Pre-Grant Publication Number: 20070118658
Collaborate on the process of community review for this application. Posting will not be forwarded to the USPTO.
Flagging a post as an ACTION ITEM signals further research. Flagging SPAM and ABUSE helps to manage discussion.
Placing double brackets around a reference to a claim or prior art will create a hyperlink to the original
ex. [[claim 1]] and [[prior art 2]].
Please review the Community Code of Conduct prior to posting
Facilitator's Comment 
Action Item Show without Noise
I think I'll move one of the Intel AMT "research" references to the prior art list, as it is in the neighborhood even if not dead on for this application, and we haven't maxed out yet. If anyone has other/better prior art, now's the time to add it before the buzzer sounds. Happy hunting.
I could upload the source and user's manuals as prior art...
This may help clear up the point I was making. A method is a way of doing something.
"A means or manner of procedure, especially a regular and systematic way of accomplishing something"
http://www.answers.com/topic/method?cat=health
This patent application, as it stands, does not present a 'regular and systematic way of accomplishing' the goal of the abstract. In order to achieve that, there would need to be a specific implementation.
In more clearer terms, I could not use this patent application to create a functional system that would achieve the goal of the abstract. I would need to go through a process of hardware/software development for which this patent application would act as a high level overview for. Only that final process could ever provide a 'regular and systematic way of accomplishing' the goal of the abstract. This patent application merely presents a structured idea.
As such, this application is pointless at this stage as it does not fulfil the criteria required to obtain a patent.
For example:
"Last month, a full bench of the High Court ruled that Lockwood had been entitled to patent certain variations of a deadlock with a safety release that prevented people from accidentally locking themselves into their houses."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/sevenyear-battle-over-deadlock-patent-ends/2020/06/23/1182019431224.html
A variation would be required to provide detailed plans as how to construct the device. In other words, a specific implementation would need to be presented. They could not patent the idea, or even a generic flow chart of a deadlock and call that a method.
It is no different when it comes to technology.
In addition, when it comes to software, it could be argued that a program amounts to the "usage" of a processor, rather than an independent process or method. Technically speaking, that would be accurate. A software program cannot exist independently of the architecture it was designed for. The functionality provided by a software application, is really already provided by the hardware (prior art?), a software program just informs the hardware how it shall be "used".
Let's compare that to a real-world example. Could I patent how I use a spade?
I think USPTO has failed to grasp this and that peer-to-patent must highlight these issues.
Let's examine this:
"A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine. A complete description of the actual machine or other subject matter for which a patent is sought is required. "
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#laws
This presents a problem. A complete description of a software application would require the inventor to present USPTO with plans detailing the changes made to the processor throughout execution.
This is the actual process.
Anything else, whether it be an algorithm, or source code is merely an abstract representation of the process. An abstract representation is not an actual process, as such it cannot be patented. Any patent granted based upon this type of evidence would be worthless.
That's the first issue...
The second issue is whether or not a software application is prior art. A processor (and associated electronics) already has the capability to perform the task given to it by a software application. Unlike nuts, bolts, etc., a software application does not combine physical materials to produce something new. A software application is merely turning switches off/on and exposing functionality that already exists in the electronics.
All possible switch combinations would already either be covered by existing manufacturers patents, be deemed obvious or used (in part) throughout an untold amount of applications.
As such, the USPTO has been providing patents based upon a lack of understanding of computer theory.
Given this logic of being able to patent a usage of someone else product, that raises some very interesting problems.
USPTO seems to be saying, regardless of whether or not you invented a product, 3rd parties are open to patent the usage of your product. In the case of software, there is nothing being added to the electronics that changes it in any fundemental way.
Does this not amount to the hijacking of a company's intellectual property or invention?
When IBM released the design of the x86 processor they did not patent any aspect of the design, including any combination of the state of its switches or logic circuits.
How can a 3rd party then claim a patent based on the particular state (i.e. switches, logic circuits) of another company's electronics?
For example:
"Last month, a full bench of the High Court ruled that Lockwood had been entitled to patent certain variations of a deadlock with a safety release that prevented people from accidentally locking themselves into their houses."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/sevenyear-battle-over-deadlock-patent-ends/2020/06/23/1182019431224.html
A variation would be required to provide detailed plans as how to construct the device. In other words, a specific implementation would need to be presented. They could not patent the idea, or even a generic flow chart of a deadlock and call that a method.
It is no different when it comes to technology.
In addition, when it comes to software, it could be argued that a program amounts to the "usage" of a processor, rather than an independent process or method. Technically speaking, that would be accurate. A software program cannot exist independently of the architecture it was designed for. The functionality provided by a software application, is really already provided by the hardware (prior art?), a software program just informs the hardware how it shall be "used".
Let's compare that to a real-world example. Could I patent how I use a spade?
I think USPTO has failed to grasp this and that peer-to-patent must highlight these issues.
So, as drawn up, the patent seems to me to be very narrow, but also as a result of being narrow, it is harder to find relevant prior art.
If you take a broader view - that an alert format is simply (yet another) choice resolved by the BIOS in conjunction with user input, then GRUB and other such systems are more relevant. But it is not clear to me that the USPTO would take such a view.
If any of the legal people on the team would like to weigh in, I'd be delighted to get their views on the issue.
(PS: it is useful that the peertopatent.org people updated the word limit to 500 words - I suggested it to them and they did it within about 24 hours. Thanks, people!)
There is no physical invention being presented.
As such, I feel that this patent claim should be classed as an idea. That is, it is presenting the idea of how such a method or process could be created. It does not demonstrate a physical method of implementation, nor a process of implementation or even an implemented invention.
There are no schematics in the diagrams, no demonstrations of a functional system and nothing tangible beyond vague flowcharts.
I suppose I'm asking, where is the invention, method or process as it would relate to a real world object?
ASUS A7V333 motherboard comes to mind. It has several features like mentioned, for example if a bad BIOS setting is chosen and the system hangs on reboot it will prompt you to enter new CMOS selections. Also there is an option to enable Voice Reporting during post. This voice reporting then alerts you to any issues such as faulty memory, cpu etc. Since you can chose to be alerted by POST beep codes, or Voice Messages I would call this selection. Since the Voice messages IIRC are stored in firmware and the user can change what the content of those that may also be of interest.
This patent application appears to offer a way of implementing user choices that would otherwise be made permanent by a peripheral manufacturer and a BIOS writer.
Claim [15] would download a user-chosen image to a device PROM.
Claim [16] would receive a new device image from an unspecified source and store it in some unspecified PROM (probably BIOS space).
BIOS is well defined as Basic Input Output System.
Although typical PC BIOS roms may include other utility programs such as Setup and Flash tools, these are not part of the BIOS itself, they are included in the EPROM or Flash ROM for user convenience - think back to early PCs where the Setup was by switches or a program run from a floppy disk, or the BIOS of a PDA, likely in the same ROM as OS and applications.
The 'core' BIOS simply provides a standardised interface to the device hardware and loads the bootloader program from some memory, media or network.
Anything beyond this is a program or utility etc., which happens to be in ROM.
The remainder of the claims appear little more than 'boot menu' type options, and the concept of downloading firmware to devices on the fly is certainly not new or original - it's in common use, I have at least two devices attached to this PC that use downloaded firmware.
Overall, I don't see the claims as 'none obvious'.
If I have an existing mechanism that lets me choose between arbitrary programs at system boot, and I have existing programs that, say, operate can openers, you feel that using the first mechanism to choose between programs that operate can opener A versus can opener B is patentable?