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Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

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Re: Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

#51

Post by pnw_hazor »

goatinaboat wrote: post #45
peey wrote: post #2

This is comical. It patents the entire system from HTML forms to get the input to prepare the SQL query, to server sending data as formatted HTML back to client. This has been the bread and butter of PHP for two decades. I'm glad no one tried to enforce this to take away like 99% of the internet.

This has been the bread and butter of PHP for two decades And many other things too, but someone had to be first. I doubt it was IBM but there would have been some elapsed time between TBL inventing HTML and the first time someone dynamically generated it from an RDBMS. That’s the person who could claim prior art.

PHP didn't use a common namespace (a customizable intervening macro file used to map keywords between the form fields and DB2 SQL).

Re: Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

#53

Post by emidln »

rwmj wrote: post #22
wisecoder wrote: post #17

IBM pays their company employees to file patents. It is also one of the key factor for promotions. That's why you can see lot's of stupid patents out there in IBM name.

Every big software company does this. It's a ridiculous arms race, but you have to play or risk getting sued to oblivion by a patent troll.

This doesn't work for patent trolls. Patent trolls, by definition, don't have a business outside of patent licensing and suing for patent violations. The Mutually Assured Destruction of an IBM fighting a Samsung over patents doesn't hold for 3 lawyers in three levels of LLCs and a handful of near expiring patents suing a Samsung.

Re: Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

#54

Post by pnw_hazor »

cowmix wrote: post #34
pcurve wrote: post #27

It may look silly now but the patent was first filed only a few months after first Netscape browser was released. Back in 1995. I remember the web in 1994 and 1995. I don’t blame for filing it.

Nope, stupid patent. People were rendering SQL results in HTML for at least two years when that patent was filed. When I say people, I mean me. On publicly available websites. :)

Were you using a specialized macro language sitting in between the form fields and the SQL?

In the claims this is the element:

"(c) substituting the data entered by the user into the HTML input form into a dynamic SQL query using a common name space, wherein the common name space comprises variables found in both the dynamic SQL query and the HTML input form;"

This expired patent is much narrower than just rendering SQL results in HTML. It claims a particular way of mapping form field inputs to SQL using an intermediate macro language and a macro file that is employed per request/post that defines the mapping rules for the request.

Re: Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

#55

Post by pnw_hazor »

JackC wrote: post #26
aidos wrote: post #3

I never understand where patents start and end with the bit they claim to be new. Where is that in the patent document? In this case they’re talking about executing sql and rendering as html. Ok. Fine. Phpmyadmin was already doing that in 1998. But they also talk about these macro files that you’re executing by substituting variables into them. As that the new thing? Are these just stored procedures? I feel like we w…

This wikipedia section is a good place to start seeing how it works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_claim#Basic_types_and_c... What I remember from law school is: let's say you're drafting a patent, and you want it to cover as much as possible without getting invalidated by prior art. So you're going to write some claims, and each claim can stand or fall on its own (each claim could be rejected by the patent of…

The claims in the issued patent define exactly and only what the patent protects.

During the prosecution of the patent (the back and forth with the USPTO) the claims may be amended as long as there is support for the amendment in the description. The description (generally speaking) cannot be amended without refiling and losing the priority date.

These amendments are usually narrowing the independant claims to avoid prior art - similar to your example. Additional details from the descriptions are added to the claims until the examiner agrees that the prior is overcome.

The independent claims are the broadest, and the dependent claims add additional limitations (more or less) that are often directed optional features.

In this patent, which is pretty good for an old-time software patent, this element:

"(c) substituting the data entered by the user into the HTML input form into a dynamic SQL query using a common name space, wherein the common name space comprises variables found in both the dynamic SQL query and the HTML input form;"

is probably what convinced the examiner to allow the patent.

Re: Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

#57

Post by bdowling »

aidos wrote: post #3

I never understand where patents start and end with the bit they claim to be new. Where is that in the patent document? In this case they’re talking about executing sql and rendering as html. Ok. Fine. Phpmyadmin was already doing that in 1998. But they also talk about these macro files that you’re executing by substituting variables into them. As that the new thing? Are these just stored procedures? I feel like we w…

> Where is that in the patent document?

The new parts are necessarily included in the claims at the end of patent document. However, there's nothing that requires an applicant to specify which elements of a claim are new over the prior art.

Re: Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

#58

Post by bdowling »

adrianN wrote: post #46
dathinab wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "HTML on a computer with foo and bar" But here it's where the patent system is broken. Doing conceptually trivial combinations of on itself non patentable thinks should _never_ be patentable, at lest for software but probably for anything. Sure patenting a specific complex mechanism for combining two thinks might be patentable but in case of software this is hardly ever the case, most times its more or less trivial…

Every invention is just a combination of existing things with maybe a new twist somewhere. James Watt wasn't the first person to build a steam engine, he just introduced a separate condenser to an existing design. It's really hard to find a good line of what should constitute a patentable invention. Personally I think that no software should be patentable, ultimately because I don't think that Mathematics should belo…

> existing things with maybe a new twist somewhere.

To be valid, a claim must be novel (new) and non-obvious over the prior art. So there absolutely must be a new twist somewhere.

Re: Patent on displaying SQL data in HTML, granted to IBM in 1998

#59

Post by lokedhs »

goatinaboat wrote: post #45
peey wrote: post #2

This is comical. It patents the entire system from HTML forms to get the input to prepare the SQL query, to server sending data as formatted HTML back to client. This has been the bread and butter of PHP for two decades. I'm glad no one tried to enforce this to take away like 99% of the internet.

This has been the bread and butter of PHP for two decades And many other things too, but someone had to be first. I doubt it was IBM but there would have been some elapsed time between TBL inventing HTML and the first time someone dynamically generated it from an RDBMS. That’s the person who could claim prior art.

I did exactly this in 1996 when we implemented a case management system with a web-based frontend. It used a home-grown webserver written in Perl that was talking SQL to a Sybase instance.

And it was definitely not something unique. This project started because I was asking (probably on Usenet) for advice on what GUI framework we should use, and was recommended to build the application using web technologies.

The fact that IBM managed to get a patent on this is just one more of an almost infinite number of examples showing why the patent system is broken.

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