It should be USPTO to decide whether the patent should be issued or not. If it is issued, then it should be valid (until later being invalidated or challenged in the court, which is another story…)

That is an excellent summary of why this patent is nonsense. Thanks very much for that.

For example, it says:

“Normally, for sideband service to work, a specially designed client program is needed”

Further it says:

“…in particular, clients must be able to download executable codes form the server and the server must be able to transfer executable code to the clients.”

(Note form, not from is on the .pdf)

The only time executable code is transfered to the clients via a web browser is if Active X is enabled. If you are talking about Java or Javascript, that was available with Nescape Gold 3.0. I have a copy with time and date stamps on the CD of 10/22/1996.

The patent does discuss using a Java applet to implement the invention.

“…In addition, the clients must have the ability to execute remote programs locally.”

This last part makes no sense what so ever. You can make remote procedure calls for remote programs to be executed remotely, or run local code locally. Perhaps what they meant to say was the server needed the ability to cause programs to be executed on the client machines.

It looks to me as if the patent is a solution looking for a problem to solve. To stretch the meaning of the patent to include AJAX ignores the normal course of development of Java and Javascript.

For example, in the book Java Unleashed, from Sams.net Publishing ISBN 1-57521-049-5 Copyright 1996, it discusses creating server applets. Further it was not difficult to create a applet with a window of no size, ie it was running in the background.

Note, that was three years before this patent was filed.

Perhaps the patent is a creative way of using Java, but Gmail and such is not a use of this patent.

Using something other than Java, (perhaps active X to trick code to being downloaded and executed on a computer), it seems to me, that the real benificiaries of this patent are the crooks that use hi-jacked computers to create spam spewing bot-nets.

But to the best of my knowledge, there are no normal web sites that use client computers to perform work as a way of off-loading the server, except in the normal way a browser might cache a script, then execute it independent of the server for the benefit of the client machine user.

It is an interesting concept, but you couldn’t depend on the client machines performing useful third party work, when the user can close the browser and clear private data at a button push.