Pre-Grant Publication Number: 20080301552
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Discussion (7)
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6
Eduard de Jong (over 3 years ago)
The MacOS X finder sinds its inception allows to set meta data on files and directories, which data can be searched. The meta data is actually called "spotlight comments" after the ui element that can retrieve these files and directories based on the meta data.
The apple picture management application iPhoto, where pictures are the UI elements, has since its inception (2002?) a meta data field that can be filled by a user with arbitrary values to characterise a particular image and which can be used to reorganize the presentation of the pictures. User chosen mete data is a major aspect of iPhoto's UI features subsequent versions providing enhanced support for further types of meta data, including in the latest version associating names with faces.
Even further back, in UNIX sytsem 7 (ca 1976) the text based UI primarily was concerned with files and directories. A unix file in UNIX vs 7 is identified by its so called inode, and the file name is a user chosen meta data information chosen so that it can be, used by a user to easily find a file, possibly by several different names.
In light of this wide spread and well established use of meta data to organize a UI for a particular user I don't see how this patent has any novelty, at least not in its 1st claim (the one I looked at)
5
Gostak Sakai (over 3 years ago)
This sounds very much like what could be done with Hypercard, a software program for the early Macintosh computer.

Defining the cards allowed you to enter fields that could be entered, data to be accessed, controls to be added and the order in which cards were accessed, all under the control of the user.
4
Bruce Wade (over 3 years ago)
I fail to see how this differs in substance from common personalization found on computers now and going back over ten years.

User input data that is parsed, saved and presented again to the user is little more than a Microsoft Windows user profile, or their browser settings. In Unix and Linux, the level of personalization preceeds even that in the .rc file that holds command history.
3
Andrew Oram (over 3 years ago)
Adding to my previous comment, claim 1 of this application may be vulnerable to the prior art because claim 1 does not include metadata entered by the user prior to the search. The description of the application specifies that the user can enter metadata that is used later during a search, but claim 1 is written in such a way as to leave that critical detail out.
2
Andrew Oram (over 3 years ago)
Regarding the instance of prior art (Patent App No 20020059278): I think it lacks the distinguishing element of user-created metadata. The claims in the prior art do not specify the means by which user selections are associated with material. The description in the prior art leaves the impression that the selection follows preselected field names, and I don't see anything about user-created metadata. The prior art is even broader and less defined than the application under discussion here.
Mark Nowotarski (about 3 years ago)
I like the ‘025 (Dengler) reference that Vaishali found.

An examiner’s rejection of claim 1 might look something like:

Claim 1 is rejected under 35 USC 102(a) as being anticipated by Dengler et al., US2007/013025 A1 (Dengler) . Dengler discloses:

a. receiving an input of user-created metadata; (“Initially, a developer, or some other user, specifies metadata 210 for a given UT Form.” Dengler [0030])

b. associating the user-created metadata with one or more User Interface (UI) resources that are depicted on a User Interface (UI); (“Metadata 210 allows the developer to specify a set of events 215 for each control 241-243 that are included on the user interface 240.” Dengler [0031])

c. in response to a user inputting specific metadata, retrieving one or more UI resources that are associated with the specific metadata that has been input by the user; (“The metadata 210 allows the UI forms developer to specify the controls to be added to the UI; define custom events on these added controls (or add events to the existing controls); and define the event-handlers via code in a code-behind assembly” Dengler [0031]) and

d. displaying, on the UI, the one or more UI resources that are associated with the specific metadata that has been input by the user. (“Generally, once the metadata has been created and specified, the interpreter 220 accesses the metadata and then passes the UI information to rendering engine 230 such that the UI 240 may be displayed to a user.” Dengler [0030] )

Did I miss anything?
1
Manuel Perez (over 3 years ago)
Regarding Claim 00001
The wording of the claims is too broad. In a broad interpretation of the claim, almost any current user interface would make the claim not novel