180: That Patent Application Doesn't Say What You Think It Says · 1023 words posted 02/23/2006 07:10 PM
You’ve heard about it by now: the US Patent and Trademark Office issued Patent 7,000,180 (hereinafter “180”) on Valentine’s Day, granting some wicked licensing mojo on internet moving thingies to a previously obscure web design shop named Balthaser.
I say “wicked licensing mojo” and “internet moving thingies” because no one seems to have accurately described what the patent actually covers. Here’s Information Week’s take:
A patent has been granted to a relatively unknown California Web-design firm for an invention its creator says covers the design and creation of most rich-media applications used over the Internet. The patent holder, Balthaser Online Inc., says it could license nearly any rich-media Internet application across a broad range of devices and networks.
Potentially tens of thousands of businesses—not only software makers employing its business processes but companies offering rich-media on their Websites—could be subject to licensing fees when they use rich-media technology over the Internet.
The patent—issued on Valentine’s Day—covers all rich-media technology implementations, including Flash, Flex, Java, Ajax, and XAML, when the rich-media application is accessed on any device over the Internet, including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and video game consoles, says inventor Neil Balthaser, CEO of Balthaser Online, which he owns with his father Ken. “You can consider it a pioneering or umbrella patent. The broader claim is one that basically says that if you got a rich Internet application, it is covered by this patent.”
Zeldman simply calls it a patent on AJAX.
In other words, two groups would have to pay licensing fees to Balthaser under the alarmist reading of 180: anyone who distributes rich media1 over the internet (example: Basecamp, Gmail, etc. etc.), and anyone who sells a tool to create RIAs (example: Adobe/Macromedia, Microsoft).
But I’m pretty sure that’s an overly broad reading of what 180 actually claims. As with most patent applications, 180’s language is turgid and obfuscatory. That’s not really the fault of Balthaser and its legal team; it’s just how the game is played. But if you can wade through the muck, you’ll find a detailed description of how the “invention” is actually intended to be used.
Background: when an enterprising young man files a patent in hopes of bottling the magic2 he must include at least one example of a specific embodiment of his invention. The specific embodiment requirement forces the junior achiever to articulate how his abstract concepts will actually be put into practice.
Here are the specific embodiments contemplated by 180:
In a specific embodiment, the ability to create rich-media applications may be purchased by the user. Specifically, the user may purchase the right to use rich-media applications created on the host website, the right to design and create rich-media applications on the host website, or both. The user may also purchase the right to use more services by paying a different fee.
In a specific embodiment, the user may construct a rich-media application by using rich-media components including navigation elements, backgrounds, images, headings, sound files, text, windows, animations, e-mail clients, calculators, stock tickers, clocks, menus, movie files, and production types. Production types are customizable rich-media templates for performing specific operations such as presentations, resumes, catalogs, reports, user manuals, magazines, newspapers, photo albums, cartoons, websites, shows, movies, and invitations. The user may also upload components from other Internet locations for use in rich-media applications by listing the location of the component and the file type of the component. Applicable file types may include JPEG, MPEG, GIF, animated GIF, TIFF, EPS, PNG, SWF, MP3, and WAV. The user may be limited to a subset of all possible file types that may be uploaded depending on the level of service for which the user has paid.
In a specific embodiment, the user may create and access a customer account for the purpose of creating or modifying a rich-media application. Specifically, the user may access account and project information or save, close, delete, publish, or preview a project. The user may also create, insert, delete, save, or modify a scene of a rich-media application or add, access, edit, copy, paste, or delete components.
That’s just a sampling, but what becomes clear upon reading the specific embodiments in their entirety is that the patent is intended to cover a web interface for creating, editing, and hosting rich internet applications. The patent does not contemplate a desktop GUI, nor does it cover rich media created by a desktop GUI and hosted on your own server. The images accompanying the patent application seem to support this reading: by and large they’re site flows or database diagrams for setting up accounts and creating/saving/serving your rich app from a database to the web.
In other words, if you’re Microsoft and you hope to move a future version of Visual Studio onto the web so designers can use a web interface to create a web application, this patent may give you pause. Also, 180 might cover a web WYSIWYG app like Google’s new page creator.
I could be reading the patent incorrectly: remember, the language is defined to befuddle, not enlighten. And I’m not your lawyer. But if you’re Adobe/Macromedia and you sell Flash Professional 8 (a desktop GUI for creating rich media)—or if you’re a designer who creates rich media with a GUI and uploads it to the web—or if you write and host apps like Basecamp or Gmail—this patent says nothing to you about your life.
1 The patent specifically covers Flash, Java, MPEG movie files, and several other rich media formats. Curiously, the patent omits SVG. Even more notable, the patent doesn’t mention XMLHttpRequest, the foundation for “AJAX,” which dates back to the release of Internet Explorer in 1998, three years before patent 180 was filed in 2001.
2 I’m not making this part up. Here’s what Neil Balthaser said in the Information Week article: “My mom saw me struggling, and one day said, ‘Why don’t you figure out a way to bottle up that Balthaser magic and let people purchase the bottle and do it themselves?’ It was one of those whacks on the side of the head. ... I started to work on an early prototype.” That scamp!
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