Did an Apple Engineer Invent FB Messages In 2003?

theodp writes "Q. How many Facebook engineers does it take in 2010 to duplicate a lone Apple engineer's 2003 effort? A. 15! On Nov. 15th, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook Messages, which uses whatever method of communication is appropriate at the time — e.g., email, IM, SMS. A day later, ex-Apple software engineer Jens Alfke was granted a patent for his 2003 invention of a Method and apparatus for processing electronic messages, which — you guessed it — employs the most appropriate messaging method — e.g., email, IM, SMS — for the job. Citing Apple's lack of passion for social software, Alfke left Apple in 2008. After a layover at Google, Alfke landed at startup Rockmelt, whose still-in-beta 'social web browser' also sports a pretty nifty communications platform."

Nothing New

[Anonymous Coward]

How many Apple engineers does it take to duplicate a PARC engineer's effort?

prior art?

[jc42]

The main point of the patent's claims seems to be the selection of protocols based on a set of criteria. I'd wonder how many zillions of examples of "prior art" we can dig up for something that is basically keeping a list of alternative protocols/routes, and selecting one of them.

Thus, part of the "handshake" used in the venerable uucp system was a pair of messages, in which one end effectively says "I have the following protocol packages: X, Q, V1, V2, V3, R7, and C", the other end looks at the list, and send back a message saying "Let's use protocol package R7". The simplest implementation would simply pick the first name in the list that both have, but other versions would pick the fastest or cheapest or most reliable protocol.

The value of this is that it made for easy introduction of new protocols, typically when new hardware became available. Thus, when Ethernet came out, a bunch of people developed on a uucp package for it, and new releases of uucp would contain the Ethernet protocol. Whenever two ends found that they had an Ethernet route to each other, they could use it, but they could still talk to releases without Ethernet as they always had, using an older protocol. Eventually, uucp also had a TCP package, and it was fun watching uucp transfer data via TCP at speeds much faster than FTP or SMTP could. (I think this is probably no longer true, though.)

In any case, the idea of a comm-link setup routine choosing among a list of protocols (or drivers or hardware or however you like to think of it) is a lot older than the events in this story. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find such approaches that date back to the 1950s. After all, it really is something that should be obvious to any competent engineer who has even the simplest computer available to set up the connections.

Re:prior art?

[harlows_monkeys]

Cite?

Who cares?

[Seth Kriticos]

I have genius ideas around 3 times a day. Nobody gives a damn, ideas are plenty everywhere.

Are we really going to start nitpicking that someone had the idea of one or the other successful product someone else made successful?

Facebook did something people enjoy and long for with it. Good for them. The guy that thought of it first obviously failed with that for about 7 years.

I know, it's just random trolling on the front page, but it irks me.

Disclaimer: I don't have a Facebook account, nor am I very found of them. I don't own an Apple device or product either.

Re:Nothing New

[Pharmboy]

Yes, because even though Steve Jobs said:

"You could argue about the number of years it would take. You could argue about who might be the winners and losers in terms of companies in the industry, but I don't think rational people could argue that every computer wouldn't work this way someday."

Steve Jobs, talking about the PARC Alto
(http://www.vectronicsappleworld.com/macintosh/creation.html)

...it is obvious that the PARC didn't play a role in inspiring the Lisa or Mac or future Apple products. Even though Steve got them to invest 1 million dollars into Apple (which paid handsomely for Xerox and was mutually beneficial), surely you are right, and the PARC played no role in inspiring Apple to create the GUI paradigm that is still used on Apple and MS products today. I'm starting to think that the PARC was just a CLI anyway, and all the thousands of articles and photos on the PARC is just another part of an elaborate and unnecessarily complex and convoluted conspiracy against Jobs. That would be the obvious conclusion, wouldn't it?
</sarcasm>

So did Apple duplicate PARC's efforts? Considering it was on a different platform and they had no access to the source code of Xerox, I'm guessing yes, they actually did duplicate the concept and ideas of the PARC. Just as MS did to Mac, and Gnome is trying to do to Windows.

William Shakespeare said it best: "Good authors borrow, great authors steal."

Re:Same idea

[vakuona]

Why doesn't fiction count? If it's obvious enough to a person who is writing 'fiction' why should a patent be awarded. I could trawl through old Star Trek movies looking for ideas, and patent the concepts I get from there.

So is Google... So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same exact words could be used to describe Google. I don't have any problem with that: Ads are fine, they allow me to use a lot of great services for free so I've learned to live with them (though I block the most annoying flash banners, etc.). Now, datamining companies want to make the ads more targeted so that I would actually see more ads about the subjects that I'm interested in? Sign me up. Really, I'd prefer that. Everyone wins.

Combine handy services with that? Ones that allow me to do completely new things or save me time and trouble when doing the old things? Awesome.

Now, there is the issue about potential abuse of data. But in real life, these aren't as horrible as they are in tinfoil hat wearing geeks' minds. I'd rather just vote for sane data protection laws and then take the risks (which I do, in fact, consider to be rather small. And if something bad happens, it is likely to happen to 500 000 000 people at the same time. Which would make it a lot less bad for each individual.) than stop using great technology because of some doomsdayscenarios. It's the same mindset I have about nuclear energy, really.

Re:Nothing New

[t2t10]

Sure, it was "a deal"; that's not the issue. That doesn't change that Apple has been wrongly claiming to have invented much of this technology, not just in their PR, but also in lawsuits. And it doesn't change the fact that Apple has a tendency to misrepresent where their ideas come from.

In fact, Apple simple doesn't have a research lab. They have good software developers, UI designers, and engineers. They get most of their idea either by copying others or by buying companies.

Re:Nothing New

[horza]

Did you know that the standard "File Edit View Window Help" menu layout originated at Apple?

That's a standard? Isn't it just a bunch of random words used that Windows may have copied but to be honest doesn't make much sense? I never understood why "Quit application" would be under "File". It's all a bit arbitrary.

As did "cut-and-paste?"

Really? Not according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], it was Xerox.

Undeterred, the anonymous cabal of Apple-haters that has taken hold on Slashdot in the last six months will continue their efforts

Not particularly anonymous, it's just most people. Before it was just for their over-priced under-powered machines with the silly 1-button mouse. Now it is because they license your phone/tablet to you, and tell you what you can and cannot have on there, rather than just sell you the machine.

Phillip.