[JDEV] MS Patents IM 'composing' feature

[Peter Saint-Andre]

Actually, jabber:x:events has been in use since 1999 or 2000, but we
didn't get around to making a JEP out of it until early 2002. 

Personally I'm not worried about this patent at all.

There are so many IM patents issued every week that I could spend all of
my time reading them and worrying about them. Fortunately I have more
important things to work on.

Peter

On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 04:54:20PM +0200, Heiner Wolf wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> yes, it seems to apply to composing events, but it is broader. 
> The patent has been filed December 20, 2002. With respect to existing
> implementations this is really late, actually quite bold. 
> 
> The Jabber spec is JEP-0022: Message Events
> 
> Revision History:
> Version 1.1 (2003-02-11) Attempted to clarify usage and business rules.
> (psa) 
> Version 1.1 (2003-01-26) Added more detailed information and clarified a
> few points. (psa) 
> Version 1.0 (2002-05-08) Changed status to Active. (psa) 
> Version 0.2 (2002-03-13) Minor corrections and additions. (dja) 
> Version 0.1 (2002-03-05) Initial draft. (dja) 
> 
> hw
> --
> Dr. Klaus H. Wolf
> bluehands GmbH & Co.mmunication KG
> http://www.bluehands.de/people/hw
> +49 (0721) 16108 75
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: jdev-admin at jabber.org [mailto:jdev-admin at jabber.org]On Behalf Of
> > Nicholas Doyle
> > Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 6:51 AM
> > To: im-patents at jabber.org
> > Cc: jdev at jabber.org
> > Subject: [JDEV] MS Patents IM 'composing' feature
> > 
> > 
> > Cross posting to JDEV since im-patents doesn't seem very active...
> > 
> > I saw this on Slashdot tonight.  Microsoft has received a 
> > patent for a "System and method for activity monitoring and 
> > reporting in a computer network", patent no. 6,631,412.
> > 
> > http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/10/08/135237.shtml?tid=109&tid=
> > 155&tid=187&tid=189&tid=99
> > 
> > The article mentions Powwow (from Tribal Voice, back in 1996) 
> > as maybe having been prior art.  The actual patent document 
> > actually refutes programs like UNIX talk, because it shows 
> > the conversation in 'real-time', and characters appear for 
> > each user as they are typed.  The MS patent seems to be for a 
> > mechanism to notify the user only that the other party is 
> > responding (not showing the actual response until it is 
> > 'sent'), and these 'user is typing' messages are turned 
> > on/off based on a timer.  I have not actually read the entire 
> > patent myself yet, just the abstract.
> > 
> > Here's a link to the patent:
> > 
> > http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HIT
> > OFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=pt
> > xt&s1=6,631,412&OS=6,631,412&RS=6,631,412
> > 
> > Did Powwow seem to use a timer to turn off the notification 
> > (can't remember from when I used it briefly in '96)?  Does 
> > anything in the Jabber/XMPP spec specify the use of 
> > time-intervals for sending the composing/not composing 
> > messages?  If not, then maybe just clients which actually use 
> > timers would be infringing?
> > 
> > I tried (briefly) to hack this feature into Gabber 0.8 
> > earlier this year, but got sidetracked.  I can't remember the 
> > specifics of the spec now, through I remember the Jabber docs 
> > being somewhat brief about this feature (and other 
> > x:events?).  Though I remember seeing on Jdev recently there 
> > is a new JEP for 'composing' now?  I believe this feature is 
> > extremely useful in IM programs (hence, trying to add it to 
> > Gabber, I know Gabber 2 already has it), almost necessary 
> > really, to try and have a proper conversation without 
> > constantly cutting each other off.  It would be a shame if 
> > the IM community, and particularly Jabber/XMPP, lost the use 
> > of such functionality because it is now MS's IP.
> > 
> > Nick
> > 
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-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
Jabber Software Foundation
http://www.jabber.org/people/stpeter.php