Tags allow you, AFTER THE FACT, to categorize information which, in the case of Gmail, is messages.
Let’s suppose I have hundreds of message in my inbox and am interested in finding all mail with “Qanon” in it. In Gmail, I make tag called Qanon and it goes through all my email and creates a list that I can examine of all email that fits this criteria. Pretty simple, and basically the scope of McKibben’s patent.
I have read in detail a fair amount written about this alleged injustice. There are claims that IBM open sourced this patented information just in time for Facebook to put it into use. While this nefarious claim is certainly possible, to me it is more likely that Zuckerberg/ Facebook discovered the obvious details about the patent on their own and put it into use on Facebook, just like Gmail did. Give the nature of Facebook’s approach to software development,I just don’t feel that Facebook even looked at this IBM code. Too formal, without the geek factor of most open source code.
I don’t see any contemporary discussion about Facebook’s alleged complicity in this nefarious act. I see a discussion many years later about this violation. This behavior is typical of patent trolls who wait until many actors have violated the alleged claim, and then litigate these claims so that the accused find it easier to pay a settlement and fight it in court.
As I said, as a person in a directly related field, I do not find the patent novel or nonobvious. While I am no fan of Facebook’s myriad of allegedly illegal activities, I just don’t think that McKibben’s account is an any way persuasive.
I have read in detail a fair amount written about this alleged injustice. There are claims that IBM open sourced this patented information just in time for Facebook to put it into use. While this nefarious claim is certainly possible, to me it is more likely that Zuckerberg/ Facebook discovered the obvious details about the patent on their own and put it into use on Facebook, just like Gmail did. Give the nature of Facebook’s approach to software development,I just don’t feel that Facebook even looked at this IBM code. Too formal, without the geek factor of most open source code.
I don’t see any contemporary discussion about Facebook’s alleged complicity in this nefarious act. I see a discussion many years later about this violation. This behavior is typical of patent trolls who wait until many actors have violated the alleged claim, and then litigate these claims so that the accused find it easier to pay a settlement and fight it in court.
As I said, as a person in a directly related field, I do not find the patent novel or nonobvious. While I am no fan of Facebook’s myriad of allegedly illegal activities, I just don’t think that McKibben’s account is an any way persuasive.
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I greatly appreciate your explanation of the Gmail “tag.” I also appreciate your willingness to share your expertise and professional perspective regarding the McKibben case.
Is it possible that he really did have some original solutions to the problem, and that his patent lawyer cut him off at the knees with what you point out are extremely weak patent protections?
If so, my supposition is that from that point on he has no legs to stand on, to push the analogy. With loss of adequate legal/patent protections, it appears he’s out of luck getting any remuneration from a court.
If so, it is a terrible shame - if indeed he actually did have significant contributory ideas.