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What is interesting is that this isn't even a new concept.

Forget about Heinlein and other authors who have talked about this before (which unfortunately was only brought up by one enlightened /. poster so far), this has already happened, but admittedly on a much smaller scale so far.

In 1993, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as part of the advertiseing for the movie "Last Action Hero", had his name put on the side of a rocket that went up to LEO.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=Schwarzen egger+rocket+advertising+%22Last+Action+Hero%22 (Cached)
http://www.intouchgroup.com/press/Mar8_93-2.html
http://centaur.sstl.co.uk/SSHP/sshp_fun.htm

The point here is that regulating advertisement beyond this is just a matter of scale, rather than anything that has any substance. And when the vehicles themselves get so big that they are visible from LEO? (Aka like the "mothership" in Red Dwarf?)

What about the NASA "meatball" logo that is plastered to the side of each space shuttle? What about Boeing logos on all Delta rockets? Space Ship One had a whole bunch of stuff on its side, including ads for Virgin Galactic and the X-Prize itself. Should that be banned as well?

While by itself this sort of advertising is not going to pay for activities in space, it will make a marginally profitable company be able to run in the black.

The #1 think I that is going to blow the FAA regulations out of the water is that it is going to be unenforcable, unless the U.S. Air Force is going to assert American soverignty over all LEO patterns that cross visually over U.S. territory. I wouldn't put it past the current administration to do something bold like that, but the implications to that level of enforcement would be counter productive and dangerous to America itself.

The InTouch patents US5237157: Kiosk apparatus and method for point of preview and for compilation of market data and US5963916: Network apparatus and method for preview of music products and compilation of market data give remarkable insight into the minds of InTouch. The first patent is specific to their iStation device and mentions kiosks and CD stores and the like. It seems that after their device gained no market share (because it's a dumb idea) they decided to refile a new patent in 1999 that basically was a rewording of their original patent with the words kiosk and apparatus taken out and substituted with networked computer.

This seems to be a horrific example of what can only be described as patent squatting. Besides the fact that the InTouch patent filed in 1999 simply described ongoing practices at CDNow, Amazon and dozens of other music sites, it does not seem like InTouch has any customers or that their technology is being used anywhere. Their website contains nothing but sales pitches and has no mention of customers or anywhere their software is being deployed. IIRC, there is a law against obtaining a patent then waiting for companies to make money off of it then suing them.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court.

The InTouch patents US5237157: Kiosk apparatus and method for point of preview and for compilation of market data and US5963916: Network apparatus and method for preview of music products and compilation of market data give remarkable insight into the minds of InTouch. The first patent is specific to their iStation device and mentions kiosks and CD stores and the like. It seems that after their device gained no market share (because it's a dumb idea) they decided to refile a new patent in 1999 that basically was a rewording of their original patent with the words kiosk and apparatus taken out and substituted with networked computer.

This seems to be a horrific example of what can only be described as patent squatting. Besides the fact that the InTouch patent filed in 1999 simply described ongoing practices at CDNow, Amazon and dozens of other music sites, it does not seem like InTouch has any customers or that their technology is being used anywhere. Their website contains nothing but sales pitches and has no mention of customers or anywhere their software is being deployed. IIRC, there is a law against obtaining a patent then waiting for companies to make money off of it then suing them.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court.

They list the two patents in question here.

Cheers,
Ben

Now you can try intouchgroup.com and get to the real site...

We don't need to boycott InTouch because we weren't going to buy their product in the first place.
InTouch is suing because they say Amazon violated patents on this device. From what I can tell it is a set-top box that allows one to listen to samples of music on InTouch's website. This settop box is completely useless given that most CD store sites allow you to listen to previews of music in MP3 or Real Audio format (heck Billboard let's you do that), so there is probably zero demand for their product. The device is the biggest case of shortsighted thinking I've ever seen in my life, because all it does is play music samples from off InTouch's site. Once online music previews became popular the device became obsolete but instead of coming up with a new product or a new use for the device the company wants to sue everyone that provides online music samples meaning we all have to buy their stupid settop box if they win or websites will have to pay licensing costs. This is definitely the most frivolous web patent yet.

I would guess it's the GUI they're annoyed by, I doubt it's the hardware.
And if they win this one, I'm sure they'll go after Xerox Parc next.

Before all of you start waxing about poetic justice (too late), go read the article, or check Intouch's site. You'll note that link is straight to the particular product that holds the patents that they claim are being violated.

Redundant summary for the billions of you too lazy to read the article:

According to the CNet article they got one patent back in 1993 and another in 1999. They feel sites such as Amazon.com, Liquid Audio, Discover.music.com, and more have violated this patent repeatedly and are stealing their market share.

The particular product that's being abused is the iStation (a name as original as the patent) that allows customers at a CD store to listen to music online. Note the database is accessible only from the CD store, not to the common internet surfer.

This suit has no relevance in my opinion, because the audiences are completely different. It seems as if InTouch is suggesting that all online music-samples should come from their database.

This isn't poetic, this is far lower and more frivolous than Amazon's One-Click patent.