What the AOL IM Patent Covers

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

(Forwarded from Interesting People list)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2002 04:03:01 -0500
From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>


------ Forwarded Message
From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine)
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 21:59:02 -0500
To: dave@farber.net

I dug around on the PTO's web site and found that the patent
in question is number 6,449,344.  It has an amazing 202
claims, but after reading the four independent claims and as
many of the rest as I could before my eyes glazed, it became
clear that what the patent covers is buddy lists.

In particular, it's an IM system where each user has a
permanently assigned ID independent of where he or she is
signed on, there is a central server where a user (the
"seeker") can list the IDs of people of interest (the
"sought"), and the server notifies the seeker when any of
the sought users sign on or off.  The actual communication
is peer-to-peer, with some but not all of the claims saying
it'd be IP address to IP address.

The background discussion mentions IRC as prior technology,
so they are most definitely not claiming a patent on IM in
general.

The application was filed on Jan 27, 1997, so the priority
date would be Jan 27, 1996.  Was anyone using an IM system
with permanent user names and a buddy list server before
that?  The systems I used either used terminal names
(TOPS-10 and Unix "talk") or per-session handles (IRC).

-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607
387 6869
johnl@iecc.com, Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner,
http://iecc.com/johnl,
Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited
Commercial E-mail


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