KEY WORLD WIDE WEB PATENT 8/21/95 CHICAGO: Eolas Technologies Inc. announced today that it has completed a licensing agreement with the University of California for the exclusive rights to a pending patent covering the use of embedded program objects, or "applets," within World Wide Web documents. Also covered is the use of any algorithm which implements dynamic bi-directional communications between Web browsers and external applications. This development will have a major impact on the ability of Internet content providers to exploit the expanding interactive capabilities of the Web to gain advantage in the highly competitive online market. Currently, various combinations of embedded applets and software development APIs (application development interfaces) are major features of Web browsers from Netscape, Spyglass, Microsoft, AOL/Navisoft, NeXT, and Sun Microsystems (especially Sun's new Java language. A quote from the current Forbes ASAP states "Browsers and servers may come and go, but Sun's breakthrough Java language, OR SOMETHING LIKE IT, will be the key to a truly interactive Internet..."). Talks have been going on for several months between Eolas and several of these companies regarding both the licensing of the underlying technology and associated products. The licensed technology was invented in 1993 by a team led by Eolas CEO, Dr. Michael Doyle, a UCSF faculty member and past Director of the university's academic computing center. Prior to joining UCSF, Dr. Doyle was Director of the Biomedical Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was active in the area of scientific informatics and collaborated with several members of National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the birthplace of Mosaic. According to Dr. Doyle,"We recognized early on that the Web could be expanded beyond the limits of plain vanilla HTML document browsing to become an all-encompassing environment for interactive applications. We then developed an enhanced version of the recently-announced NCSA Mosaic program that added technology which enabled Web documents to contain fully-interactive "inline" program objects, called Weblets (by Eolas), which one could manipulate in place using the enhanced Mosaic program." The first Weblet created was an interactive 3D medical visualization application which employed a three-tier distributed object architecture over the Internet to allow a "farm" of powerful remote computers to generate images of internal human anatomy in response to the Mosaic user's interactive commands, all from within Mosaic. This allowed a user with nothing but a low-end networked workstation and the Eolas browser to transparently access supercomputer-level power and interactively look inside an MRI scan of the human body which was embedded within a Web page. The Eolas technology will soon be available for licensing. Information and demonstrations are available at the Eolas World Wide Web home page (http://www.eolas.com). Further information can be obtained by sending email to info@eolas.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eolas(TM) and Weblets(TM) are trademarks of Eolas Technologies Incorporated. Other trademarks mentioned are property of other companies. ============================================================================== From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 15:20:45 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA10160; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:52:55 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:52:55 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508211852.OAA10160@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 11:53:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Simon Spero X-Sender: ses@chivalry To: Information Cc: www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT In-Reply-To: <199508211835.LAA27893@netcom10.netcom.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 607 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1593 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list On Mon, 21 Aug 1995, Information wrote: > > The licensed technology was invented in 1993 by a team led by Eolas CEO, Dr. > Michael Doyle, a UCSF faculty member and past Director of the university's In that case, the patent is worthless. Dynamic exchange of executable code over the internet for use in rendering documents has been addressed many times before. For example, a standard for the exchange of such information was discussed at the spring 1992 meeting of the implementors working group of NISO sub-committee Z39.50 which took place at the Library of Congress in Washington. Sorry Simon From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 16:09:15 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA12906; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:02:49 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:02:49 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212002.QAA12906@www19.w3.org> From: pei@gnn.com Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 12:54:35 -0700 Message-Id: <199508211954.MAA26305@ebay> To: www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Content-Length: 921 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1599 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list > 8/21/95 CHICAGO: Eolas Technologies Inc. announced today that it has > completed a licensing agreement with the University of California for the > exclusive rights to a pending patent covering the use of embedded program > objects, or "applets," within World Wide Web documents. > > Also covered is the use of any algorithm which implements dynamic > bi-directional communications between Web browsers and external applications. >[....] I sincerely hope this patent isn't going to stick, for the good of the web as a whole... And for the record, I just want to point out that the ``technology which enabled Web documents to contain fully-interactive "inline" program objects'' was existing in ViolaWWW and was *released* to the public, and in full source code form, even back in 1993... Actual conceptualization and existence occured before '93. -Pei pei@gnn.com http://ebay.gnn.com/people/pei/home.html From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 17:03:32 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id QAA14718; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:50:38 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:50:38 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212050.QAA14718@www19.w3.org> Message-Id: <199508212047.NAA10516@netcom4.netcom.com> X-Sender: mddoyle@netcom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 13:54:36 -0700 To: Simon Spero , www-talk@w3.org From: miked@eolas.com (Mike Doyle) Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT X-Mailer: Content-Length: 1022 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1604 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list You are interpreting the press release too broadly. >On Mon, 21 Aug 1995, Information wrote: > >> >> The licensed technology was invented in 1993 by a team led by Eolas CEO, Dr. >> Michael Doyle, a UCSF faculty member and past Director of the university's > >In that case, the patent is worthless. Dynamic exchange of executable >code over the internet for use in rendering documents has been addressed >many times before. For example, a standard for the exchange of such >information was discussed at the spring 1992 meeting of the implementors >working group of NISO sub-committee Z39.50 which took place at the >Library of Congress in Washington. > >Sorry > >Simon > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael D. Doyle, Ph.D. http://www.eolas.com Chairman and CEO voice:312/337-8748 Eolas Technologies Incorporated fax: 312/337-8743 -------------------------------------------------------------------- From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 17:09:15 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA15326; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:00:54 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:00:54 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212100.RAA15326@www19.w3.org> Message-Id: <199508212057.NAA11996@netcom4.netcom.com> X-Sender: mddoyle@netcom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:05:00 -0700 To: burchard@fs.CS.Princeton.EDU, www-talk@w3.org From: miked@eolas.com (Mike Doyle) Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT X-Mailer: Content-Length: 2186 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1605 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list You'll have to find better prior art than those. Pei and I had a lengthy discussion on the timing of his Viola work on the VRML list last fall. He then admitted that he had neither published nor released a version of Viola supporting inline apps before the Eolas demonstration at the Bay Area SIGWEB meeting in 1993. As for the comment concerning the Z39.50 standards committee meeting, our claims relate specifically to embedded interactive program objects in World Wide Web documents, not just downloading executable code for general document rendering. >Can anyone here advise on the procedure for forwarding >counterevidence against a pending patent (like Pei's and Simon's >below) to the right people at the US Patent and Trademark Office? > > >Pei Wei writes: >> And for the record, I just want to point out that the >> ``technology which enabled Web documents to contain >> fully-interactive "inline" program objects'' >> was existing in ViolaWWW and was *released* to the >> public, and in full source code form, even back in 1993... >> Actual conceptualization and existence occured before '93. > >Simon Spero writes: >> In that case, the patent is worthless. Dynamic exchange >> of executable code over the internet for use in rendering >> documents has been addressed many times before. For >> example, a standard for the exchange of such information >> was discussed at the spring 1992 meeting of the >> implementors working group of NISO sub-committee >> Z39.50 which took place at the Library of Congress in >> Washington. > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >Paul Burchard >``I'm still learning how to count backwards from infinity...'' >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael D. Doyle, Ph.D. http://www.eolas.com Chairman and CEO voice:312/337-8748 Eolas Technologies Incorporated fax: 312/337-8743 -------------------------------------------------------------------- From kgross@centra.net Mon Aug 21 17:35:34 1995 Received: from popol-vuh (popol-vuh.centra.net [199.232.79.6]) by centra.centra.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA15829; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:35:29 -0400 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:35:29 -0400 Message-Id: <199508212135.RAA15829@centra.centra.net> X-Sender: kgross@centra.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: burchard@fs.CS.Princeton.EDU, www-talk@w3.org From: Kevin Gross Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Cc: www-vrml list At 04:43 PM 8/21/95 -0400, Paul Burchard wrote: >Can anyone here advise on the procedure for forwarding >counterevidence against a pending patent (like Pei's and Simon's >below) to the right people at the US Patent and Trademark Office? Not strictly necessary. You may forward any such prior art to the people or company who have filed the patent application. They are required to bring it to the attention of the PTO. Kevin Gross Centra From terry@ora.com Mon Aug 21 17:44:45 1995 Received: (from terry@localhost) by dmg.west.ora.com (8.6.11/8.6.11) id OAA17335; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:42:23 -0700 From: "Terry Allen" Message-Id: <9508211442.ZM17333@dmg.west.ora.com> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:42:23 -0700 In-Reply-To: miked@eolas.com (Mike Doyle) "Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT" (Aug 21, 2:05pm) References: <199508212057.NAA11996@netcom4.netcom.com> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.1 10apr95) To: miked@eolas.com (Mike Doyle), burchard@fs.CS.Princeton.EDU, www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >As for the comment concerning the Z39.50 standards committee meeting, our claims relate specifically to embedded interactive program objects in World Wide Web documents, not just downloading executable code for general document rendering. How is that more than just crossing downloadable executable code with IMG? Regards, -- Terry Allen (terry@ora.com) O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Editor, Digital Media Group 101 Morris St. Sebastopol, Calif., 95472 A Davenport Group sponsor. For information on the Davenport Group see ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/davenport/README.html or http://www.ora.com/davenport/README.html Current HTML 2.0 spec: ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-html-spec-05.txt From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 17:57:38 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA17354; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:49:44 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:49:44 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212149.RAA17354@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:48:43 +0800 From: jag@scndprsn.eng.sun.com (James Gosling) Message-Id: <9508212148.AA18759@norquay.Eng.Sun.COM> To: info@eolas.com, ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Cc: www-talk@w3.org X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Content-Length: 1137 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1610 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list > > The licensed technology was invented in 1993 by a team led by Eolas CEO, Dr. > > Michael Doyle, a UCSF faculty member and past Director of the university's > > In that case, the patent is worthless. Dynamic exchange of executable > code over the internet for use in rendering documents has been addressed > many times before. For example, a standard for the exchange of such > information was discussed at the spring 1992 meeting of the implementors > working group of NISO sub-committee Z39.50 which took place at the > Library of Congress in Washington. There's also Java which was started in 1990 and first demo'd in 1991; the NeWS window system which transmitted executable application code starting in 1985; PostScript was really dynamic exchange of executable code for rendering documents, and it was done in 1980. Based of course on ideas from Interpress where executable code for rendering documents was being transmitted in the late 70s. Then there was a lisp system, whose name a forget, which ran on Xerox's PDP-10 clones (MAXC) and could dynamically download ui's/behaviour/graphics to Alto's in the early 70s. From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 18:01:53 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id RAA17810; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:54:18 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:54:18 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212154.RAA17810@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:50:20 -0400 Message-Id: <199508212150.RAA15447@mail.fh.rbus> X-Sender: cwerner@fh.rbus X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 2.1.1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: www-talk@w3.org From: "Christopher L. Werner" Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Content-Length: 1092 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1611 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list There was a lot of research done on bi-directional Hypertext communication by Ted Nelson and the Xanadu project. The 'transclusion' scheme which they created to allow document access tracking and billing for copyright purposes seems to be an imbedded application judging by it's description. Wired June 1995 (3.06) carried an article on it. These individuals, who worked in the 70's and 80's hopefully filed for patents on some of their ideas. The 'Weblet' which Eolas claims patent rights to seems quite similiar to the concepts and ideas of this group of early developers. The www.wired.com site gives phone numbers of what's left of the Xanadu project - anyone want to check on patents with them? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Opinions expressed are mine and not those of my employer. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Christopher L. Werner Robert Bosch Corporation System Engineer 38000 Hills Tech Dr. (810)553-1389 Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3417 From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 19:19:48 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA19939; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:12:12 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:12:12 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212312.TAA19939@www19.w3.org> Message-Id: <9508212311.AA19104@www10.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 19:00:00 EDT From: Rich Wiggins Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT To: www-talk@w3.org In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:36:16 -0400 Content-Length: 999 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1615 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list >Not strictly necessary. You may forward any such prior art to the >people or company who have filed the patent application. They are >required to bring it to the attention of the PTO. > >Kevin Gross >Centra Wow! Not being an attorney, I'm wondering what the definitions are of terms like "World-Wide Web" and "interactive" and "bi-directional communications between browser and external application". At the first Internet Gopher workshop, held in August 1992, I recall we had a lot of discussion of scripting -- Gopher client downloads an application which interacts with the user. As I recall, Iowa had done some experimentation with that. The idea of scripting seemed pretty obvious to us at the time; we all had concerns about security, of course. But seems to me we were talking about *downloadable scripts* that would be *executed externally from the Gopher browser*; and certainly we had *interactive applications* in mind. Now if Gopher is a subset or a part of the Web.... /rich From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 19:27:10 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA20165; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:19:29 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:19:29 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212319.TAA20165@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:09:46 -0700 From: pei@gnn.com (Pei Wei) Message-Id: <199508212309.QAA22145@ebay> To: miked@eolas.com Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Cc: www-talk@w3.org Content-Length: 2032 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1616 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list miked@eolas.com (Mike Doyle) wrote: > Pei, > We've had this discussion before (last September, remember?). You admitted > then that you did NOT release or publish anything like this before the Eolas > demonstrations. Please carefully re-read my letter to you... I said Viola was demonstrated in smaller settings, but before your demo. The applets stuff was demo'ed to whomever wanted to see it and had visited our office at O'Reilly & Associates (where I worked at the time). This is what I wrote on the VRML list: > Not that I wish to content on the point of simply who's first :) > But, let's see... (Wish I had kept better records and wrote papers > about things as they happened!) > > Definitely by May 8, 1993 we had demonstrated that plotting demo > (the very one shown in the viola paper) to visitors from a certain > computer manufacturer... This demo was memorable because someone and I > at ORA had lost sleep the night before the meeting, in order to cook up > that particular plotting demo :) We had to show something cool. That date (May 93), at least, predates your demo if I'm not mistaken. Then around August 93, it was shown to a bunch of attendees at the first Web Conference in Cambridge. So, it was shown, just not with lots of publicity and noise. I'm sure I could find more evidence if I spent/waste the time of digging thru archives. If you're talking about any display code transferred over network, look at a number of predating systems, including say net-transmitted postscript (NeWS). For transmitted interactive applications, even the early Viola (started around 88, relased 1991) had a viola-app net transfer tool (the idea is to have something like a Hypercard like environment on the scale of the net). If you're talking about interactive apps *specifically* on the web, ie applets in-lined into HTML documents etc, and with bi-directional communications, then look at ViolaWWW as it existed around late '92 early '93. -Pei pei@gnn.com http://ebay.gnn.com/people/pei/home.html From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 19:49:41 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id TAA20535; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:42:08 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:42:08 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508212342.TAA20535@www19.w3.org> From: solman@mit.edu Message-Id: <9508212341.AA03504@ua.MIT.EDU> To: miked@eolas.com (Mike Doyle) Cc: www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 21 Aug 1995 13:14:59 PDT." <199508212007.NAA14807@netcom10.netcom.com> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:41:25 EDT Content-Length: 587 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1617 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list Mike said to Pei, |> We've had this discussion before (last September, remember?). You |> admitted then that you did NOT release or publish anything like this |> before the Eolas demonstrations. Mike, for your information and education, it is the date of _invention_ that relevant in the United States. The date of publication is only relevant if you filed more than one year latter (in which case the patent is also invalid). [Which is not to imply that there is not other prior art or that EOLAS has done anything sufficiently novel to be called an invention.] Jason W. Solinsky From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 20:59:49 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id UAA00379; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 20:50:42 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 20:50:42 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220050.UAA00379@www19.w3.org> To: ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu Cc: info@eolas.com, www-talk@w3.org In-Reply-To: Simon Spero's message of Mon, 21 Aug 1995 11:53:45 -0700 Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT From: Larry Masinter Fake-Sender: masinter@parc.xerox.com Message-Id: <95Aug21.174910pdt.2763@golden.parc.xerox.com> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:48:59 PDT Content-Length: 324 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1619 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list Dynamic exchange of embedded executable code was part of CUSP (Customer Programming) in Xerox Star and the Interlisp-D mail system (TEdit had 'Image Objects' which could encode arbitrary computation.) I'm not sure when CUSP for Star was released, but Interlisp-D embedded image objects were certainly there by the mid-80s. From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 21:24:35 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA01401; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:15:35 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:15:35 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220115.VAA01401@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:14:53 +0059 (EDT) From: Steve H Rose Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT To: www-talk@w3.org In-Reply-To: <9508212043.AA04202@cs> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1486 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1622 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list The general number I have for patent info is (703) 308-HELP Afraid I don't have anything more specific. Yours, Steve Habib Rose On Mon, 21 Aug 1995, Paul Burchard wrote: > Can anyone here advise on the procedure for forwarding > counterevidence against a pending patent (like Pei's and Simon's > below) to the right people at the US Patent and Trademark Office? > > > Pei Wei writes: > > And for the record, I just want to point out that the > > ``technology which enabled Web documents to contain > > fully-interactive "inline" program objects'' > > was existing in ViolaWWW and was *released* to the > > public, and in full source code form, even back in 1993... > > Actual conceptualization and existence occured before '93. > > Simon Spero writes: > > In that case, the patent is worthless. Dynamic exchange > > of executable code over the internet for use in rendering > > documents has been addressed many times before. For > > example, a standard for the exchange of such information > > was discussed at the spring 1992 meeting of the > > implementors working group of NISO sub-committee > > Z39.50 which took place at the Library of Congress in > > Washington. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Paul Burchard > ``I'm still learning how to count backwards from infinity...'' > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 21:37:55 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA02050; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:31:41 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:31:41 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220131.VAA02050@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 18:30:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Karl Auerbach To: James Gosling Cc: info@eolas.com, ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu, www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT In-Reply-To: <9508212148.AA18759@norquay.Eng.Sun.COM> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1016 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1624 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list > There's also Java which was started in 1990 and first demo'd in 1991; > the NeWS window system which transmitted executable application code > starting in 1985; PostScript was really dynamic exchange of executable > code for rendering documents, and it was done in 1980. Based of course > on ideas from Interpress where executable code for rendering documents > was being transmitted in the late 70s. Then there was a lisp system, > whose name a forget, which ran on Xerox's PDP-10 clones (MAXC) and > could dynamically download ui's/behaviour/graphics to Alto's in the > early 70s. And in the network management area, SMARTS (Yemini/Columbia University) has been using "management by delegation". Hewlett Packard has been moving code about and I've been having lots of open discussions (since the late '80s) about moving Scheme programs about. Then looking further back, we have the mid 70's Locus systems (UCLA and Locus Corporation) and I believe work on the UC Irvine DCS in the late '60s. --karl-- From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 22:02:38 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA03168; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:57:34 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:57:34 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220157.VAA03168@www19.w3.org> X-Sender: narnett@hawaii.verity.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 18:55:50 -0700 To: Steve H Rose , pei@gnn.com From: narnett@verity.com (Nick Arnett) Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Cc: www-talk@w3.org Content-Length: 2099 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1626 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list At 1:06 PM 8/21/95, Steve H Rose wrote: >Ok, folks, since I'm not a lawyer, I feel free to shoot my mouth off on a >subject I know very little about :-) > >>From my limited understanding, a patent is a legal protection over a very >specific invention. Actually, a primary purpose (if not *the* primary one) of patent law is to assure that all inventions eventually become public domain. In fact, one of the strongest arguments against software patents is that the patent term is so long that most are worthless by the time they become public domain. If you want to keep your idea forever, you make it a trade secret -- e.g., if the formula for Coca-Cola were patented, we'd all have it now. >As far as I know (I could be wrong), you can't >patent an idea. You're probably thinking of copyright. You can't copyright ideas; copyright protects expression only. Patents *do* cover ideas. >So, the patent, if granted, could cover a specific >approach to embedding program objects, but could not prohibit someone >else from using a different technology to do the same kind of thing. That's *always* true, subject to a court's interpretation... ;-) I'm not a lawyer, but I follow intellectual property issues closely and edited and published a book on the subject. I'm somewhat familiar with the subject of the patent; we even interviewed one of its inventors for a Web technical lead position at Verity, about a year ago. I'm not particularly worried about the impact it would have on things like Java and such. I believe that this invention was shopped around to various companies. One might read a bit into the fact that in the end, it wasn't acquired by a third party but by a company led by the inventor. Of course, this might mean either that it's so valuable that no one else could afford it... or it could mean that no one else thought it was worth acquiring. No one on the list has made a comparison to emacs yet! That's the first thing brought up by most engineers I talked to about this a year ago. Nick P.S. The news that Verifone is acquiring EIT is much more interesting! From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 22:15:10 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id WAA03651; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 22:10:06 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 22:10:06 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220210.WAA03651@www19.w3.org> Message-Id: <199508220209.TAA20093@dns.medio.com> To: "www-talk@w3.org" Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 19:00:23 -0800 From: Bob Wyman X-Mailer: E-Mail Connection v2.5.03 Content-Length: 3097 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1627 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list -- [ From: Bob Wyman * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- Why do people go for these patents? More prior art: (but older) I'll write more than necessary just to make sure people cool their jets when applying for patents... At Digital in Valbonne, France, we in the CASEE group built and demonstrated to a number of customers (including CERN....) a system almost identical to the WWW in 1986 and 1987. The system, first called "Memex" and later "Sunshine" supported links to embedded procedural objects from documents in a variety of formats that were retrieved over DECnet. In fact, from a document, you could link to anything that was runnable on a VMS machine. The documents we typically demonstrated related to software development. We often demonstrated a "page" of code which contained embedded links that would bring up Digital's source code analyzer in a second window in the same browser -- links from a requirements document to the code which implemented the requirement. Links to and from images, with image maps (hotspots), etc. were also supported. This Memex system had almost the same concept of URL as is used in the WWW today. This was important to us in being able to do the embedding discussed above. Like a URL, the name of a thing started by specifing its processor (program to run) and that was followed by opaque strings which were processor specific. So, the "URL" for a VaxNotes entry looked something like this: "notes atfab::sys$notes:worldwide.not:42.1" for the first reply to the 42nd note in the worldwide.not notesfile... The first version of Memex was written as a combination of BLISS code and TPU macros. One of the processor types we supported was, in fact, TPU code. Thus, it was possible to link to a page which was actually TPU code that would get interpretted and you could interact with (i.e. what JAVA does today). Whatever we did with Memex, Sunshine, etc. it should also be noted that the folk at MCC were working on Plaintext at about the same time (mid to late 80's). Although their system was much more limited in function than our work in Valbonne (we supported wide area networks, for example, -- they didn't) The MCC effort demonstrated most of the interesting hypertext/media concepts . What wasn't built in code was described in reports -- and those reports made most of what has followed "obvious to one practiced in the art." Independent of "web-like stuff," Digital was building "compound documents" back in 81 or so that would embed procedural objects inside normal documents . This was much like OLE on Windows today. ie: you would have a text document that had a "figure" that was actually a live spreadsheet. (I first saw this at Digital as part of the OFIS project. Anton Chernof wrote the fist serious demo of it I think -- using code from his "Digicalc", a Visicalc ripoff.) This compound document stuff later got formalized into various things like CDA, etc. Anyway, anytime you used something like Memex to link to one of these compound documents, you were doing what the EOLAS patents seems to claim they invented... Rubbish... bob wyman From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 23:12:05 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA04851; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 23:06:50 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 23:06:50 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220306.XAA04851@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 20:08:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Simon Spero X-Sender: ses@chivalry To: Pei Wei Cc: miked@eolas.com, www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT In-Reply-To: <199508212309.QAA22145@ebay> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 347 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1628 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list On Mon, 21 Aug 1995, Pei Wei wrote: > Then around August 93, it was shown to a bunch of attendees at the > first Web Conference in Cambridge. So, it was shown, just not with > lots of publicity and noise. World Wide Web Wizards WOrkshop was at the ORA offices in Cambridge starting July 28th (I remember, cos my birthday was the 27th) Simon From www-talk-request@w3.org Tue Aug 22 00:18:58 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA06871; Tue, 22 Aug 1995 00:13:59 -0400 Resent-Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 00:13:59 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220413.AAA06871@www19.w3.org> Message-Id: <01BA700A.81A0E8A0@roadnode> From: "David J. Cardinal" To: Bob Wyman , "'Peter Deutsch'" , "www-talk@w3.org" Subject: RE: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:10:10 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 942 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1632 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list ---------- From: Peter Deutsch[SMTP:peterd@bunyip.com] Sent: Monday, August 21, 1995 8:16 PM To: Bob Wyman; www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILESTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT And should we follow up to make sure they did? When a similar situation arose, we were told that sending the relevant information to the filing firm via certified mail was the appropriate gesture. Just a thought. I'm not sure "return receipt requested" on www lists counts:-) - peterd -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ...there is reason to hope that the machines will use us kindly, for their existance will be in a great measure dependent on ours; they will rule us with a rod of iron, but they will not eat us... - Samuel Butler, 1872 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From www-talk-request@w3.org Mon Aug 21 21:41:09 1995 Received: by www19.w3.org (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA02368; Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:35:11 -0400 Resent-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 21:35:11 -0400 Resent-Message-Id: <199508220135.VAA02368@www19.w3.org> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 18:46:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Franz X-Sender: snowhare@ns.Viet.NET To: www-talk@w3.org Subject: Re: Weblet patent In-Reply-To: <199508220022.RAA03728@netcom12.netcom.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 1431 Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1625 X-Loop: www-talk@w3.org Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Resent-Sender: www-talk-request@w3.org Precedence: list On Mon, 21 Aug 1995, Mike Doyle wrote: > Please note from our Web site that, in almost all cases, Eolas' > Weblet-related technologies will be licensed free of charge for > noncommercial use. You can bet your sweet bippy they will be - invalidated patents collect no royalties. In the last few dozen messages several people have pointed out several examples of prior art (what is a postscript file if not an applet?), overly vague terminology (just *exactly* what is a 'world wide web document'?) that could imply that the patent would be impermissibly broad, and the fact that it is an obvious invention well discussed in the field long before your patent (public discussion of the idea of downloading programs dates back to AT LEAST May 1992: Date: Thu, 21 May 92 14:21:41 GMT+0200 From: timbl (Tim Berners-Lee) Message-id: <9205211221.AA10960@ nxoc01.cern.ch > To: "(Arnold Bloemer)" Subject: Program Links in WWW Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch ) Tell you what - how about you put up a copy of the patent application somewhere where we can actually read it - and then we can see if we really are are 'reading too much' into your press release. Betcha we aren't. Unless your patent application is *MUCH* narrower than it appears so far - it has NO chance of being finally upheld. -- Benjamin Franz From gtn@ebt.com Tue Aug 29 11:12:32 1995 Received: from ebt-inc.ebt.com (ebt-inc.ebt.com [192.111.115.1]) by fs.CS.Princeton.EDU (8.6.12/8.6.9) with ESMTP id LAA26383 for ; Tue, 29 Aug 1995 11:12:21 -0400 Received: (from gtn@localhost) by ebt-inc.ebt.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id LAA11641; Tue, 29 Aug 1995 11:15:16 -0400 Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 11:15:16 -0400 From: Gavin Nicol Message-Id: <199508291515.LAA11641@ebt-inc.ebt.com> To: miked@eolas.com CC: burchard@fs.CS.Princeton.EDU, www-talk@w3.org In-reply-to: <199508212057.NAA11996@netcom4.netcom.com> (miked@eolas.com) Subject: Re: EOLAS ACQUIRES MILLSTONE INTERNET SOFTWARE PATENT >As for the comment concerning the Z39.50 standards committee meeting, our >claims relate specifically to embedded interactive program objects in World >Wide Web documents, not just downloading executable code for general >document rendering. I wrote a system more than 5 years ago in which documents were represented in a structured manner, and in which embedded applications were possible. I cannot see how the phrase "WWW" can be the prime differentiator. What is so special about the WWW?