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o_O microsoft gets patent on cookies?
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 5:22 am
by volka
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Pars ... /6,632,248
Is it just me or is this bizzare?
This is not a rant againt ms only but some patents of the last few years are really strange, aren't they?
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 8:00 am
by Stoneguard
I _think_ their intent is to patent the concept of sessions, not cookies. I cannot really tell (only briefly looked at the document). But if they can patent the process, it may cause issues with other servers maintaining sessions, although I cannot see how they can patent every single potential method of achieving this state.
I know I was personally using cookies as early as 1997 to establish a session state without using any built-in server side sessions. It was very complex code I wrote in C++ at the time, but was a lot of fun to learn.
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:35 am
by volka
ah right, it's probably more pointed to this subject. But still bad enough. Hopefully this patent will not hold
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:30 pm
by wesnoel
LOL!
If they do get that patent, Does that mean that we will have to pay everytime we start a session or just when we destroy session?
Or can we buy lic. that will let us use them but only on one computer?
Wes/
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 1:31 pm
by wesnoel
Oh and one question:
Well All sessions come with IE?
Wes/
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:06 pm
by volka
hm, the patent
is granted.
it is pending since
Filed: December 6, 1996
Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:44 pm
by qads
1996? lol..i guess they forgot about it

Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2003 6:15 pm
by McGruff
Also, in 1999 MS was granted a patent for "the use stylesheets in electronic publishing systems" (Style Sheets for Publishing Systems, US patent #5,860,073). I don't think they plan to do anything with it though - or could make it stick if they tried.
Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:20 pm
by fractalvibes
The notion of saving some semblance of sessio state goes back at least as far as IBM's CICS systems on big mainframes. It would be like getting a patent on the idea of a loop....
fv