Thursday, January 19, 2012

Take Action!!

What would Thomas Jefferson say:

"I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

Congress wants to control the Internet and commandeer websites.  Please sign the petition to stop censorship of the internet and block our access to information and knowledge.  Take Action Now!!

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Dick Tracy Would be Proud

There is kind of a watch-technology thing going on here.  One of the technology wizards we work with explained how he finds the people who are going to understand new technology.  He starts every meeting by asking the assembled crowd, "Who's wearing a watch?"  Once the watch wearing crowd identified itself, he sells to the other guys.  I asked him why.  The answer was, the watchless crowd uses their phone for everything.  They have no preset notion on how things work, what things belong on what device and embrace the new.

After this week's Consumer Electronic's Show, the watchless are going to be faced with a dilemma.  I'm Watch - the first Smart Watch.  They may have to buy a watch.

Instead of using your phone for everything you can use your Android I'm Watch for just about everything.  They may have solved one of the real problems with phones - leaving them places.  With the Smart Watch you phone is on your wrist so you can't leave it in strange places and you won't have that other problem that no one likes to admit to, dropping the phone in the commode - no doubt one of the serious drivers in the sales of insurance on mobile phones.  Made in Italy, this device may have finally matched the capabilities of Dick Tracy's radio watch.


The Verge has a more detailed review and more videos and pictures.

I think Dick Tracy would be proud.




Thursday, January 5, 2012

Taking A Walk Around Business Methods


Navigation, or Business?

By Michael Bowman

On January 4, 2012, I read two articles (here and here) about a patent (8,090,532) for “Pedestrian route production” issued to Microsoft on January 3, 2012. Both articles merely skimmed the surface of the patent. Neither of the articles, nor any of the comments at the time I read them, addressed the real IP issue related to this patent.

It is misclassified, and neither the inventors, primary or assistant examiners, or patent attorneys searched the appropriate prior art.

USPTO classified this invention as 340/990, with cross-reference classifications of 340/991 and 340/993. The original classification, which identifies the central inventive idea, covers electrical communications with a map display. The 340/991 cross reference adds the concept of position indication transmitted by the vehicle after receipt of information from a local station. The second cross reference adds position indication transmitted by a local station to a remote location. All three of these concepts fall under 340/988 for vehicle position indication, covering subject matter having the means to indicate the position or location of a vehicle.

As noted above, the patent title emphasizes that pedestrian routes are the inventive subject. The abstract states that “[a]s a pedestrian travels, various difficulties can be encountered, such as traveling through an unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures. A route can be developed for a person taking into account factors that specifically affect a pedestrian. Moreover, the route can alter as a situation of a user changes; for instance, if a user wants to add a stop along a route.” No mention of vehicles here.

On to claim 1. For discussion purposes, I give a letter designation for each of the claim’s clauses; these do not appear in the patent. Claim 1 states:

“a) Computer storage media having embodied thereon computer-useable instructions that, when executed, implement a system, the system comprising:

b) a search component that locates at least one information source, retains pedestrian history from a plurality of pedestrians and addresses of at least one information source that has a history of providing reliable information, identifies low quality information sources that do not provide information used in route generation, and blocks information obtainment for the low quality information sources;

c) a gather component that obtains information related to pedestrian travel including security information, weather information, and terrain information, wherein the gather component obtains the information from the at least one located information source;

d) an artificial intelligence component that makes at least one inference regarding a route based on a previous pedestrian behavior;

e) a filter component that determines, based on the at least one inference, the information that is likely relevant and deletes information that is commonly of little value in part through examination of previously produced routes;

f) an analysis component that determines an importance of the information to a user, estimates how likely the information is to change, and chooses if the user should reach a destination through a pedestrian route and/or through a conventional route;

g) a generation component that obtains the information from the gather component and produces a direction set for use by a pedestrian based at least part upon the obtained information;

h) and a resolution component that resolves a conflict between an information source with a financial interest and an information source without a financial interest and instructs the generation component to produce the direction set based upon the information source that does not have a financial interest in providing the direction set.”

Clause a) specifies software — “Computer storage media having embodied thereon computer-useable instructions that, when executed . . .”

Clause b) discusses pedestrians as the moving objects.

Clause c) discusses pedestrian travel and adds detail that information on security, weather, and terrain is collected by the software.

Clause d) adds an artificial intelligence (only a nominal recitation, though) component to the analysis of previous pedestrian route behavior.

Clause e) adds a filter.

Clause f) adds an “analysis component that determines an importance of the information to a user, estimates how likely the information is to change, and chooses if the user should reach a destination through a pedestrian route and/or through a conventional route.”

Clause g) generates a route.

Clause h) resolves conflicts between information sources used to generate routes with and without financial interests in favor of those without.

Several key observations may be made on claim 1:

The claim is solely directed toward pedestrians.
Clause c), by adding security information, should have a cross reference classification of 705/325 for personal security, identity, or safety.
It includes (clause f) an operations research or analysis component (705/7.11-7.42).
It includes a market analysis component (clause h).
Claim 1 should have been classified as 705/7.29 (market data gathering, market analysis or market modeling) according to USPTO’s rules of classification.
Class 340 does not apply here. Further, none of the three classifications listed on the patent can be applied as they all require a vehicle. The original (first-listed) classification must be based on the claimed disclosure.
This is a business methods claim.

Claims 2-6 are dependents of claim 1. Therefore, again according to USPTO’s own classification rules, they add additional detail to claim 1, and in most cases do not direct the claim to a different classification. Other inventive concepts disclosed in these claims may require or allow additional cross reference classifications.

Claims 2 and 3 emphasize the pedestrian as the moving object, and don’t provide any additional classifiable detail.

Claim 4, a dependent of 3, adds metadata, but no new detail.

Claim 5 “performs a reward operation in relation to information obtainment or direction set production, wherein the reward operation rewards the pedestrian, an advertisement hosting service, a provider, or any combination thereof.” This falls within the 705/14.1 array of the class 705 schedule, for discount or incentive (e.g., coupon, rebate, offer, upsale, etc.). It would fall specifically within 705/14.39 for online discount or incentive, and should be listed as a cross reference classification.

Claim 6 adds an advertisement, specifically a targeted advertisement, which is 705/14.49, another cross reference.

Claims 7-12 are methods claims. Claim 7 essentially converts the systems claims 1-6 into a method, and should retain the 705/7.29 classification.

Claims 13-15 are dependents of claim 1. Claim 13 adds detail on routes of other people. Claim 14 indicates that the user may travel a portion of the route as a passenger, and claim 15 indicates that the user travels on public transportation. These two claims, however, do not add sufficient detail to claim 1 to require a classification in class 340.

The patent lists the fields of search as 701/200,201,208,211,213 340/991,993,990,995 364/443,444,449. Class 701 is data processing for vehicles, navigation, and relative location. Class 364 has been abolished. Class 705 was not searched.

Bottom line, this patent is a business method, is completely misclassified, was not searched against the proper prior art, had a five-year prosecution history, and no one involved got it right.

Fantasy Football Insurance

Tom Bakos who publishes the Insurance IP Bulletin and follows activity in US patent class 705/4 where the insurance business methods patents can be found, passed along the latest Fantasy Sports patent application - Fantasy Sports Insurance.

I've been watching the Fantasy Sports IP space for a while.  The seminal Fantasy Sports patent is "Computerized Statistical Football Game" taught in US Patent  4,918,603.  I wrote a post on the Fantasy Football patents back in 2010 on the patent and some of the inventors follow on work.  There are lots of interesting angles when you look at the evolution of fantasy sports leagues IP.  The inventors are local guys.  The original patent was filed in 1988 and was one of those patents that a lot of people didn't think covered a patentable subject matter. Then there were the guys who just decided to infringe the patent.  And then there are the inventions that followed.  The patent application Tom passed along is the latest entry in the continuum.

The new application, published on December 22 is for "A method of providing insurance to a fantasy sports participant includes receiving a request from the participant for an insurance policy covering an insured risk for an insured amount and providing an insurance policy to the participant covering the insured risk for the insured amount, in exchange for a premium. The participant owns a fantasy team and is in a fantasy league. The insured risk is at least one player on the fantasy team not playing for at least a portion of a fantasy season of the fantasy league. An amount of the premium is dependent on underwriting of the insured risk and the insured amount."

The majority of claims seem to be missing the standard business methods mumbo jumbo.  It shows up in claim 25.

Here are Claims 1-4:

1. A method of providing insurance to a fantasy sports participant, comprises: receiving a request from the participant for an insurance policy covering an insured risk for an insured amount; and providing an insurance policy to the participant covering the insured risk for the insured amount, in exchange for a premium; wherein the participant owns a fantasy team, and is in a fantasy league, the insured risk is at least one player on the fantasy team not playing for at least a portion of a fantasy season of the fantasy league, and an amount of the premium is dependent on underwriting of the insured risk and the insured amount.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the fantasy league has a corresponding real sports league.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the real sports league is a professional sports league.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the sport of the real sports league is selected from the group consisting of football, baseball, basketball and hockey.

Here's Claim 25:

25. A computer program product comprising software encoded in computer-readable media, for providing insurance to a fantasy sports participant, the software comprising instructions, operable when executed, to: receive a request from the participant for an insurance policy covering an insured risk for an insured amount; and provide an insurance policy to the participant covering the insured risk for the insured amount, in exchange for a premium; wherein the participant owns a fantasy team, and is in a fantasy league, the insured risk is at least one player on the fantasy team not playing for at least a portion of a fantasy season of the fantasy league, and an amount of the premium is dependent on underwriting of the insured risk and the insured amount.

(Looks like the a patent attorney or the examiner provided guidance here...)

The patent application is an interesting read.  It will be interesting to see what happens to it as it moves along the patent prosecution continuum.

Thanks again to Tom for passing it along.