Hi everybody,
I guess most of you have seen this, but I would like to bring this up here anyway... Can't believe the US PTO is really *that* stupid :(( Any comments?
IBM Patents Web Page Templates http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/17/005232
[0]jalefkowit writes: "More follies from the [1]US Patent & Trademark Office ... now [2]IBM has been awarded US Patent #6,304,886 for software that automatically "generates [a] customized Web site without the Web site creator writing any HTML or other programming code", based on "a plurality of pre-stored templates, comprising HTML formatting code, text, fields, and formulas" that are then customized through the process of asking the user a few questions. In other words, they've patented the ubiquitous wizards found in [3]FrontPage and other newbie-oriented HTML editors. This was submitted to the USPTO on June 19, 1998 -- surely someone out there knows of prior art for this?"
Links 0. mailto:jalefkowit@NOSPAMaol.com 1. http://www.uspto.gov/ 2. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=... 3. http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/