Some of today's 16 new "instant messaging" Patent Applications

In today's batch of newly published patent applications, there seem to
be some that are really nasty in terms of impact on Jabber. For instance
the following provides a quick selection from the 16 patent applications
published today by the USPTO that mention "instant messaging." I have
not reviewed all 16 yet, but these are pretty bad:

20030018726 "Instant messaging" has claim 1:
"1. An instant messaging (IM) process executed by a gateway in a
communications network, including: sending first IM traffic from IM
clients to respective IM servers of the clients; and sending second IM
traffic from an IM client using one protocol to an IM client using a
different protocol. "
    This sounds like a description of Jabber's ability to gateway
messages between different systems.

20030016657 Instant messaging with voice conversation feature=20
"1. An instant message (IM) communication method comprising the steps
of: inserting in an IM a voice communications identifier; transmitting
said IM to a recipient; and, responsive to said recipient selecting said
voice communications identifier, establishing a voice communications
link with said recipient."
	If granted, this would block Jabber users from passing phone
number or VOIP identifiers as part of Jabber conversations. Would also
prevent Jabber from being integrated with VOIP systems...

20030018747 Web presence detector
"1. A method for detecting one or more user presences in a virtual
location including the steps of: directing a web browser to enter a
virtual location, the browser associated with a first user;
communicating the virtual location of the first user from the browser to
a tracking server; entering the first user and the virtual location of
the first user, as a first user presence, into a database of user
presences, the database associated with the tracking server; searching
the database for any user presences in the virtual location of the first
user; transmitting the user presences to the browser of the first user;
and communicating the user presences to the first user through the
browser."
	This prevents Jabber's presence code from being integrated into
a web site in such a way that you can see who is reading a particular
page and then establish a session with them.

20030018692 Method and apparatus for providing a flexible and scalable
context service
"1. A system for handling context information, comprising: (a) an
interface for receiving a request for context information; (b) a
mediator, coupled to receive the request from the interface, for
determining which one of a plurality of context drivers to route the
request to; and (c) said plurality of context drivers, each coupled to
the mediator, each context driver adapted to receive the request from
the mediator and collect a predetermined type of context information"
	Context in this application is really just a superset of
"presence" information. The granting of this application would constrain
Jabber's ability to expand beyond the basic presence information
supported today. For instance, the application discusses the use of
"calendar" context information that allows you to query the database as
to future plans for a resource or person. (i.e. not "where am I now" but
"where will I be tomorrow.").=20

20030018724 Time-sensitive messages and events
"1. A method of handling time-sensitive messages, comprising steps of:
marking a message as time-sensitive; sending the marked message to a
recipient; and automatically receiving a reply from the recipient
regarding the marked message within a time period of the
time-sensitivity of the marked message. "
"7. A method of improving electronic communications, comprising steps
of: receiving a plurality of electronic messages by a recipient to whom
the electronic messages are addressed; and evaluating the received
electronic messages for processing, further comprising steps of:
determining whether a selected one of the received electronic messages
is time-sensitive; and requiring the selected one to be rendered to the
recipient if so."
	Granting this application would mean that Jabber couldn't
provide for a "time-sensitive" flag to be attached to a message and
would prevent Jabber clients from implementing code that responded to
"time-outs" on messages, etc.

20030018725 System and method for using an instant messaging environment
to establish a hosted application sharing session=20
(includes 93 claims!)
"The present invention relates generally to a method for initiating an
application sharing session between users in an instant messaging
environment, and more particularly to using instant messaging protocols
to communicate parameters for sharing a hosted application session" "The
present invention facilitates instant messaging users in sharing
applications or desktops that are running in a hosted environment, such
as Microsoft Terminal Server or a Citrix environment, by facilitating
the selective initiation of an application sharing session with other
instant messaging users, or by delivering other instant messaging users
requests to share a hosted application. "
	This application seeks to constrain the use of IM in a
potentially important set of applications.

	Remember, these are only some of the 16 new patent applications
that were filed today.  I haven't read them all... There is a two-month
window in which third-parties can submit prior-art to the PTO to help
ensure that these patents don't issue. Imagine what is being claimed by
the more than 700 current applications that mention "instant messaging"
but that I haven't summarized...

		bob wyman