Wednesday, December 04, 2002

Semantic Patent

Well this was linked to recently on the RDF Interest scratchpad about Talee's (now Semagix) patent. It is a rather broad (that's about the nicest thing I can say about it) patent on metadata storage it's number 6,311,194:

"A system and method for creating a database of metadata (metabase) of a variety of digital media content, including TV and radio content delivered on Internet. This semantic-based method captures and enhances domain or subject specific metadata of digital media content, including the specific meaning and intended use of original content. To support semantics, a WorldModel is provided that includes specific domain knowledge, ontologies as well as a set of rules relevant to the original content. The metabase may also be dynamic in that it may track changes to the any variety of accessible content, including live and archival TV and radio programming.".

I have a sense of deja vu with patent 5,684,985 which was used to claim ownership of RDF.

Why or how this is possible escapes me. I'd rather think about things like integrating Slide (a WedDAV framework) into TKS. It makes a lot of sense to me by allowing you to combine your metadata and freetext searching in the one store, stupid patents aside.

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