Ground Rules ========================================================= From Peter March 10 2000 Dr. Fox: Claims claim 1: synchronous system -- includes database, content server, collaboration server, and two types of client logic (at a minimum) one sending a tuple message to the content server and collaboration server, and another for receiving the tuple from the collaboration server and sending a tuple message to the content server (this latter tuple message need not be identical to the first) claim 53: asynchronous system: no servers; more focus on database aspects. There are many dependent claims focusing on many, many aspects, down to specific tags. If you feel someone did something innovative, not covered by the independents (above) let me know and I suspect we can find a dependent claim directed to it. Inventors Key criteria: collaboration with at least some subset of the co-inventors on a concrete concept as defined by the claims. Routine implementation is not invention. If you know that you could have written a spec. of the problem or a schema and that any reasonably skilled developer could have solved the problem then that implementer is not an inventor even if the person who created the spec. did not himself know how to solve the problem (he knew enough that it was within routine skill). The flip side of this is to ask whether a person innovated in solving the problem; i.e., you provide a specification and the person says that they don't know if a solution exists and they actually need to innovate to meet your goals. It might help to remember that a person could be a co-inventor on a dependent claim and not on an independent claim. For example, a dependent claim may introduce a new element that only became part of the system through the collaboration of this person. General Notes on Patent from gcf ================================================= The claims are a mix of very general and very specific ideas. Some of the "general" claims seem unnaturally constrained by such words as servlets and database. Note in evaluating "invention", I would consider for example,servlet, enterprise Java Bean and Perl Script as in many cases intellectually equivalent, It is hard to map inventors into claims as claims do not describe the system we used in practice but rather (portions of) a system WebWisdomNT that was only operational recently. Currently the WebWisdomNT system has less rich templates and capabilities of original WebWisdom system. (As not all capabilities have been ported) In many ways of course WebWisdomNT is vastly superior to WebWisdom and there is no intellectual problem in implementing old functionality. There are some Tango specific claims but most claims stem from WebWisdomNT capabilities which were based on my original WebWisdom system. There are cache related claims which are only relevant due to dynamic mode enabled by WebWisdomNT I note that storage of PowerPoint directly in database is not mentioned. This good idea from Marek fits in better here than in DHTML CIP. Prior Art ============================================================= Current description at start of document describes largely collaborative systems. There are many more systems coming from "content management" area. (see http://www.osc.edu/webed/ for education area review) These are both general web-linked databases and more specific portal systems which should be discussed. Here are typical examples: Dreamweaver Cold Fusion Lotus LearningSpace Hyperwave www.hyperwave.com (Intranet now but came from education field) Blackboard www.blackboard.com (Starts with web-linked database a la claim 53 but has modest collaboration capability which could challenge claim 1) Collaborative Visualization field has same architecture as 1 with database server replaced by a visualization server. I have a good review of this field, one of my students is working on Later I mention other systems of relevance built in NPAC I do not understand why words in claim 1, make system unique I must admit I do not know what makes a tuple and/or an application specific message special. As far as I can see messages are communicated nuggets of information and normally that information is application specific. The term tuple is used in systems like Linda but not say in MPI. Both systems communicate via "application-specific" messages. Peter writes in an email "collaboration server for sending app. specific messages (as opposed to something imposed by collaboration middleware)" I don't understand point. Take a well-known message -- namely e-mail. It has some middleware specific features (to from subject tags) and some application specific data (body of message which could be say a .doc document only interpretable by a particular application -- namely Word). Essentially all messages are like this with a header (middleware imposed) and user defined (body). Tango certainly has this structure. I would recommend adding more substance on client side and make backend less specific. Otherwise we have in claim 1, a general web-linked database with some sort of collaboration (doesn't say synchronous). I think AOL with a chat room or shared game would fit this claim? I see one key idea (this is what I emphasize in talks) is that one can share a "backend object" (a database or visualization) by sharing rendering on client. This is what I think claim 1 should have. Claim 53 as a standalone claim is even harder to defend. I suggest replacing it by "standalone system" as way students and teacher do self study -- i.e. make it that "collaborative system of claim 1" can be used independently and access among other things archive of collaborative system Possible Inventors ==================================================== As I find claims rather imprecise. It is easier for me to relate to main description and appendix which is closer to papers I wrote. Gang Cheng was in Tango team and he was critical in helping me design first WebWisdom shared browsers used in all our initial work with JSU. Gang was (correctly) cited in original WebWisdom technology disclosure to Syracuse. Gang (I think) also built the first JavaScript enabled web-linked databases in NPAC. These underlie the later WebWisdom work as well as Careweb (see below) and "The Carrier Web Site" later commercialized by Barbara Mihalas Wojtek Furmanski worked with me in understanding multi-tier object web architectures and we published several papers on this. He and I developed the basic ideas of first Webwisdom JavaScript client. (Gang and I took these ideas and linked them to Tango. Due to personel issues within NPAC -- Marek and Wojtek have poor relations -- I never involved Wojtek in any detailed work on Tango). Quite complete is http://www.new-npac.org/users/fox/documents/rcihpccoct98/rcinpacpaperoct98.html It is a review of many NPAC activities outside WebWisdom and Tango (Due to afore mentioned personnel problems, I had to work independently with Marek and Wojtek.) The Language Connect University and Careweb in this paper are projects developed concurrently with WebWisdom. Claims 1 and 53 in their current form, have significant overlap with these projects which is not suprisingly as all come from my work with Wojtek and (very early on Gang/Marek) 2-4 years ago to understand how to build distributed systems. If it were not for the personnel problems, Wojtek would have been on original WebWisdom technology disclosure. I acknowledged him in web site for JavaScript WebWisdom browser and through our many joint papers. David Bernholdt Nancy McCracken Roman Markowski These are (with myself and Marek) intellectual leaders of team which evolved the collaborative education system that was first used August 1997 and now is in its fourth year. Looking at http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/training/Papers/sc98/, This paper also involves Tom Scavo but I would view him as more junior. The JSU paper authors interacted less on technology side and can be safely left out. What we have now (and is documented in text and appendix of patent) comes from typically difficult to quantify intellectual collaboration. Issues like useful features (add-ons for instance), need to monitor remote sites, importance of recording mouse positions came from this exchange and are fully or partially implemented in current systems. Deepak Ramanathan was important in DHTML and my code included in current patent. As there are no serious claims in this regard, he can be left until CIP. Tango team may need to be involved for claims like 28 to 38 Summary of claims ===================================================== I give some comments on some claims. Key comments are also elaborated above. Claim 1: Basic System 2 clients Collaboration Server Server controlled Database with templates No discussion of client (e.g. JavaScript) Systems like Blackboard could be described by this Does not describe if "database" could be flat files (XML today) object-relational or whathaveyou. This problem runs throughout claims. Today one would use term "managed persistent store" Peter says this is Synchronous but this is not implied by claim. e-mail is a good example of a message fitting claim which is usually delivered asynchronously Claims 2 to 7 Cache for database servlet Servlets are used throughout claims as a word to describe middle tier logic Of course there are many equivalent implementations such as Enterprise Javabeans or even non Java business logic Does not explain why this caching different from that in basic web-linked databases Claims 8 to 11 mirror site support as used in original JSU Claim 12 Proxy Server as used in later JSU classes Claim 13 14 Index/Next/Previous in templates Claim 15 Database specification in template Claim 16 Image or Text Version Selection Claim 17 seems backward as describes student sending index to teacher? Claim 18 allow automatic playing of audio files Claim 19 Templates to fetch list of presentations Claim 20 Allow user to edit metadata Claim 21 Allow user to search database Claim 22 to 24 Multi-object pages including audio, video, applications Claim 25 Student can have different rendering template from teacher Claim 26 Hierarchical structure of foilworlds Claim 27 Claim 1 with relational database and XML tags Claim 28 to 33 Listener model for all sorts of application types Actually not used for most versions of WebWisdom which used direct communication model (even in DHTML version) Why isn't this part of Tango? Claim 34 Shared Browser Claim 35 Tango has an API Claim 36 Other basic useful collaborative tools Again this appears to be Tango and nothing to do with database Claim 37 Can transfer Master status Claim 38 Claim 31 with user login Claim 39 Store user information in a database Blackboard has all of this? Claim 40 Share indices Claim 41 is Claim 1 in other words Claim 42-47 Caching Claim 48 is mirror sites Claims 49 to 52 is more on templates Claim 53 is non collaborative version of claim 1 Must be many systems like this Claims 54 to 63 describe aspects of templates, multi-media data etc. in aynchronous version Claim 64 Claim 1 with XML and databases Claim 65 66 More on templates Claim 67 Playlists Claim 68 to 69 71 72 more on playlists Claim 70 Annotation support in system of claim 13 (i.e. 1) Claim 73 74 import and export XML from database This is surely not an invention Claim 75 Templates can produce dynamic HTML