Anybody who has ever done frame/slot based AI will recognize this as a  
slot demon.
Or if you were working in LISP its like a before/after/around method.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/hyperspec/HyperSpec/Body/sec_7- 
6-6-2.html

Nothing new here.

On Monday, March 10, 2003, at 12:13  PM, Hannes Hirzel wrote:
> U.S. patent 6473895 -  "Aspect-Oriented System Monitoring and Tracing"
> Publication date:  2002-10-29
>
> An aspect oriented system for implementing system monitoring and  
> tracing
> is provided in which the monitoring and tracing functionality needs not
> be coded into the resources being monitored or traced. Rather, an  
> aspect
> is provided which encapsulates the monitoring/tracing behavior. This
> behavior may easily and transparently be forced onto the resource by
> compiling the object class for the resource along with the
> monitoring/tracing aspect. When the monitoring/tracing is no longer
> needed, it is removed simply by recompiling the resource object classes
> without the aspect
>
> http://l2.espacenet.com/espacenet/ 
> viewer?PN=US6473895&CY=ep&LG=en&DB=EPD
>
> For the other patent which is not pending the screen at the European
> Patent Office
> http://ep.espacenet.com/
> gives no answer by searching for publication no. US6467086 although it
> claims to search world-wide.
>
>
> These patents are probably of the sort which could be contested.
> Currently the US patent office
> allows a lot of software patents without checking too much for prior  
> art
>
> and the European Patent Office recently began as well with this
> practice.
>
> -- Hannes
>