http://p2pnet.net/story/5676In Microsoft wants to patent smilies, we say, well, Microsoft wants to patent smilies.
But if we'd taken the trouble to unravel the dense abstract wording, or bothered to read the complete patent description, we wouldn't have posted the item in the first place.
Because as a reader points out, “The headline is wrong - this is not about patenting smilies! If the author would have read the patent application cited in the article, he would have found that the inventors do not want to patenting smilies. Instead the invention is about adding complex emoticons to a lean message without increasing the data size of such a message. In other words, this new technique helps to keep chatroom conversation or instant messaging performing fast.”
In the application, Microsoft says:
“[0019] Many real-time messaging applications aim to minimize data for transmission. An instant message or chatroom communique that contains very streamlined data is referred to herein as a ‘lean’ message. To include one or more custom emoticons in a lean message would degrade the performance of many instant messaging or chatroom applications. Thus, the subject matter also includes exemplary techniques for sending a lean message to a receiver wherein one or more custom emoticons appear in the lean message at the receiver's end.
“[0020] ‘Real-time’ as used herein means that participants can converse back and forth via text, image, or sound without unreasonable delay while they are online.”
Without wishing to minimize our culpability, we were inspired by an article in ZDNet UK which quoted Mark Taylor, executive director of the Open Source Consortium, as saying, among other things, “I would have expected to see something like this suggested by one of our more immature community members as a joke on Slashdot, and probably would have chuckled at the absurdity of the notion."
Again, we apologise to Microsoft sincerely and unreservedly.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
