[Random-bits] Aharonian on USPTO patent 5,947,957 on web access for manufacturing
execution systemr
James Love
love@cptech.org
Mon, 24 Jul 2000 11:38:26 -0400
Subject: PATNEWS: 2700 shakeup; totally pathetically crappy business method patent
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 10:34:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>
!20000724 2700 shakeup; totally pathetically crappy business method patent
[snip]
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A business method patent issued in December 1998 that is so atrocious,
pathetic, crappy (feel free to insert your own insults here) that it
raises questions on just what should be the main focus of discussion at
Thursday's business method Roundtable. The patent first:
Trivial concepts:
- automated manufacturing system with data I/O lines
- http server
Apply the Landis transformation:
- Patent 5,947,957
Web access for a manufacturing execution system
Base Ten Systems - Filed June 1997
What is claimed:
A method for remotely accessing batch status information from
a manufacturing execution system, comprising the steps of:
providing a web page server connected to a manufacturing
execution system network and to a digital network;
accesing the web page server over the digital network using
a web browser program and downloading a batch status
review query program as a web applet from the web page
server; and
running the web applet within the web browser program to
access data from the manufacturing execution system
network via the web page server to obtain batch status
information.
What a complete joke - connecting an HTTP server to some factory machines.
The first clause is trivial, the second clause obvious from the nature of
Web page serving (by definition, web page servers are connected to
digital networks and accessed using a web browser, so these words in
clauses 1 and 2 are redundant), and the third clause, well heck, Carnegie
Mellon as early as the 1980s had a manufacturing machine (where you put
in pieces of metal and out came other pieces of metal with a liquid inside)
from which you could obtain status information from over the Internet -
okay it was the infamous Carnegie Mellon Coke machine - but still clause
three's use of applets in 1997 was trivial in light of early 1990s use
of scripts inside multimedia Internet browsers.
Not only does the business method patent suffer from the usual problem of
not citing ample amounts of relevant non-patent prior art, but even worse,
this patent was a First Office Action issuance where no patent examination
really goes on (the applicant gets the original claims submitted). The
patent application was filed July 1997, scanned into the computers in
Sept. 1997, dispatched from pre-exam in Nov. 1997, docketed Feb. 1998 (all
paper shuffling activities), and then magic - in July 1998 a notice of
allowance was issued. The examiner apparently didn't think such a broad
trivial patent warranted any examination.
So why bother bringing in industry experts in business methods to lecture
examiners, and why bother building collections of business method prior
art for examiners to use (and all of the other wonderfully misguided
suggestions that people will offer at the Roundtable), if the examiners
aren't even going to examine the patents because they are under too much
pressure to meet their quotas?
Now you might argue that this is an isolated case (a First Office Action
citing no non-patent prior art for a software patent), but a) it probably
isn't, and b) who the heck knows, inside or outside the PTO, because of
the unprofessional lack of quality statistics on patent examination
operations, inside or outside the PTO. Roundtable speaker who don't talk
about this issue of more indepth statistical quality control aren't
really being serious about dealing with these issues (again Mr. Armitage,
now of Eli Lilly, being the perfect person to do so, given Eli Lilly's
widescale use of statistical process control for all of its manufacturing
operations, which without we would all be shorting Eli Lilly stock bigtime).
Additionally, what is a business method patent to have a roundtable on such
a specific topic? The patent above is for monitoring the status of a
manufacturing environment, which certainly is a method of doing business
well establised in industry. I argue that business methods does not mean
just forms of electronic commerce where money is exchanged somewhere, but
rather any operation or procedure that a business engages in, such as this
monitoring of a manufacturing system. But isn't this just a software
patent at its heart, as are the majority of all business method patents?
Yes, but we cannot concede this at the roundtable because we then have to
ask the PTO and the patent bar why since Compton's has no progress been
made handling software patents (which the transfer of Mr. Goldberg is
essentially conceding), in light of the hearings on software patents in
1994 and 1999 and the hearing on obviousness (I think in 1995), all
equivalents if not more so of the roundtable?
And to some extent, isn't one of the big problems with business method
patents a problem of software patents more broadly, and all technology
areas of patenting in general - the pressure on examiners to turn out
patents to meet the patenting quantity demands of the PTO's corporate
"customers"? I mean, how much contempt did Ten Base Systems have for the
patent system to submit such a broadly trivial patent as the above, and
not only not seek out any non-patent prior art which they had to know had
to be out there, but also not protest getting a First Office Action
issuance? Don't tell me many corporations aren't out there stocking up
as many patents, good or bad, as possible. Get the patent first, then
ask questions.
No progress can be made on improving the quality of business method,
software and/or Internet patents until we first start out with statistical
analysis of the workflow operations of patent examiners. But for forty
years, the PTO and patent bar have at best shown absolutely no interest in
doing so. What are they afraid that will be found out by such a study?
That the most honest move of PTO facilities shouldn't be from Crystal
City to Alexandria but to Potemkin?
I hope such questions will be raised and answered Thursday, and if not,
those of you really interested in such matters like myself and attending
will ask the panelists and PTO officials.
Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service
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James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org
P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030
Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176
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