If the trend continues (witness the MS patent for stylesheets where
there is clealy prior art - IADS and IDE/AS, US Army and Unisys)
that predate the advent of web browsers all together, then notions which
undergird patents collapse. There has just been an email issued
on the XML-Dev list asking about prior art for use of markup in
communication systems (I don't have the details here). This
one is tricky because although it was discussed in several
SGML projects, it was actively discouraged under the
"thou shalt not program in SGML syntax" rubric by the leaders
of the SGML and PDES communities. This one
has come home to bite. The lesson here which sets a dangerous
precedent is that it is better to go ahead and schematize absolutely
everything and publish it. Gack!
What I suspect may be the natural
response will be exhaustion. This is the technique used on the
record labels. The MP3 decoders are an example. They can't
sue the whole world so they make a deal. For that to work, a very large
group has to engage in building and rapidly disseminating the
avatars. The side effect is criminalization of otherwise
good citizens; the California Pot syndrome where the
law enforcement officials give up the effort to prosecute all marijuana
users
because they have real crime to worry about and can't expend
the resources. The bad side effect is that it leads directly
to discriminatory enforcement.
Another day in the "Don't fence me in" problems of the WWW.
Len Bullard
Intergraph Public Safety
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, June 18, 1999 7:23 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: J. Eric Mason
> Subject: Re: Patents
>
> At 08:30 PM 6/17/99 J. Eric Mason wrote to the www-vrml list:
>
> >PS - For those with time to spare, take a look at US patent 5,884,029 --
> One
> >of the many patents coming up now in searches using VRML as a keyword
> >(original file date: 1996. Patent date: 1999.) It may affect Living
> Worlds
> >_content_ authors. If anyone is aware of significant prior art in
> relation
> >to this I would like to know about it.
>
> I took a look at this, and here's the gist:
> It covers user programmable avatars, specifically programming
> "personality" into the avatar so that it will respond with specific simple
> or complex behavior in response to set stimuli, and then send a cue to the
> user signalling that it has responded. It also involves sending additional
> cues to the avatar to initiate other pre-programmed actions. The goal is
> to
> use these programmed actions/responses of the avatar to cover latency
> issues. At least, that's my take on it. The patent is assigned to IBM.
>
> This could have a good amount of impact on those of us who envision new
> forms of multi-user interactive narrative - particularly the creation of
> avatars which embody "personality". Having a user embodied in an avatar
> with personality, with the ability to cue it to perform according to the
> user's will could impinge on this patent.
>
> BTW - if anyone's interested in doing online patent searches, here's the
> place to go:
> http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html
> You can search by number, by full text, booleans, etc.
>
> Other interesting VRML-related patents:
> 5,907,328 (also IBM) re: Viewpoint switching/changing as avatar
> changes
> its orientation.
> 5,889,951 (Viewpoint Inc.) re: accessing, leasing, relocating,
> constructing, modifying internet sites within a multi-dimensional VR
> environment. (implications for VR communities???)
>
> - Paul
>
> ***********************************
> Paul S. Hoffman
> Senior Interface Designer, Cognetics Corporation
> [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Company URL - http://www.cognetics.com
> Personal URL - http://pluto.njcc.com/~paulsam
> 609-799-5005 ext.237 - FAX 609-799-8555
