McAfee Patents ASP Business Model

Rob Kischuk writes: "According to an article at InfoWorld, McAfee.com has been granted a patent on its variety of "software as a service". No specifics on the patent, but the CEO's statement, "You either work with us, or you work around this patent", seems to indicate that more than a couple of ASPs could be affected." kerubi gets a cookie for sending in a link to the patent in question, or read McAfee's press release.

Comments

Re:Surprise

[Phrogz]

Arguably any form of web-based installer violates this patent

Yup...but can you point to a web-based installer prior to 1998? People are all gung-ho on patent-bashing, but I think this is a combination of I-want-free-stuff ("free napster!") and hindsight-is-20/20.

I'm not necessarily defending the scope or righteousness of the patent system in general, but just because everyone is doing it today, and just because you use it frequently, doesn't mean it didn't take someone else's smarts to come up with the idea and introduce it to society. Zippers, shoelace grommets, post-its, etc.

"Can you believe it, someone has just patented STICKING PAPER TO THINGS!"

Patent idiocy will die when...

[alispguru]

... the first lawyer successfully patents a legal argument, or perhaps a clever sequence of filing inter-related lawsuits, as a business process, and then starts charging other lawyers for using it.

Remember, the legal system in general thrives on adding complexity to other people's lives. When the complexity starts removing money from their pockets, things will change.