

IBM patents runtime code replacement in web applications - fgribreau
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20120216184.pdf

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campnic
I really feel like there is an educational opportunity for the HN community
about patents. We frequently have these articles where the title of the patent
is copy pasted into a submission to generate the largest amount of hysteria
possible. Then the HN community completely ignores the fact that a) the titles
are misleading and b) the titles are meaningless in terms of patent
protection.

Based on the claims, they are patenting a system for updating client side web
server applications. The system attaches source code information to JavaScript
object in order to be able to determine the version of source code that
generated the objects. The system attempts to provide a way for web
applications to update client side code in a browser using the source code the
objects were derived from as a way to continue operation without restart.

Now, I'm not saying that is novel. What I'm saying is that there are a lot of
presumptions that happen before people even get to the claims. Typically, I
encourage people to read the claims first, then work their way back through
the rest of the application. Without knowing the claims, there is no way to
know what they think is protectable.

This isn't a justification of the system. I think (software) patents and the
patent system are incredibly broken. Thats not a reason to be unfamiliar with
the systems. Know your enemy. reply

~~~
monochromatic
It's also not a patent, just a published patent application.

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monochromatic
THIS IS NOT A PATENT. This is what's known as a pre-grant publication. This
application has been filed, but it has not yet been examined. Chances are
quite low that it will issue as a patent in its current form.

Yes, the claims are broad... but this is just a published app, not a patent.

~~~
gcr
I'm really curious which claims will stand if it's accepted. Obviously not
claim 1, but maybe some of the others could look novel enough from a patent
examiner's point of view.

Doesn't Rails do this already? What other prior art could a prosecutor show?

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Sambdala
This is almost exactly what I'm currently coding in a side project in order to
dynamically load different parts of a game when necessary instead of front-
loading it all at once.

This is just another example of an obvious method to solve a problem that any
developer will come up with as soon as they need to solve that problem.

~~~
lttlrck
almost exactly... ok.

~~~
Sambdala
Did you read the code in the linked document? It's trivial and obvious.

~~~
gcr
It's also an extremely narrow patent; the only claims that are likely to be
accepted only cover _web_ applications, and the later claims only cover
programs written in Javascript. If you can successfully convince people that
your game is not a web application, or if it is not written in Javascript,
this patent may not even apply to you.

We'll have to see.

(IANAL)

~~~
Sambdala
My program is a web app, and it is written in JS. The code in the application
looks remarkably similar to my own.

The major difference is they're looking for a new version of software that
exists on the client while mine looks to see if a certain module/game is
loaded in the client and then loads it in if it's not already present.

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kpozin
Prior art: <https://trigger.io/reload/>
<https://build.phonegap.com/docs/hydration>

Plus every app that has ever had to solve this problem. There is nothing non-
obvious in this patent.

~~~
gcr
Question for all you patent lawyers:

When was this patent filed? Was it filed Jan 24, 2012 and the international
patent filed Feb 22, 2001? If so, why does the "Publication Classification"
section show a date of (2006.01)?

If this patent was filed in 2006 (which is unlikely but I can't tell), then
these might not count as prior art.

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mizhi
This is not novel. This is not innovative. It is a relatively obvious method
for dynamic code loading over the web that any intermediate programmer could
have arrived at independently.

~~~
monochromatic
It's also not a patent. It's a patent application.

~~~
dj2stein9
The USPO seems to rubber stamp all software patents.

~~~
monochromatic
As a patent attorney, I can assure you that this is not true.

~~~
icarus127
As a programmer you're going to have a hard time convincing me that it's not.

~~~
monochromatic
No one could argue that the patent office never lets through a patent that
claims obvious subject matter. Mistakes get made, and bullshit patents issue.

In general though, the examiners I have dealt with are more likely to advance
bullshit _rejections_ than issue bullshit _patents_.

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jebblue
I think this is the first time I've seen actual code written into a patent. I
didn't know you could do that.

~~~
talmand
Oh, I'm sure you could, but most don't seem to bother because it would be too
specific and might possibly make it easy to create a workaround to the patent.
Why be specific to control a small part when you can be general and control
the majority?

~~~
scromar
I don't think this is true in general. Most patents I have read have had very
detailed descriptions of the invention. In fact, it is to the patentee's
benefit to be as detailed as possible in describing the invention. It will be
harder for people to claim you didn't invent something if you have completely
described it in your patent.

In contrast, what is actually claimed (that is, the bounds of the legal right
to exclude that a patent grants), is typically made as broad as possible.
Claims will be included that are both broad and narrow, so that if the patent
is ever used in court, and the broad claims are knocked out by some new prior
art, there are still narrower claims that can be asserted.

In general, the patentee should describe every version of the invention they
have conceived of, in as much detail as possible, so as to support both broad
and narrow claims. If the description is not specific, it is generally for
lack of time or money on the part of the patentee or inventor, and it results
in a weaker patent.

~~~
talmand
I would agree with regular, every day patents describing mechanical inventions
and the like. But show me software patents that show the actual code involved
in producing the result. From what I've seen they usually have drawings
showing the method and/or result. They do not show how it works.

It would be like a patent for a hand gun that has exterior drawings of the
gun, a hand holding the gun/pulling the trigger, and then showing the bullet
coming out of the barrel. No explanation of how the inner mechanism itself
works. Therefore any other gun that works in a similar exterior manner but has
a completely different inner mechanism would violate the patent.

That's my understanding of how most software patents are done.

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lwhi
Could someone more knowledgeable please explain what the consequences of this
patent might be?

~~~
binarymax
On first glance it looks like it could cause trouble for frameworks like
Meteor - <http://meteor.com/>

~~~
driverdan
Except Meteor is clearly prior art. The patent was filed Jan 24, 2012 and
Meteor's first commit was in November 2011.

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sendtopms
IBM folks never aware of Erlang hot code replacement.
[https://www.google.co.in/search?q=erlang+hot+code+replacemen...](https://www.google.co.in/search?q=erlang+hot+code+replacement&oq=erlang+hot+code+replacement&sugexp=chrome,mod=11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
gcr
Did you read the patent? This one only applies to web applications and many of
its claims are Javascript specific (which is pretty narrow for a patent, but
that's how it was written).

Erlang is great, but depending on which claims are accepted, it probably can't
count as prior art here.

There's also some secret sauce in here about hot patching JS objects and
annotating JS objects with information about which source files they came
from.

(IANAL)

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daurnimator
So.... where do I send my examples of prior art? patent office?

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axx
I'm so happy to live in Europe.

~~~
jim68000
It's a US extension of a European patent application:
[http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=...](http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?FT=D&date=20120823&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP&CC=US&NR=2012216184A1&KC=A1&ND=4)

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roymabookie
This certainly isn't Sparta

