theodp writes "The next time IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano is late for a big meeting and can't be reached via his BlackBerry, the other attendees will thankfully have a patent-pending way of finding him. In its just-disclosed patent application for a Method for Exploitation of Location Proximity to Derive a Location of an Employee in a Corporation, Big Blue describes an 'invention' of two of its PhDs that could be used to track Palmisano down - call or IM those who sit near Sam's office and ask if they've seen him. By the way, IBM VP David Kappos, who recently lamented the diminished quality of patents in the US, is a frontrunner to be the next Director of the USPTO - perhaps he could comment on the patent-worthiness of this invention."

theodp writes "In 2006, IBM boasted it was 'holding itself to a higher standard than any law requires because it's urgent that patent quality is improved.' On Thursday, the USPTO revealed that IBM was seeking a patent for Controlling and Using Virtual Universe Wish Lists. The product of six IBM inventors, Big Blue explained that a 'virtual wish list device determines an item in a virtual universe that is desired by an avatar.' Led by Chief Avatar Sam Palmisano, IBM is still drinking the virtual world Kool-Aid, dropping $80,000 to host a recent Second Life-based conference for 200 or so members of the IBM Academy of Technology. IBM indicated the virtual venue was chosen to avoid sending 'the wrong kind of message' (pdf) that something like a $400,000 real-world meeting might send during troubled economic times."

The world of supercomputing and artificial intelligence has always been fascinated with games like chess, Go and poker -- where evaluating strategies for winning could be approached using vast computational resources. Another historical challenge for AI projects is the classic Turing Test, which requires an understanding of human communication in order to pass the test. So it's interesting to see IBM starting a project called Watson (named after IBM's founder, not Sherlock's assistant) to create a computer to compete on Jeopardy! against human contestants -- because doing so combines the goals of natural language processing and strategic game planning.

Obviously, though, Watson is more of a product demonstration than a serious research project to advance the field of computer science, but it's still a brilliant move, nonetheless, since the effort can be understood by anyone who watches popular game shows, and at the same time, the project studies a practical problem for algorithms. However, the game of Jeopardy! is somewhat trivial (no pun intended, honest) since Jeopardy's given answers all have matching questions -- and it doesn't really require true comprehension to guess (apparently, human contestants respond correctly about 85% of the time). Granted, Jeopardy! is a bit harder to play than Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, but Alex Trebek doesn't seem quite as computationally demanding as search engines can be (unless you count the audio/video Daily Doubles?). Still, IBM should be applauded for supporting its research as eye-catching PR campaigns -- while other companies like Microsoft are getting more attention for downsizing their research divisions.

theodp writes "As we've seen before, sometimes all it takes is a little bad PR to get IBM to ditch a patent. More recently, Big Blue took a break from its stealth U.S. layoffs to withdraw a patent application for offshoring jobs while maximizing government tax breaks, saying it was 'filed in error'. And before bad PR lightning could strike thrice, IBM preemptively abandoned another patent application last Friday, this one for Selecting Shared Service Centers in another country ('e.g., India') and staffing them with less-productive-but-cheaper IT workers. Guess this one was 'filed in error' too!"

It's no surprise that many technologists and engineers dislike software patents -- even as their company's execs and lawyers push them to get more patents. Stephen Kinsella highlights an anonymous comment from a software engineer who clearly works for IBM (though he doesn't come out and say that directly), where he explains how IBM actively encourage engineers to file for as many patents as possible (it rewards them with monetary bonuses). This is not new of course -- an awful lot of companies do this. However, the guy goes on to explain why even though he holds patents and believes very strongly that his company makes and sells nuermous innovative products, he believes all this patenting is damaging to the process of innovation:

Speaking from my own experience, corporations (such as the one I work for) spend a lot of money to innovate. However, I would "press that button" and get rid of IP law immediately, given the chance. I agree completely with the arguements made in the article - as such, I'll just bring up a few other issues:

I think IP law is incredibly damaging to innovation and competition. In the case of software patents, moreso in that they take resources (primarily money which gets redirected to legal teams) from firms who are forced to research existing patens, and also defend themselves against IP lawsuits.

Many software patents are particularly silly. Many of these are issued for algorithms - the vast majority of the time, these algorithms are only available outside the company via patent! That is, when they are shipped externally, it is in a form that is not readable (object code). Sure - this can be reverse engineered. But for a particularly complex program or operating system, this in itself would be a colossal endeavor. Yet, a patent is issued for it - and the patent describes exactly what the algorithm does!

Another firm could look at the patent and use the invention. In most cases, it would be impossible to tell that they've "stolen" anything. Here they are counterproductive.

I should also mention the obvious - the corporation which holds the patent already has a huge advantage! They will ship a product with these innovations before any other corporation can ship its' product. Quite frankly it will generally be a significant period of time before another product can be shipped which contains these innovations - even if the innovation was immediately obvious and known. This will not generally be the case.

Then you have the patents for user interface - these are just silly. I've seen patents issued (granted, this was a long time ago) for using a particular color on a "dummy" terminal.

Anyway, I hope I do not sound like a hypocrite (because I hold IP patents). As I said, it is a part of my job. I also cannot fault my company for taking advantage of whatever silly laws are created. I simply view this as another case of the state interfering with the market, and the market adjusting to exploit the foolishness of the laws.

Well said.

theodp writes "With its example of how ' John Doe ' could be saved in a database as 'John Doe' (i.e., without leading or trailing blanks), purported patent reformer IBM dazzled the USPTO enough to earn Big Blue a patent last Tuesday for Automatically removing leading and trailing space characters from data being entered into a database system . The three IBM 'inventors' are also seeking a related patent for Retrieving data from a database system without leading and trailing space characters. Hey, if the patent system ain't broke, don't fix it!"

theodp writes "Astronaut Dave Bowman may have found the HAL-9000 more believable had the Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer been equipped with the technology described in IBM's new patent for Generating paralinguistic phenomena via markup in text-to-speech synthesis. In the patent, IBM describes how you can dupe others into believing they're dealing with a real, live human being by using markup language to feign sadness, anger, laughter, filled pauses (uh, um), breaths, coughs and hesitations (mmm). Here's an example that shows how to make a more lovable HAL: <prosody style="bad news">I'm cough sorry Dave sigh, I'm afraid I can't do that.<prosody>"

You may recall just a few months ago that a "showcased" Google spreadsheet for splitting the bill got some basic math wrong. After we pointed it out, Google Phd.'s apparently got to work and figured out how to properly split a bill. Perhaps part of the problem was that they didn't have a newly approved US patent (found via Slashdot) from IBM on the basic concept of splitting the bill. The patent is actually for a device at a restaurant table, where multiple patrons can input how much they want to pay and the device keeps track to make sure the entire bill is paid. As the patent notes, earlier inventions allowed patrons to pay at the table. What was new about this patent, was the splitting of the bill part. The USPTO had originally rejected the patent, but that so-called "final rejection" was just overruled.

For well over a decade, we've seen nothing useful come out of investments in broadband over powerlines. It's been a money-sucking pit that has rarely worked particularly well, and never found many customers. The biggest and most hyped-up experiments failed pretty miserably, and just last month it seemed like we could officially declare BPL dead. Apparently, IBM did not get that memo, as it just invested nearly $10 million in a BPL offering for rural customers. We give them props for their optimism in a technology that has been nothing but trouble for years, but unless they've come up with something radically different than all those failed projects, we expect to be reading a story in another year or two about this project shutting down as well.