At 11:05 AM 5/17/01 +0900, you wrote:
>Internet Number Corporation have also been offering a similar service for a
>number of years now.
>
>Using one number on any device (PC, Imode, WAP, PALM etc) users can access
>homepages without painstakingly entering the URL.
>
>The internet number system has been adopted by leading magazines such as
>Acara, Lycos Magazine, Internet Start, iSite and Mobarev etc. allowing
>their readers easy access to homepages.
>
>This access model has been awarded a patent in Japan and the United States.
>
>For more information check http://www.internetnumber.co.jp/
>
> Byron Kidd.
>
> Internet Number Corporation.
> 5F Parkwest
> 6-12-1 Nishi-Shinjuku
> Shinjuku-ku
> Tokyo
I have prior art on this.
My company, Universal Access Inc (formerly Datawave Corp.), released a
fax/phone based web browsing server in 1994, which automatically assigned
integers to URLs, on demand.
We sold systems to FaxBack Inc in the US, and to Intec
(http://robo.noc.intec.co.jp/webrobo.htm)
in Japan, as well
as another company in Japan which has since gone out of business. Later we
also
contracted a version of the system to Fuji Xerox for use in web-enabled and
standalone copy machines and web-enabled fax servers.
Sheesh. It appears that just adding the words "on the internet" is enough
to patent
anything these days.
It used to be required that an innovation be of a ''nonobvious'' nature,
that is, it must not be an improvement that would be obvious to a person
having ordinary skill in the pertinent art. This
seems to no longer be a requirement for granting of patents. I believe
this patent would go down in flames should anyone challenge it in court.
I'd be happy to provide expert testimony to defend
anyone who actually gets sued by this company.
Henry Minsky
http://is.gseis.ucla.edu/impact/w95/RN/mar31news/Merc-news-webfax.html
http://www.uoregon.edu/~jbonine/fax.html
http://www.infotec-travel.com/txt/it263.txt
Response 2 of 3
** Written 10:48 AM Oct 4, 1995 by mendicott in cdp:infotec.travel **
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 04:24:12 -0700
X-within-URL: http://www.ua.com/webfax-instructions.html
_________________________________________________________________
Cool Banner
_________________________________________________________________
INSTRUCTIONS FOR WEB FA X RETRIEVAL
_________________________________________________________________
Universal Access Inc.'s WebFaX Server allows retrieval of World Wide
Web documents using any fax machine.
TO RETRIEVE A DOCUMENT:
* Pick up the handset on your fax machine.
* Call the server at 1.805.730.7777
* Follow the voice instructions.
You will be given a list of options. After entering a selection, you
are instructed to "push the start button on your fax machine." The
selected document is then transmitted.
PRESSING:
1. Fetches the Universal Access Inc. Home Page and WebFaX
instructions.
2. Fetches a Web page by Unique ID (UID).
If you have previously received a document from our WebFaX server,
just enter the number which is in square braces to the left of the
hyperlink which you want to fetch. The UID for this help page is
`0'.
3. Asks you to spell out the name of a WWW host.
You spell the Internet host name of a World Wide Web server using
your telephone keypad. Simply spell the hostname, omitting any
non-alphabetic characters. For example, ``www.ai.mit.edu'' would
be entered as ``99924648338''. Any URL can be spelled this way.
Don't type in the ``http://'' part, or anything before the ``//''.
Our server has a database of several tens of thousands commonly
referenced URLs. Because there are several million URL's on the
Web, your choice may not be available by spelling at this time.
_________________________________________________________________
If you have questions regarding WebFaX, send mail to
webfax-info@ua.com.
_________________________________________________________________
Warning! WARNING: Not all WEB data formats are currently supported.
* Fill-out forms in documents are not currently supported. At this
time, fields are printed but cannot be used.
* Movies. No support is planned for this feature.
* Telnet Connections. No support is planned for this feature.
Along with supporting standard HTML documents, we also support images
in JPEG, GIF, and portable anymap formats, and audio (by transmitting
it to you directly over the phone)!
We are currently supporting the ZyXEL line of Voice/Fax/Data modems.
_________________________________________________________________
Copyright ©1995
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Received on Thu May 17 10:57:47 2001