Código HTML:
 <script type="text/javascript">
var req;
	function validate() {
			var idField = document.getElementById("userID");
			var url = "Validador?id=" + escape(idField.value);
			if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
				req = new XMLHttpRequest();
			} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {
				req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
			}
			req.open("GET", url, true);
			req.onreadystatechange = callback;
			req.send(null);
		}
		
		function callback() {
			if (req.readyState == 4) {
				if (req.status == 200) {
					// update the HTML DOM based on whether or not message is valid
					parseMessage();
				}
			}
		}
		
		function parseMessage() {
			var message = req.responseXML.getElementsByTagName("message")[0];
			setMessage(message.childNodes[0].nodeValue);
		}
		
		function setMessage(message) {
			var userMessageElement = document.getElementById("userIdMessage");
			alert(userMessageElement);
			userMessageElement.innerHTML = "<font color=\"red\">" + message + " </font>";
		}
		
</script></head>
<body>
<input type="text" name="valor" id="userID" onkeyup="validate()">
</body>   Código HTML:
      public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse  response)
        throws IOException, ServletException {
    throws ServletException, IOException {
        
        String targetId = request.getParameter("id");
        if ((targetId != null) && !targetId.equals("hola")) {
            response.setContentType("text/xml");
            response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
            response.getWriter().write("<message>invalid</message>"); 
        } else {
            response.setContentType("text/xml");
            response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
            response.getWriter().write("<message>valid</message>"); 
        }
    }
)
 xq da ese error ???