If I'm reading it correctly, the patent covers a <i>very</i> specific implementation, even mentioning use of EJB. Presumably an implementation on a different stack couldn't infringe.
The key is to read the claims (particularly the independent ones) - that is the only part of a patent that holds water.<p>In this case, the first independent claim is seriously narrow. The OP's title is extremely misleading.
<i>"This invention relates in general to personal information management applications, and more particularly, to a system that generates an electronic notice that displays a portion of a day out of office notice."</i><p>Surely this quote is actually from a Monty Python sketch and not an official patent issued by the USA.
Every patent application needs these three questions answered:<p><pre><code> 1. What's novel about this?
2. What's not obvious about this to an average professional in this field?
3. What is useful about this?
</code></pre>
In this case, 3 is a given but I can't seem to figure out 1 and 2.
A very thorough examination: filed 2006 granted 2012. But i understand why it took so long, they also had to invent multi-base fractional numbers (days hours and minutes: "timestamp to-the-minute" is repeated eight times in the claim) to support the invention. Who had heard that before.<p>Coming next: a patent that supports notifications accurate "to the second".
My second thought was how I will be required to set this up anytime my schedule for a day is a bit unusual :-(<p>Method and device for making office life suck even more...