Other trivial patents

There are many examples of trivial software patents worldwide.³ Examples are:

• US Patent 4648067: Footnote management for display and printing (IBM, 1987). This patent describes the handling of footnotes in a text processing system. This is a standard technique that has been used in every text processor since 1970.
• US Patent 5530794: Method and system for handling text that includes paragraph delimiters of differing formats (Microsoft,1996). This patent describes the conversion of text documents from Unix text files to MS Word format by inserting a carriage return character. Since the characters carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF) were invented, different operating systems have used them in different ways to end each line. This is a trivial technique that has been in use ever since.
• US Patent 5175857: System for sorting records having sorted strings each having a plurality of linked elements each element storing next record address (Toshiba, 1992). This patent describes sorting using linked lists. This is a standard technique found in every textbook.
• US Patent 6877000: Tool for converting SQL queries into portable ODBC (IBM, 2005): This patent describes how SQL queries can be translated into queries for the portable database interface ODBC. This obvious technique must be used by every database system that connects to ODBC.

Many other examples of trivial software patents are known.⁴From the fact that the above examples are all US Patents one might draw the conclusion that the US Patenting Office is more likely to issue trivial software patents. We think that this is not correct. The explanation is rather that the problem of trivial software patents has been in existence in the US for over 20 years and that the US patent databases have received more public scrutiny than, for instance, the European patent database. As an initial proof of this statement we have collected, in a very limited amount of time, the following European Patents that we consider to be trivial. Some trivial, but expired, patents are:

• European patent 10186: Apparatus for handling tagged pointers (IBM, 1980). This patent describes the addition of a tag bit to pointers in order to discriminate them from ordinary data. This is an old technique that has been used in various systems.
• European Patent 97818: Spelling verification method and typewriter embodying said method (IBM, 1984). This patent describes spell checking.
• European Patent 98959: Method for producing right margin justified text data in a text processing system (IBM, 1984).

More recent examples are:⁵

• European Patent 698844: Tunnel icon (IBM, 1996). Describes a tunnel-like icon to which the user can drag files in order to encrypt or decrypt them. This patent is not particularly interesting or harmful but illustrates the level of detail and specificity the subject matter of a patent can have.

• European Patent 752695: Method and apparatus for simultaneously displaying graphics and video data on a computer display (Sun, 1997). This is a common technique for displaying information in a windowing system that has been in use for many years.

• European Patent 1043659: File signature check (Konami, 2000). This patent describes the use of checksums to detect whether files in a file system have been changed. This simple technique has already been used by many tools and is the obvious solution for this problem.

• European Patent 767940: Data pre-fetch for script-based multimedia systems (Intel, 2000). This patent aims at speeding up the execution of multimedia scripts running in a limited memory client. This is achieved by prefetching data references that occur in the script.

• European Patent 0195098: System for reproducing information in material objects at a point of sale location (Fpdc Inc, 1986).

  ``This invention contemplates a system for reproducing information in material objects at a point of sale location wherein the information to be reproduced is provided at the point of sale location from a location remote with respect to the point of sale location, an owner authorization code is provided to the point of sale location in reponse to receiving a request code from the point of sale location requesting to reproducing predetermined information in a material object, and the predetermined information is reproduced in a material object at the point of sale location in response to receiving the owner authorization code.''

  This patent (on downloading and burning CDs!) was recently overturned by the UK High Court [26]. As the EPO did not overturn it, it is unclear whether the High Court would have been able to overturn this if the Directive that enforced the EPO's status quo to be uniformly implemented across the EU were in place.

To conclude. we mention some recent patent applications:

• European Patent 1046117: Web browser graphics management (Philips, filed 1999). This patent application describes a prefetching mechanism for web browsers that has been floating around for many years, for instance in the Mozilla browser, where it is called link prefetching.

• European Patent 1014627: Constrained shortest path routing method (Lucent, filed 1999). This application describes an algorithm for shortest path calculation and seems to be a variation on Dijkstra's algorithm [15].

As already stated, the above examples constitute cases where we suspect that triviality and/or existing prior art make these patents or patent applications undesirable. Clearly, a public effort should be launched to scrutinize the European patent data base and look for trivial software patents.⁶ Another public effort that is badly needed is to set up a searchable archive of prior art for software.