this
www.atnewyork.com/news/article.php/1558671 could herald the biggest shake-up in instant mesaging services since they began.
AOL have just managed to gain the patent on several instant messaging technologys, including, perhaps most importantly, "presence" to explain that....
"the ability to tell users' availability, since each member's identification code alerts the system when they log on, which, in turn, provides availability information to other users.
Additionally, the patent protects what are commonly known as Buddy Lists, described in the patent as "a predefined list of users whose connection status the user wishes to know."
now obviously these 2 things are the very core of IM, but they have managed to secure the patents, because AOL bought out Mirabilis a few years ago and all their intellectual property (Mirabilis wrote and released the first IM service, ICQ, all them years ago)
Although AOL is "likely to seek some form of licensing revenue from its rivals instead of filing lawsuits outright" , i wonder how the smaller companys that make IM software are going to cope,
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/ springs instantly to mind as a company unlikely to survive this shakeup, Especially considering their legal action with AOL has been ongoing for some time as it is.
But time will tell.
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posted as news, just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the situation really, on first glance, its easy to dismiss, but with the technologys they patented, i think it could have MASSIVE implications on instant messaging now, and in the future, and not just on the PC.....
wot does everyone/anyone think??
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