Microsoft Patents Custom Emoticons
Posted by dl0711 on 24 July 2005 - 16:29 · 31 comments & 5304 views
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(5 replies)
#1 Posted by NimrodUK on 24 Jul 2005 - 16:42
- Sad world we live in.
I just pray Europe stays free of software patents, otherwise it will become the joke that america now is (in regards to patents) -
#1.1 Posted by imtoomuch on 25 Jul 2005 - 06:57
- Software patents aren't a joke, you (self-proclaimed) nimrod. That's like saying written material (books, articles, etc) shouldn't be copyrighted.
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#1.2 Posted by dhitb on 25 Jul 2005 - 08:45
- #1.1 - How can you equate ill-gotten software patents to actual work related IP?
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#1.3 Posted by mr_demilord on 25 Jul 2005 - 09:07
QUOTE
Software patents aren't a joke, you (self-proclaimed) nimrod. That's like saying written material (books, articles, etc) shouldn't be copyrighted.
You must find yourself very smart to compare copyright and patents.
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#1.4 Posted by imtoomuch on 25 Jul 2005 - 09:20
- #1.2 All software patents are "ill-gotten"? No. Plus, opinion comes into play there.
#1.3 I am very smart. Don't you worry about that. I never said they were the same thing, did I?
My point was that people's work should be protected wheter it be software, machines or other patent-worthy items or wheter it be written materials. Copyrights and patents are not the same and if you assumed that I thought they were the same, that is your problem. And I think it is ridiculous for anybody to say that software shouldn't be protected. Whether people like it or not, the world is not open source. Software needs to be protected. Right now patents are deemed the reasonable way to protect software. That was not my decision. -
#1.5 Posted by AJCrowley Esq on 25 Jul 2005 - 11:53
QUOTE Copyrights and patents are not the same
You are correct, copyrights protect the hard work of innovators, and prevent others from stealing it, and patents allow people to steal the hard work of others, monopolize markets, and launch frivalous lawsuits. It's not a new thing with software though, people have been using patents to steal the inventions of others for a long time now, Bell and Hoover to name but two.
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(1 reply)
#2 Posted by DaveHope on 24 Jul 2005 - 16:53
- This'll never get through. Forums, mail clients and other IM apps have been using custom emoticicons for a great deal longer that Microsoft. And, should it get through it'll be easily invalidated.
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#2.1 Posted by shao on 25 Jul 2005 - 08:59
- i think this only covers a custom emoticon that a user themselves have created, and the transferral of the information pertaining to that custom emoticon when they use it when talking to someone else in a real time conversation (IM).
as such, this shouldn't effect forums, mail clients, and most other IM clients, because they all only use their own standard built in emoticons, and / or, aren't real time communcation applications.
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#3 Posted by Colin-uk on 24 Jul 2005 - 16:54
- lol, its only like when MS patended the "user is typing a message" thingy in msn a few years ago..
Last edited by 48788 on 25 Jul 2005 - 11:55
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#4 Posted by nX07 on 24 Jul 2005 - 16:55
- Wait wait wait, so, making MSN emotions lets say, would be breaking a patent law if this goes through?
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#5 Posted by mikey on 24 Jul 2005 - 17:06
- if i read it right, have they only done it for 19x19 images?
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(1 reply)
#6 Posted by Julius Caro on 24 Jul 2005 - 17:14
- Well, here in spain a TV show had to change its name because the word "glamour" was copyrighted by a magazine or something.
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#6.1 Posted by AJCrowley Esq on 25 Jul 2005 - 11:54
- That would be trademarked, this is another law that's good in principal, but generally subject to much abuse.
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(5 replies)
#7 Posted by mx3 on 24 Jul 2005 - 17:22
- This is NOT patenting custom emoticons, as the title of the news says. The title is just sensational in order to get you to read the article, but that trick doesn't work for the readers of this site because everyone's satisfied with just reading the title and drawing their conclusions from there.
What IS being patented is the exact way MSN Messenger handles its custom emoticons feature, right down to the sizing, caching, and behavior when the text is typed. -
#7.2 Posted by Magallanes on 24 Jul 2005 - 18:57
- till this patent is unpracticable.
"Happy b-day" song is patented, tough is hard to claim their rights, cause in the collective subconscient everyone known it's for free.
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#7.3 Posted by markjensen on 24 Jul 2005 - 19:42
- mx3,
Did you read Claim #1?QUOTE A method, comprising: selecting pixels to be used as an emoticon; assigning a character sequence to the pixels; and transmitting the character sequence to a destination to allow for reconstruction of the pixels at the destination.
I don't see this getting approved, but it shows what some companies will do to get an unfair advantage. -
#7.4 Posted by mx3 on 25 Jul 2005 - 05:02
- The claims are written in dependent form, which means that the succeeding claims limit the first claim when they reference back to it. Therefore, the first claim would not be enforceable by itself.
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#7.5 Posted by Slugbait on 25 Jul 2005 - 05:55
QUOTE "Happy b-day" song is patented, tough is hard to claim their rights, cause in the collective subconscient everyone known it's for free.
It's obvious some people post without knowing what they are talking about.
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#8 Posted by Jugalator on 24 Jul 2005 - 18:03
- Heh, I'm sure there's no prior art in this department either.
Or maybe I was dreaming when customizing my emoticons in Miranda + Trillian with plugins.
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(1 reply)
#9 Posted by INFERNO2k on 24 Jul 2005 - 19:10
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#9.1 Posted by raid517 on 25 Jul 2005 - 01:56
- Lol, you are going to owe MS big time for that!
Anyway, as has been said the sillyness comes in the scope of the patent - because will it can be said to apply to MSN - quite a few of the statements could be said to apply to any means of generating and transmitting an emoticon. So you could get in trouble for even just typing one.
GJ
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#10 Posted by aristotle-dude on 24 Jul 2005 - 21:55
- Patent this B===>U
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(1 reply)
#11 Posted by Angel Blue01 on 25 Jul 2005 - 00:05
- Wasn't the first smilie from the '70s? Microsoft cannot patent this.
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#12 Posted by werejag on 25 Jul 2005 - 03:10
- i just stole a Custom Emoticon
arr matey shivery me timbers
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#13 Posted by TheSarge on 25 Jul 2005 - 05:39
- You wanna hear something crazy?
You better not make a hamburger and then put mozzerala chees on it: That idea is the intelectual propery of A&W, and they are the only ones allowed to call it the "Mozza Burger" or any derivitive thereove.
I'm not joking. They really did patent it.
I know because a local resturant tired to put a mozzeralla burger on the menu. A&W sued them and won.
And I'm not even in the United States of Litigation.
Gentlemen, start your lawyers!
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#14 Posted by mr_demilord on 25 Jul 2005 - 07:59
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MS is out of their mind!
Next MS suing messenger plus.
Last edited by 108898 on 25 Jul 2005 - 09:08
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#15 Posted by VLR on 25 Jul 2005 - 13:24
- I have an idea, I will patent patenting!
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#16 Posted by mr_da3m0n on 25 Jul 2005 - 17:51
QUOTE Open Source, patent reform folks not pleased...
Anyone with moral standings and half of a brain would be displeased when they read about another stupid patent.
Anyways, if you RTFA before commenting in order to look smart, you'll notice that the title is very misleading.
This is just bloated sensationalism. And kids, read up on the difference between copyright and patents. You might then realize that somehow, patent reform folks and open source people are not necessarily hippies who want no protection on ideas.
Let's put it simply:
* Copyright: Say, there is an idea. A generic idea, such as, I don't know, building a barn. What copyright protects, is your expression of that idea. So let's suppose you paint your barn red and make it so it explodes when someone walks in -- you can copyright your Red-Exploding-Barn-Of-Doom 3000, so nobody can steal that concept from you.
So, copyright protects the expression of an idea.
* Patent: You build a barn. And protect that with a patent. So now, nobody can build at barn anymore at all without giving you money.
Patent protects that idea and prevents anyone from innovating on that idea.
While it has some decent and justified applications, what I am against is frivolvous patents and especially software patents -- nobody can innovate without paying? pff.
Copyright is just fine for software.
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#17 Posted by Shining Arcanine on 25 Jul 2005 - 22:21
- Well, Microsoft uses Custom Emoticons and if Microsoft could patent it, then anyone else could too and it would be a long and expensive legal battle, something Microsoft could have prevented by doing what they did. I support Microsoft's patenting of it. Now, no one else can patent it.
Microsoft has apparently tried to patent the idea of custom emoticons, according to ZDNet & Slashdot (see the patent). "'We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet," says Mark Taylor of the Open Source Consortium.
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