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CMGI, Altavista Patent Indexing, Searching
Aggrazel
passes along
a FinancialTimes.com story
that would send chills down my spine if I weren't already jaded and bored by such patent nonsense. You mean suits at a
megacorp
are taking advantage of absurd U.S. intellectual property laws to stifle innovation, quash competition, and steal candy from hard-working programmers? I'm shocked, shocked!
Here's the InternetWorld interview:
"...virtually everyone out there who indexes the Web is in violation of at least several of those key patents. Q. Does that mean you'll pursue that? A. Yes, we will. Coming up in the first quarter of 2001."
Could someone please find out what patents CMGI owns?
And in related news, DeadSea notes that the search engine that powers the ODP
(dmoz.org)
has been
released,
under the
MPL.
It's rough around the edges; go thou and smooth it out. While you still can.
Could you tell me what I'll need to do to keep them from indexing my site?
The AltaVista spider identifies itself as Scooter, so HTTP_USER_AGENT will contain Scooter. If you're using Apache with mod_rewrite, something like the following should work:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Scooter
RewriteRule . / [F]
Which will return a Forbidden page for every request.
US5970497: Method for indexing duplicate records of information of a database
US6138113: Method for identifying near duplicate pages in a hyperlinked database
US6021409: Method for parsing, indexing and searching world-wide-web pages
US6128690: System for remote memory allocation in a computer having a verification table contains information identifying remote computers which are authorized to allocate memory in said computer
More can be found at Delphion's Intellectual Property Network.
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How can something like this be patented? I mean, it's essentially a _slight_ variation on how any simple _handwritten_ list works.
You make a list. You check it. Twice.
Shit, Santa's got prior art on this.
-k.
Altavista figures it owns some useful technology and wants to assert it across the world. Fine. Glorious. Let them try.
But before we start marching, let's just remember that what they say they own isn't the same as what they own. Until you see the patent asserted, and consider deeply its claims, you simply don't know how bad (or how silly) all this is. Particularly in the case of web portals, where there are fierce competitors, I wouldn't be too troubled -- these guys can (and will) take care of themselves. They have portfolios too, BTW, and will be quite content to assert those as counterclaims.
The turn of the millenium has had a few sea changes for patent owners, not terribly well-covered in the media. In late December, the Federal Circuit's opinion in Festo virtually turned upside-down the strength of patents where any claim was amended, directly or indirectly. Virtually every existing patent, but particularly every existing software patent, has involved some substantial prosecution history changes. This change in the scope of the so-called "Doctrine of Equivalents" will dramatically impact upon the already narrow scope given to patent claims by the Federal Courts.
Moreover, don't forget that the more nuts the claim, the more likely it is invalid. The less nuts the claim, the less likely it has been infringed. Its a difficult process to drive the patent truck through that tunnel between enforceability and validity, and in so doing, you will discover that the patent system is fairly effectively self-healing.
The combination of Festo and these other factors suggests to me that it isn't time to take up arms. Let's wait and see what patents they wish to assert, and against whom.
My guess, no one anywhere is filing any patent claims that aren't slam-dunks in the first quarter 2001, we're all waiting to see if the Supreme Court takes up Festo again.
Here's some things you could implement by chaging you apache configuration or by including a bit of code in you CGIs/PHP stuff:
1) Block/Redirect by referer. That way, if you've already been indexed, you can redirect Altavista users to a page explaining Altavista's infamies and directing them to a more ethical search engine. Additionally, if you have legal firepower, you could let Altavista know that you know they're indexing your site and that you charge to let you site be indexed.
2) Please see the children of this comment for suggestions about robots.txt and blocking/redirecting by User Agent (Altavista's is called Scooter).
I think there is a Webmaster's guild somewhere. Also, perhaps the w3c could weigh in.
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Tweet, tweet.
I urge all moderators to moderate quincyq down. He is nothing but a thieving plagiarist who takes credit for the research, thoughts, and writings of others.
Why just settle for boycotting Alta-Vista... Why can't we block them from indexing our websites.
Is there a webmaster organization with enough members to confront Alta Vista and tell them that if they persist in this action that we will charge them for every webpage that they index?