[uf-discuss] copy-and-paste metadata prior art?

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On 9/30/06, Chris Messina <chris.messina at gmail.com> wrote:
> BlogAssist (http://www.dejal.com/blogassist/) does something
> similar... and in fact, I had designed Flock's quotation system to
> work this way, using the <blockquote cite=""> tag/attribute combo to
> retain the original data's source.

Worth noting the patent application was filed in March of 2005. A lot
of stuff I've seen publicly comes after that.

Notwithstanding prior art, I don't think the idea itself should be
patentable. There's nothing terribly novel about associating some
properties with copied content. Fundamentally, whether they are
"font-style=italic" or "title=random title" should matter.

Bruce