Slashdot Mirror
Pop-Under Ads Patented
gopherdata writes "The Oregonian is running a article about a company, Exit Exchange, that claims to have invented the pop-under ad and is currently in the process of patenting it. According to the article the company hopes to collect royalties from other companies using pop-under ads. Are two lines of javascript worthy of a patent?" On the other hand, this is one stupid patent
I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers
from attacking their potential clients.
and charge ALL internet advertisers royalties?
I hope they sue the pants off and stop every other company from using them :-)
I hate those ads so much, but they should Patent it.
keanmarine.com
unfortunately, this patent is enforcable, since it's filed underground underneath the patent office and only available once you leave the building.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Now only one company will be creating pop-unders, so we'll see less of them.
If you really hate stupid patents, fight against ALL of them, even the ones that might have short-term benefits! We can't afford to pick and choose the 'good stupid patents' from the 'bad stupid patents'.
The USA! The land of the free! Where anyone can patent the parameters to a window.open() call!
Now we know whom to blame. Bastards.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
How can you patent a method of using a tool?
One purpose Javascript was designed for was opening other windows; hence, the window.open call. I doubt that the patent will be granted.
That's like patenting hammering nails with a hammer. You can use the tool anyway you want but I'm going to charge you for every nail you hammer in with it?
That's absurd.
http://www.askthevoid.com
That's the thing though, ad agencies aren't attacking their clients. They are assisting their clients by making the most annoyingly visible ad they can.
I whole-heartedly support this. It makes it much easier on the snipers.
....
--Hey Doctor Jones! No time for love!
browser.slipUnderDaCovers();k OutOfPerson("X11 Camera - see secret booty shots");
browser.annoyTheFuc
Now if this was popup ads...
I've been waiting for this my entire life! Now those X(xx)-10 girls won't have anything to gloat about any more, and I'll feel better that I can't do anything of that sort myself with the camera!
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
Would I be able to patent the act of patenting stupid, obvious ideas? Then I could get a royalty from the next person who tries to patent something like breathing. Maybe I could patent the process of obtaining a patent on someone's genes - now THAT would be lucrative!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
It may not be such a good thing having this patented. Future 'silly' patents can then be refferred back to this one and say 'that one got accepted therefore this one should also'. And next time the outcome of the patent might not be so nice ;]
You can patent an idea so it doesn't matter how little code it takes to implement the idea.
When you think about it, aren't pop-unders better than pop-overs? They're all bad, but we can't escape advertising without moving to dictatorial establishments.
www.scottauld.com
http://www.scottauld.com
Now if only someone would sue Exit Exchange for the patent making unauthorized use of a trademark or copyrighted material and send the notice via email with a nice MS macro virus attached...
I think they shouldn't be allowed to patent pop-under ads... in fact, people who utilize pop-up or pop-under ads should be put in an enormous sling shot and slung towards the black hole ..
-- pX
From the breaking news on their home page: ExitExchange recieved notice that its patent application covering all forms of pop-under advertising has been published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Annoying and can't spell. The emphasis on the misspelled word is of course mine.
finally i have a target for my rage.
four-oh-four
Who would have thought it?: Exit Exchange as a consumer advocate.
Thanks Exit Exchange for doing what the Internet Explorer team is unwilling to do.
Of course with Mozilla this issue is moot.
Now I know who to sue for monetery damages and who'll be the primary liticant on the class action lawsuit!
It's a joke....unfortuneatly!
They will just find another way to annoy the hell out of us, and it will probably be a more intrusive one.
Help the scientists free the world from the evil curse of the dracula
Can I claim to be the originator of spam e-mail? Which way to the patent office?
Just goto Edit > Prefrences > Advanced > Scripts and Windows > and disable the checkbox that says "open unrequested windows"
This application will be denied. They have to state when the idea was put into practical use, and when they say that it was over 12 months ago, the USPTO will deny the application. At least, that's what I was told when I filled out the applications for my three patents. An idea is not legally patentable, and will hence be denied, if the company decides to patent it over a year after its introduction. The laws in Japan are different -- you must submit the patent BEFORE the public sees it. I'm 100% positive that I've been subjected to popunders for longer than 12 months.
for 2 reasons, one, to give a victory to the little guy, the start-ups, and 2, to make peopele pay royalties for those things, so that maybe we'll see them less. on the other hand, we get rid of one advertising technique, we'll probably get something even more annoying next.
why?
...before someone patents the process opf patenting?
You can't make something blatantly public as they have and then, years later try to patent it. No reasonable potential for patent / no story here. Move along, folks.
On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients.
Be careful applying judgements, CmdrTaco... remember that the Bill of Rights isn't just to protect the "good guys"...
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/21/221206 &mode=thread&tid=155
You know that on the remote chance this gets patented:
1. It will be fought and brought down. Many people feel against this, and many huge companies rely on this type of advertising for their profits or revenue.
2. It will be replaced by something even more annoying.
You can't pick and choose which ridiculous patents you want to be valid. To correct the problem in the system you need to get rid of all of the ridiculous patents, and not just the ones that don't benefit you.
In other words... it's bad. Get rid of it.
So how much money did it cost to research the concept of a pop-under ad? Did they spend years in developing and perfecting the concept? What a load of crap. Someone should patent reasonable thinking in patent offices, there sure doesn't seem to be much prior art.
Come on folks, let's try sticking with a position. Ridiculous patents like this need to be fought, even if by fighting them, we open ourselves up to the most annoying form of advertising online yet. Why? Because this type of trend opens us up to yet worse patent ideas. When someone can patent a small, simple bit of code like that and get away with it, what's to stop someone from patenting the 'cp' command? The US patent office doesn't appear to follow the guidlines for issuing patents, so there's not a whole lot to stem the tide of patents being issued for things that are extremely simple (ie one-click shopping.. duh), ubiquitous (ie palette bars - hello Adobe), or just plain ridiculous (ie the patent issued for 'inducing aerobic exercise' by pointing a laser pointer at a wall and moving it around).
We either fight all the patents we disagree with, or we fight none. When we pick and choose ("Well, this patent sucks, but maybe I'll get less spam on web pages") we appear weak. If our position truly is that we support patents issued for non patent-worthy things, then our position is weak.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Of course, if that never happened, ad-server clients would complain that the ad never really gets noticed.
But, are these ads any worse than the ones that are coded into the page you're looking at? For example, the slashdot design looks very nice, except for at the top, where an ugly yellow ad sits atop with huge, red letters declaring the website its advertising.
"According to the article the company hopes to collect royalties from other companies using pop-under ads."
Yea, and I'm going to recieve donations into my paypal account.
But, I see this as a good thing, now that someone has wasted their time in trying to secure themselves some revenue, this will either go one of 2 ways:
1) Exit Exchange will go belly up due to lack of royalties being honored, and toss in the lawsuits they'll probably insue on certain companies for failing to honor said royalties.
-or-
2) Sites making use of pop-unders will cease such activities to avoid paying royalties for something they should see as, dare I say, retarded.
Either way, I see less pop-unders hiding in my future. Anyone agree?
======
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
In other news, a public statement was released by the supreme asshole, the originator of all internet ads, the fuck who schemed up banner ads, pop-unders, pop-ups, screen-take-overs, home-page-stealers, link-stealers. He stated that he was claiming patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets on all of these "brilliant" "great" ideas which have so promoted progress in the Useful Arts and Sciences, and now will be charging a million dollars for each instance of their use.
He also said that if he found out anyone was using these techniques without paying him royalties, not only would he sue them, but he would also send them fifteen thousand SPAMs, another thing he's claiming patents, copyrigths, trademarks, and trade secrets on.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
First they came for the pop-under ads, and I did nothing because I was not a fan of pop-under ads....
IN TEH FUCHAR, LITERSY WLIL EB OPSHANAL!!!!!111
What a superb idea! Maybe I could patent the spamming process, and force spammers to pay me every time they use unwanted email to peddle their crap. I'll either die rich or spam-free, either would work for me.
Chaco
We all get along together like tornadoes and trailer parks.
So, I do think this is a silly patent, however it's not the simplicity of the solution that is patented, it's the idea.
The paperclip is an example of a brilliant idea with a technically simple solution. It was patented and I don't think many slashdot readers would argue with that.
Tim
Carpe post meridian
Someone might argue these should fall in the regular pop-ups category, but I insist in creating a new one: "XCam, The Most Annoying Pop-UpsTM". Humor aside, it's obvious that the patent/copyright system is being used not to aid innovation but to cripple competition, or worse, racket the larget than ever before technology using community. A side effect is the overwhelming /. traffic every time Joe Schmoe patents something.
-- Andre
The no sig sig.
Okay, let's think about this for a second. If Javascript was written to allow pop-under windows, obviously this feature had to be written in JS, and tested at some point. So are we to believe that Exit Exchange actually wrote this part of the language and tested it? I think not. Surely there must be an example of prior art out there, then.
Or maybe I should patent using X language to add two integers between 25 and 50 together. It's the same thing, I'm using X's built-in add operator to do something specific.
So yes, this patent is retarded.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
why do people use pop-under ads? of course, they are generating revenue by "showing" an impression, but surely the people paying for the ads would rather you actually SAW the ad to try and buy the product???
or am I missing some fundamental marketing thing here?
to my limited intellect, pop-under ads defeat the whole purpose of advertising.
someone please enlighten me.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
-System Crashes (just think how much you'd make off of windows).
-Adding shipping costs to online orders
-Spam
-Non encrypted credit card information
-The use of George Bush as President
I'm going to patent the exclamation mark!
Don't act suprised, or I'll charge a royalty.
I wish I could patent the idea of patenting things that everyone has already been doing for a long time without my even having to have told them about it but, unfortunately, there's way too much prior art for me to get away with it--errr... I mean, to make my claim good. Curses!
"...On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients."
TERRIBLE idea! Bad law is not the way to solve bad behaviour. If this patent is issued and enforceable, we'll have far more fallout than just stupid pop-under ads.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
To those who claim pop unders are the evil of the internet give it a rest.
... let's go to micropayments. We can each pay a thousandth of a cent to read these posts.
...
The internet is not free. You pay for it somehow. Someone, somewhere pays for the content you are reading.
Pop unders make some of the content available to you at no charge.
Options? Let's all go back to lynx and use the internet for academic pursuits.
Better yet
It takes less than a second to close a pop under. Now, if they spawn more and more pop unders we have a problem
Has anybody patented spam yet? If somebody could patent spam, and then deny its use, that would be the end of it!!!!
I normally despise these types of silly patents, however in one sick and twisted way, I hope these guys get the patent for pop-under ads. There is potential that they *could* do the right thing and deny right to use. (for american companies at least).
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
What's scary isn't a patent for a pop-under ad.
It's the MPAA-inspired patent on blocking pop-under ads... a patent that exists solely to prevent you from implementing it. You WILL watch every commercial, you WILL read every popup add, you WILL navigate every site from the base page (no deep links), etc....
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If a company starts charging royalties without a patent having been granted, and the application is eventually denied, do those that paid the royalties have a recourse? Can somebody say "I don't believe you'll receive a patent so I'm not paying"?
Didn't Netscape invent it by creating a set focus option in JavaScript? How can you say you invented a feature of someone else's language?
I hereby decree that I invented the concept of "pull-down menu", since Set Focus is already taken by Exit Exchange.
Wiping my rear with my hands and smearing it on my face to deter women.
Same basic idea of the pop-under. Something to deter users from buying your product.
I wouldn't call a line or two of JavaScript technology.
On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients.
A perfect example of Slashdot self-centeredness. "Stupid patents are bad unless they prevent me from being bothered by pop-up ads." Another example: "The MPAA is bad unless I want to see Spider-Man or buy the Tron DVD." Etc.
In a world where advertising must exist, I'll take popunders ahead of pop-ups ANY day.
rather than sitting around complaining aboput how stupid this is, let them know
http://www.exitexchange.com/forms/feedback.html
by filling out their cheesy feedback form, or find emails address to send to. As a mattter of fact i think Slashdot should post contact information with ever story that has junk as offensive as this.
but that's just my opinion, i could be wrong
Exit Exchange filed a provisional patent application in May 2000 and doesn't expect a ruling from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for at least another year
... provisional applications are NEVER examined and therefore the Patent Office never "rules" on them. They are just placeholders for the "real" (non-provisional) application. They have to file a non-provisional application which is then queued for examination. The Patent Office will probably not act on the non-provisional application for 3+ years after it is filed
Uhm
But the company founders are not going to just sit back and wait for federal bureaucracy to take its course
Its nice to hear how proactive they are but they really don't have much of a choice. The law is clear that they cannot sue for patent infringement until after they have an issued patent.
Exit Exchange is taking advantage of a recent change to patent law that enables it to seek royalties from companies for using its technology even before its patent is granted.
The "new law" allows the applicant of a non-provisional application to recover damages from the time he makes his application public ONLY IF AND WHEN the application issues into a patent. AFAIK, there is no non-provisional application, the application has not been made public, and no patent has issued. It may be quite some time, if ever, before these guys collect one red nickel.
"Because of the new law, we're now free to put anyone on notice and let them know that damages are accruing,"
Again, putting anyone "on notice" is not sufficient, you must have a non-provisional application on file, it must be published, and you can only get damages if you actually get the patent. These guys are blowing smoke!
Didn't a company try to try this a while ago and try to get the patent for hyperlinks or something? how is this patent on a few lines of java any different?.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
It goes a little something like this:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
function open () {return true;}
//-->
</SCRIPT>
that they will enforce it vigorously. The higher they make the cost for other people to create pop-unders, the better.
Amazing, isn't it?! Before jumping on a land-grab scheme, this company actually researched their idea for prior art. Granted, I don't think that this is worthy of a patent, but at least this company came up with their own idea, rather than trying to steal someone else's.
And no, I'm not going to make the obligatory slashdot comment about how the patent office needs to be reformed; someone else is bound to do that for me...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I was kind of hoping that the pop-under concept would languish forever in the public domain. Now that the intellectual property system is involved, we're in for an era of non-stop popundervation! Now we have to wait 17 years until there's no profit in pop-under ads again. Phooey.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I think that they should be allowed to patent the annoying things, and then they need to set a licensing fee of no less than $10,000 per ad. Maybe we can get rid of them that way.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
So where's the free software solution? Is it already out there?
I did some research. I think I found a non-provisional application filed by these bozos. The link to the application is here
Of course, there still remains the issue of this POS ever issuing!
Thank gawd. If a class action ensues, I hope I get $.01 per pop-up. The money will pay UNISYS for my gifs. ;-)
Well, since in-browser advertisements are always evolving, it should be every slashdotters duty to patent the concept as soon as it debutes and charge the companies who created it an unreasonable fee for each usage. THAT is the way to discourage this crap ^__^ Have browser cookies been patented yet? Somebody here could patent the concept of spyware... "I hereby patent the sofware concept that secretly tracks data on the users browser habits by sending packets to a central location for compiling." Heck, I've seen stupider stuff patented here. Like somebody else mentioned.. "Hyperlinks"? If you can patent that, you can patent anything.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I claim that I was the first person to be annoyed with pop under ads. Therefore I'm seeking a patent on being annoyed with pop under ads. Then I can retroactively charge a royalty fee for anyone who's ever been annoyed by a pop under. I'll be richer than Gates!
Okay, here's what we do. Lets all get together and brainstorm every possible way to advertise on the web (or off). Then take this list and patent all of them and refuse to license anybody else the right to use those methods! No new types of adds!
Tee Hee Hee!
That's about as useful as a patent on the CueCat.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
< )
( \
X
8====D
Props to all my dead AC's
This Usenet-thread from comp.lang.javascript, dated September 1996, shows that this technique was commonplace years before they filed their patent application. Try a search for "window.open()" and "window.opener.focus()" on Google and you'll find plenty of other examples.
First off, the title says that pop-under ads have been patented. Wrong. It is Patent Pending. It has not been approved, so that is misleading.
s elf.focus();
Second of all, I doubt that Exit Exchange was the first company to come up with this idea. Well ok, MAYBE the first company, but not the first person. Hell, back in the days when I used Tripod, GeoCities and all those other crap free sites, they started to throw up popup ads and I used the focus() command to move them behind my visitor's browsers.
It's incredibly stupid that someone creates a language, JavaScript, and someone patents the combination of using two simple commands together. They didn't invent the language. It is obvious that the creators of the language intended for things such as that to be possible, and so much more. It's like saying in C++ that you can include iostream.h but if you "cout", oh man are we going to get you.
For those who don't know JavaScript, here is the most basic code to make a popunder:
<script language=javascript>
<!--
window.open("URL");
// -->
</script>
On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients.
This statement is ridiculous. Does this mean, if this is granted and held up, that any arbitrary window that pops under the active window could be subject to licensing and lawsuits? They can sue your ass for any window that appears non-focused and then let the judge decide whether it's an "Advertisement" or "Web browser" that was in use assuming the patent even states those.
For good measure also uncheck "Change status bar text", "Move or resize existing windows" and "Open unrequested windows".
From the article: "Some dot-com giants, such as Yahoo, try to make money from the marketing tactic, which experts say is more effective than traditional banner ads but also more annoying."
The Oregonian makes heavy use of popunders. I got two when I followed the link!
Kevin Fox
Why in the hell would you patent something like this? Wouldn't this patent make most people want to kill the owners of it?
Damn
Two-click shopping. Then I'll patent three-click shopping. Pretty soon, no one will be able to buy anything off of the web without they have to pay me some MONEY. Except Amazon. Ah, well, that's the breaks.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Here's a great patent: Method for publicly securing exclusive control and possession of an invention.
Some one needs to patent this concept and sue the crap out of the patent office for infringement.
-Steve
-- Making computers see, hear, and think... http://www.componica.com/
Since I've been using Mozilla pretty much exclusively on OS X (except for this post, ironicly -- I sometime use IE 5.1.4 because Fleet Bank doesn't work with any other browser in the universe than IE something; I could have taken a job with Fleet's web application department but they found out my parents were married) I've all but forgotten about Pop (Up|Under) ads. By going to
- Mozilla->Preferences->Advanced->Scripts & Windows
and de-selecting "Open unrequested windows" as an allowed thing for a webpage to do, I miss out on all the offensive ads without running extra software, setting up fake proxies, etc.Thanks, Mozilla!
Postscript: is it only me who thinks of the song "Pop goes the Weasel" when an ad Pops up/under? Funny how the description "Weasel" fits companies employing such burrowing behavior...
Web designers/developers: do us all a favor -- if one of your clients or your boss requests a Pop ad, just say, 'Pop goes the Weasel.' The life you save may be your own.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
You can start with the feedback page.
Or if you prefer the personal touch, heres the ol'front door:
ExitExchange Corporation Office
ExitExchange
921 SW Washington Street Suite 228
Portland, OR 97205
And a special post for those of you with something a little...heavier:
www.exitexchange.com - 45.520 Degrees North, 122.685 Degrees West
What kind of person leads the charge to file a patent like this?
I don't mean this rhetorically, btw. I mean this literally -- the kind of person who convinces themselves that they will expend energy, human resources and financial capital on something so bone-headedly certain to get rejected by the patent office is the kind of person who was in charge of all those companies and investment banking teams that lead to the dotcom graveyard that has left so many techies out of jobs.
It's amazing that they are still trying this at this late stage of the game. I can only imagine the pedigree that exists among the leaders of Exit Exchange.
The US patent laws are ridiculous when it comes to software. To illustrate my point, I would like to use Amazon's One-Click shopping and the grocery store as an example.
Amazon's One-Click shopping is only common sense. It didn't take a lot of brains to come up with and it is not a giant technical secret either. Anyone can implement one.
Now look at grocery stores. Sure, there may be patents on the cash register machines, but there aren't patents on having people stand in line and wait their turn in order to pay for their groceries.
If one grocery store decides to cut down on their customers wait by building more checkstands and hiring more cashiers, that store's customers are happier because their shopping experience has become easier and takes less time.
This is synonymous with Amazon's One-Click shopping. Both are nothing more than common sense solutions to the problem of creating a pleasant shopping experience for customers.
If another store decides to open more registers to help their customers too, there is no problem. It is a common sense solution to getting your customers out of the line quicker and cannot be patented.
With software, however, the US Patent office is more than happy to grant patents on the most common sense solutions to computer related problems.
Just think how incredibly piss poor our society would be if we applied these same patenting principles to our grocery stores and other aspects of life.
One store would claim a patent on stacking their goods on shelves so other stores would either have to pay the first store royalties so they could use shelves, or they would have to toss their goods on the floor in piles, or place them in buckets nailed to the walls.
I'm glad that there is some common sense in at least some aspects of our lives. I wish we could extend that to software patents as well.
- Gather many people who have a usage limit (time online, amount downloaded, etc.)
- Calculate how many pop-under ads these folks download.
- Associate a dollar value with that amount
- Sue the patent holder for theft of services.
I admit that there are probably a ton of problems (why not sue the advertiser? How are pop-unders more harmful than bannner ads (which might be tolerated in order to pay for the site)? etc.). However, now there is a name to the pain, and we can go after it the American way.soon you will be posting the the basement hell that is -1. no one will listen except the people who browse at -1
Don't the thousands of sites already using this "technology" count as prior art? If not, I'm gonna run out and patent the wheel. And chairs. And shoes.
I am curious to know how this works out...
Why is it that you can patent something that is patented. For example, wouldn't this fall under the previous patent of JavaScript, since that is allready a patented language? Or how does that work?
hrrm.
Pup-under ads are, in my opinion, much more tolerable than their counterpart, the evil pop-up ad. At least, the ones that don't spawn new ones. I can stand the ads that merely apear behind what I'm doing and don't interupt my browsing. And in agreeing with CmdrTaco, I hope that the patent does go through, just to discourage others.
My other sig is an import.
Filter it filter it filter it... i'd like to see a prank (hack, whatever) to install ad filtering software on as many (windows) machines as possible, using a combination of virii, and hi-jackings of the software currently distributed with other programs (for example, there are pre-cracked versions of KaZaA around the internet - they could be distributed with ad-blocking software hidden inside - oh the irony. At the moment its too hard for the average user to install ad-blocking software (i got bored just looking for a decent program) if the code could be put on a number of machines it would bring the advertisers down over night, im sure allot of anti-globalist/capitalist/etc groups would be happy to take part in such a project.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
is that when it pops up but then resets the window focus upon the window that it spawned from? Uhhh, if they can patent that, then I will begin to patent my Exit button technology. It is great. You click on it and the window closes!
Is it the lines of code that are patented, or the process?
Seems to me all that can be patented would be the actual code, as the same result can be achieved in several different ways.
I am so sick of people trying to get rich patenting stuff. First, GIFS, then HTML, no this....come on people, get a life....
First Post.
On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients.
If they did stop using pop-under, they'd just find another way of annoying us. Like those popup ads that spawn more when you close them, or the ones that take over an entire page and scroll with the window, or something else new and annoying (like installing stuff by exploiting a security flaw)
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
It's simple now ExitExchange is simply going to offer their services, citing all the hoopla about pop-under ads, showing just how visible pop unders are. Any company that saw how visible the ads are would love to get in and try to benefit from that. It's all marketing.
Wasnt a patent granted on suid bits ? Simplicity is the mark of a good invention.
I hope this patent sticks and these guys start suing companies who use popunders.
Many of the sites that use popunders have deep pockets (e.g., MSN) and they can afford to take these guys to court and possibly win by having it overturned.
I am Canadian. /. about 2-bit companies trying to sue other companies for using thier "technology" for profit. Am I alone in wondering what the fuck is going on here?
My country's government is synonymous with allowing stup shit take place. However, I am appalled with the recent string of news articles posted on
This particular artice makes me want to hurl. It's code. How do you patent code? I understand copyrighting code but a patent? What is your country coming to?
Someone ought to take the patent offices and beat the shit out of every single one of them. Seriously...
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
Sheesh. Patents are intended to cover products or processes that are new, workable and ingenious (novel, useful and inventive).
There is nothing novel, useful, or inventive about pop-under ads. It's been there, done that. It's not only not useful, it's annoying. What's inventive about 2 lines of code?
What next? A patent on "hello world"?
Method for aquiring monetary gains via trade for goods and services.
In other words, making money by selling things.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
OH BOY!!
Now I'll have a company to sue for wasting all my time.
L053R
Rumor has it that have also filed a patent for pop-around ads covering the presentation of ad content splashed around a web page's main content.
I have two things that personally I find much, much worse.
1) Popups on close. Window spawning hell is what initially made me get (slightly) serious about using a filtering program to weed out javascript.
2) The most annoying yet, in my mind, is what I've recently seen on Yahoo (and I'm sure other places). They now have started to adopt "floating" ads, which move around on the screen using either flash or DHTML and do not pop up a new window at all. Instead, they cover the content of the main window with moving animations and other crap. I know that these have been around for a few years, but haven't really caught on too well until now. Perusing some of the trade rags to see what the enemy is up to, it appears that they are starting to gain popularity and probably will continue to so long as the people doing the campaigns are the ones used to designing for television. They want your attention fixed on their product for a given amount of time, without any way of getting what you're really after before they're done promoting to you.
For an example of one company I found who creates these things (and a place where you can see what I'm talking about if you haven't seen them yet), see www.eyeblaster.com
On the browser you use. For instance, my favorite browser, Omniweb [http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omniweb/] has some really nice ad blocking features. Not only can you block out images from ad related sites, with a built in filter, but you can also disable pop up and pop under ads whilst still leaving JavaScripting enabled. And, even in the beta release that I currently use, Omniweb actually feels nicer than a lot of commercial browsers out there. Additional: For those who aren't aware of Omniweb, it should be noted that it's Mac OS X only. It would be nice to see if they'd port it to other OSes, but that might involve a port of Cocoa as well.
You heard me, if these two commands can be patented, why not look for other nonobvious pairs of commands? Let's find something in .NET that is "worthy" of such nonsense!
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
With all of the open-source developers that have done REAL work that has much more patent merit than 99% of these bogus claims, it is too bad that there is no organization that could obtain patents based on the work of open-source developers and then hold them in escrow to keep these technologies from being commercially exploited.
I understand the argument of "patents are bad, so they should never be supported". But right now they are a fact of life, and being used to rape technology. Could this be a way to fight back?
Imagine if the EFF held patents for spamming? My mailbox would be a lot lighter.
Just stick that in your user.js preferences file under $HOME/.mozilla//aza0vbic.slt/ and you should be good to go!
$100,000,000,000,000.00 per pop-under i hope. let's see those advertising whores crumble.
Whether or not this will be a good thing in the long run I won't speculate about - I'm too tired for that.
What I will say is this: if it does pass: good. pop under ads, when left unnoticed, can be a big pain in the ass (ever alt-tabbed to a pr0n add you didn't expect with a signifigant other present?). This way companies will be forced to use pop up adds, which are killed before I even see the content.
Now I hope it gets proibitively expensive to use these annoying ads.
I hope the internet advertising companies boycott the pop-under ads.
Hopefully they'll get the patent awarded, and quash everyone else.
The end result will be they'll be the only people who use pop-unders, and I'll have that many fewer sites to avoid.
Even better, all the scum who want to use pop-unders will sue each other for the privilege, thereby draining money from each others coffers, hopefully resulting in some bankruptcies.
My hat is off to you all.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I think there should be a "nuke first 50 posts" (aka: kneejerk posts) option for subscribers here.
Firstly, Slashdot isn't a person. Slashdot doesn't have an opinion. Slashdot is a community. Slashdot is "lead" for lack of a better word by editors. Taco, an editor, decided to say "Let's nail companies who licence pop-under ads!"
The community did NOT suddenly ok pop-unders. Even if Taco meant that he supported pop-under ads (which I HIGHLY doubt), that doesn't meant the masses that read slashdot suddenly changed their mind.
And of course, people who do change their mind should be attacked! Linux will be the ONLY answer for the rest of time. Microsoft will ALWAYS be bad. No company will ever do good.
So, before you post the next time:
a) The submission and the editor comments represent themselves. NOT Slashdot. The fact that "Linux is dead" was authorized for front-page posting does NOT mean it is.
b) read the article.
c) If anyone says "companies that licence pop-under ads should be shot!", don't accuse them of murder. Now, go re-read what taco commented.
Moderators:
a) AVOID modding up any post short of an amazing one before 50 get posted. THEN reward people who have something intelligent to say.
b) do NOT mod up ANYTHING says "slashdot changed their minds!", "Everyone supports the RIAA now that movie X is on DVD!", etc. If anyone has anything new and intelligent to say about this, they can say it without accusing the entire community of changing their minds. They could also avoid using Everyone, Always, Never and any other absolute.
For a community embracing open source philosophies, there sure is a loud minority that needs to practice opening their mind first.
20020019834 Post-session internet advertising system
20010041989 System for detecting and preventing distribution of intellectual property protected media
I wonder how long it will be before they start informing Snort users that certian configurations may request licensing fees be payed for patent 20010041989.
Btw, those that are conserned with licensing pop-under patents may also be aware of:
20020046087 Method of drawing attention to advertisements
If it gets someone with deep pockets annoyed enough at it to challenge the patent office over the concept of software patents.
OTOH, they'd probably just buy it and annoy everyone even more. But maybe they'd annoy someone with....
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Mozilla, when set to block unwanted popups means JUST that.... it blocks popups that are unrequested and come just from opening the page... anything that pops up later when you click on something is not blocked.
It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: Pop-Under Ads are not dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered community of internet users when recently Exit Exchange confirmed that they are in the process of patenting Pop-Under ads. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Pop-Under advertisement has gained more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Pop-Under advertisement is exploding in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin poll of "Favorite Things Ever".
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Pop-Under ads' future. The hand writing is on the wall: the Web faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for some web pages because Pop-Under ads have nearly consumed them entirely. Things are looking very good for the Online Advertisement Industry. As many of us are already aware, Pop-Ups and idiotic flashing banners continue to gain market share. Browser windows reproduce like the heads of the Hydra. Pop-Under Ads are the most endangering of them all, being patented by its supposed core developers.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Exit Exchange tour guide Jenny states that there are 40000 members of the ExitExchange Network. How many users of Pop-Under Ads are there? Let's see. The number of Pop-Under Ads versus Exit Exchange posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1, because of course Usenet is a statistically reliable and significant measure of anything. Therefore there are about 40000*5 = 200,000 Pop-Under advertisers. X-10 camera posts on Usenet are about twice the volume of Pop-Under posts. Therefore there are about 400,000 users of crappy X-10 cams. Personal experience put porn sites at about 80 percent of the Pop-Under market. Therefore there are... [raises pinky to corner of mouth] ONE HUNDRED BILLION DAMN POP-UPS. This is consistent with the number of pornographic Usenet posts.
Due to a recent change in patent law, extreme greed, and so on, Exit Exchange decided to patent Pop-Under "technology" and is seeking royalties from Yahoo!, DoubleClick, and Microsoft ["who sell another troubled OS," reads the original here]
All major surveys show that Pop-Under Ads have steadily increased in market share. Pop-Under Advertisement is very sick and long-term elimination prospects look very dim. If sane Web browsing is to survive at all it will be among alternative browser dabblers. Pop-Under Ads continue to multiply. Nothing short of a miracle could save us at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Pop-Under Ads are not dead.
Fact: Pop-Under Ads are not dead.
The thing that bothers me about this concept is not that it's a patent for lines of code...what bothers me is that the lines of code do nothing more than specify which of a number of pre-existing options to use. To use your analogy: this is much more mundane and unoriginal than the incandescent bulb, which after all had never been thought of before and was an extremely useful device. No, this patent is more like if Edison had invented and patented the bulb, then invented and patented a variable resistor labeled 1-10, to control the brightness of the bulb. Then some clown comes along and says "During the day, I'll put the dial on 10, and at night I'll put it on 4." Then he patents this particular use of the bulb and dial.
Ridiculous. Scary.
Evil is the money of root.
[On the other hand, this is one stupid patent I'd love to see held up, just so that the licensing fees could discourage advertisers from attacking their potential clients.] I dunno... If someone has to pay for pop-under ads, they may end up going back to pop-over ads -- a MUCH more annoying technique. Of course, the worst ads are the ones that crawl across the text that you are trying to read. Argh!
[Again, putting anyone "on notice" is not sufficient, you must have a non-provisional application on file, it must be published, and you can only get damages if you actually get the patent. These guys are blowing smoke!] On the other hand, if they can get a few people to pay up-front (to avoid being sued for damages later), their stupid application has made some money. Maybe it's not so stupid after all -- just underhanded and lacking in integrity.
I've come up with a concept that I will be patenting soon, and I think it's going to revolutionize web advertising. I call it the "pop-under-over" ad. It pops under, THEN moves up to the top!
I'm also looking at further designs based on this system such as "pop-under-over-under", but I'm not sure that these will actually work since the concept and implementation of such a system is so complex.
Brilliant idea
Ads will appear in background
Startup seeks patent
You know, Malda, this is exactly what I've been talking about. This is the wrong attitude. If you complain endlessly about your own rights being eroded, but then stand idly by as someone else you don't like gets screwed for the exact same reasons, you are nothing but a hypocrite.
Repeat the litany about not standing up for the Jews, etc., and you'll get the idea. A government that can't screw the people you don't like is a government that can't screw you. This is primary tenet of Libertarianism, and a lesson we should all learn, but never seem to.
[ home ]
IN TEH FUCHAR, LITERSY WLIL EB OPSHANAL!!!!!111
I used to work for a company that wanted to patent a website.
The company pretty much tried to provide the same service as Keen, but failed horribly. Sure the infrastructure worked fine, the only problem was the lack of interest in the service on online psychologists that call you back at home....
I would insert a hyperlink, but it no longer exists because the company is now out of business....
That way all slashdot.org readers will owe me millions. I figure 1 cent per whack should be sufficient as the likelihood of a slashdotter getting laid is ~0 (I'd put some clever calc as the limit approaches zero but college was so long ago, and overall i'm not that clever).
Brian
--
Search for a New Web Host
Sheesh... I used to do web sites. There was one I had a lot of fun doing, a few years ago. I had the hell of a time doing it because I wanted it to be as high-tech as it could possibly be. JavaScript was the new baby in town, barely out of the diapers (Actually the first browser that allowed it was made available as I created the site). I took about 3 days (and night) of my existence to try to figure out how this puppy worked and how to create rollovers that were compatible (and fast) for JS-compliant and non-JS-compliant browsers... There were no site whatsoever with such "finesse" (actually, none that I knew that used rollovers) and had to create my own caching scheme, functions, and so on. Should've made a patent on this, I would be the new instant-billionaire today! I do think that algorithms should be made open-source. ALL ... A-L-L of them! Creating a new algorithm is not something that should be copyrightable. What SHOULD is the way you use it, the mix of algorithms, the way you optimize it.
Creating a Quicktime-player shouldn't be copyrightable. All the formats, no ©s. The way they did, the perfect integration and optimization for the playback, for the screen rendering, this should be.
The algorithm to calculate GPS's multiple-local-zone trajectories in Mercator should not be (c). It should be freely available (and guess what, if you search far enough, you might find it). The WAY you use it, it should.
You find a new way to compress data lossless 100 to 1 for random binary (yeah right), this should be open source. You take this algorithm and optimize its code so that it's possible to compress more than one byte per millenium, well, good for you!
Have a nice day
Mike
There are certainly a lot of obvious software features turned into patents. The USPO needs to stop allowing those. But when companies actually work to create new ideas, they should have a way to protect them.
my blog
At least these ads don't shove in your face... yes its annoying, but its far less so than pop ups that interfere with your browsing.
Stupid patent, yes, its too obvious. If they had to go and hack a 50000000 line C program or code in straight binary to pull this off that would be one thing... but it just seems too obvious to patent if it could be done in javascript. Odds are someone had played with such a thing almost as soon as java script was released.
Of course, patents only go to those who find a way to make something profitable. Not like the good old days where inventors had dozens or hundereds of useless patents that were actually innovative, like the automatic doughnut dunker.
Patents have gotten out of control. I am not the world's biggest GNU fan, but in this area I am in full agreement with Richard Stallman. Software patents (along with any patents on algorithms, processes or methodologies) are absolutely despicable.
I don't know who to blame more, the filers for inhuman audacity, or the USPTO for criminal negligence.
We just got hit by a stunner at work today. One of our competitors (number three in the market) has disclosed a patent for a configuration utility identical to the one we (number one in the market) have had for six years. A configuration utility! There's obvious prior art. It's obvious to anyone in the field. And the only innovation they showed was copying verbatum our name for the utility. How much do you want to bet that our company is going to roll over and license this "technology" from our competitor?
The sad part is that patents have become necessary to protect yourselves against other people with patents. No matter how much you abhore them, they're your only defense against those that don't. It's the IP version of Mutually Assured Destruction.
A patent for pop-under ads doesn't suprise me. Nothing surprises me any more. I've been told flat out at work "let's have a brainstorming session and come up with some new patents." I don't have any yet. I fear that I'll be fired if I don't come up with any disclosable ideas soon. Is there any market out there for software engineers that don't believe in software patents?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
(in fine print in the undocumented EULA part of Mozillas Licence)
Any company who uses these the popup and popunder capability of our code shall pay royalties to us.
Any company trying to make a profit on what we put in, we shall take them out.
Any company tring to gyp us of our money shall be hurled into a small black hole (small because we intend much room for growth)
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
I have patented a number of designs using Legos. Please ensure that your children do not infringe on my patents during their play time.
Seriously, computers, both hardware and software, are simply blocks just waiting to be connected together in the right way. Any patentable design should have to show exceptional creativity.
Coding Blog
If we want to say that software patents are bad, ALL software patents must be denounced.
It's this kind of fickle opinions that make the opinions of Joe Slashdot seem crazy to the common man. We MUST always have an idea of right and wrong, and promote them, even if they do not serve our own interests.
-twb
I wish some fee-happy scrooge would successfully patent telemarketing and door-bell religious preaching.
Sig-1: Sacramento Kings MVP: cheese cake
Table-ized A.I.
I'm a programmer. I work at a company. I 'invented' popupunders, without ever having heard of this company of jokers, in under 4 minutes. For that, you get 5 or 25(?) years of royalties?
Thats a joke. A complete, insane, joke. To whom do I send my hard earned dollars making these 'giant leaps' in technology in order to fight this shit?
"Old man yells at systemd"
So, things that are bad you wish underhanded lawyers got a hold of, but things that are good you don't want underhanded lawyers to get a hold of. What a case of a compromised ethics/values system.
adam
I don't know much about the US Patent process, but it's pretty evident that the process being used to grant software patents is a total farce, where almost anything can be patented, no matter how blatantly obvious.
Are there any plans to reform the whole process, before the lawsuits get completely out of hand?
We finally have one entity to sue into oblivion. It won't stop the others, but at least we'll vent the frustration a bit :)
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Can I patent this pop-up technique?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Yeah, because spammers never break the laws and always include contact info so you can send them a cease&desist letter.
not many people here may remember this, but someone tried to patent Save As as an algorithm :D
:)
that is what those stupid patents REALLY MEAN.
as long as patents are granted to stupid people those things are going to keep happening, someday a really good 'shortcut' method will be patented and those of us who thought it was too stupid a thing to patent it will find ourselves paying royalties. the patent system which seriously considers granting a patent on an idea is sick (sick like a person mind you)
if you think what I just posted is seriously flawed, please refute me
Using Opera 6.x was the best way I found to avoid the annoying PO/PU ads. It has a quick menu option to set refusal/acceptance/poping under of the ads. Mostly for me it is set to refusal and turn it on selectively. With the other _very_ useful features of the Opera browser like * MDI * Incremental search on bookmarks * customizable menu bar * low memory footprint I've become a huge Opera fan. I'm sure IE will follow suit with the PO/PU options. wondering how many /.ers are using Opera ..
Mon_Slashdot (not a Opera employee !)
yeah, what about that slashdot popup? oh yeah, it's annoying when OTHER people use them. fucking hypocrites.
does exit exchange = casino on net or X 10? because they're the only companies that actually use them (being general). If not, hallilujah.
:( (patent pending)
Seriously though, we do need to fight this. A stupid patent is a stupid patent
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
Or could Amazon use the one click patent against
Netscape?
Netscape "invented" javascript and the cookie...
Isn't this more appropriate as a copyright?
Bottom line? They can quickly figure out what works, and what doesn't. So, when you see something stupid and annoying and wonder how the heck they can get away with offending people...it's because they've got numbers that prove that it works.
It really is like something out of those science fiction stories where big brother adjusts the propoganda and policy in real time in response to instant opinion polls.
This is beginning to look like a bad joke made by Monthy Python. Just the thought of all the silly patents that is granted in software is stunning. Sadly theese patents can be used both by big companies to get hold of a market by themselves even if said patents technology can be done in 100 other ways. I think that software patents is like beeing able to patent music or walking. Im going to patent my own Silly Walk(tm) soon.
HTTP/1.1 400
All ads will become pop-ups, not pop-unders. And they're even more obnoxious.
I think what we have here is the convergence of the capitalist world and the open source world. First it was Amazon patenting their use of cookies with the One Click Ordering Facilty. I admit that what they have done is use an existing technology in an inventive way but what gives them the right to stop others doing it to? Are you trying to tell me that the people who coded Amazon and also the Pop Under 'creators' inquestion have never looked at other peoples code and resued it? This is what has helped the Internet grow, people sharing code, ideas and helping each other create solutions. All it takes now is a few more large companies to patent other parts of the web and the whole open source ethos will begin to crumble even faster. I can see a time when Microsoft try to patent http://!!! :-) Well maybe thats a little far off but the idea is still the same.
(http://www.e-consort.co.uk)
Having just got up, I read "The Onion is running a article about a company...". Somewhat more believable!
I have a better idea.
Make it clear to the people who put those damned things on web pages, that you will never buy anything from them, that is, anything at all--not even the latest, pea-sized hornicam(tm), unless it's cold water, delivered to you, in the desert, at a discount.
By putting those ads up, advertisers are opening windows in your GUI that require your attention to get rid of. It's computer intrusion using JavaScript and, patented or not, if you never buy anything you see advertised that way, they should eventually get the message and stop doing it.
Better still, even if they don't, you win the moral victory of knowing that arrogant clowns with too much money are spending a lot of it in a collossal waste of time.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
In this case, we would be arguing for this patent, because it will stifle the use of what it patents, thereby holding back progress and whatnot in a field where we don't want to see progress.
In other words, we're promoting this patent as a device to hold back innovation :) I'd like to see a
patent lawyer agree with that one.
As long as I'm using a browser that refuses pop-ups and pop-unders, I don't care if there's a patent on it or not. What will they patent next? URL redirection?
I think that anyone involved in this discussion should do a quick brush-up on their patent law. I think that you will find a term 'In the Public Domain' is appropriate.
Why dosen't someone patent those "work at :)
home" signs that people often tack up high
on telephone poles and stick on peoples cars,
and charge nice big royalty fees for them.
..Because I like Linux.
I'm currently in the process of filing a patent on use of the exit() function in C.
Specifically, using exit(1); to cause a program to cease functioning.
Please take note of this, and modify your programs accordingly (I suggest a quick #define EXIT 1 or an integer variable of your naming choice), or be aware that you will be subject to my licensing terms, which are listed below.
1-3 uses of exit(1); - One pint of Guinness for each use.
3+ uses of exit(1); - Two pints of Guinness for each use. Half of these shall be delivered to one Linus Torvalds.
Thank you, and good day.
...if they get awarded the patent, do you think I could get a patent for a method for declaring memory addressable conditionals?
ex:
{
int i;
i = 1;
}
If so, I think I see a market! =P
As a patent examiner its nice to see someoe who nows something about the patent process instead of the idiotic ramblings of people who don't take the time to understand the process.
it seems like slashdot thinks that 95% ofpatents get issued on a first office action instead of the otherway around.
method, system, use, manufacture
go read the manual of patent examining procedure or look up 35 usc 102 and 103.
the law says a person is entitled to a patent UNLESS: and then a bunch of stuff like the invention was publicly known for 1 year, was advertised or on sale, disclosed in a journal, a similar invention was patented or filed before your application etc
Now they are responsible for stopping all the pop-under ads, not caused by them. The patent is flat-out stupid, but it might help us out, unless they decide to "license" it.
Now's a good time to get bannerfilter. It runs as a squid redirector, so you wont have to give up your accellerated cache, like you would if you used junkbuster.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
A couple lines of open-source code is in now way worthy of patent protection. If the Feds allow this patent to go through, it once again proves (1) how outdated and ridiculous current patent and copyright laws are, and (2) only hints at the payoffs that are happening at the U.S. Patent Office.
How can I possibly see LESS of them? As a Mozilla user, I can turn them off. I don't see any now.
The patent office will not allow such a simple change in code to be patented. Got look in your nearest IP law book and see that changes or ideas that are "obviously the next step" cannot be patented.
How this could NOT be determined the the obvious next step in JS programming is beyond me.
In Opera 6.x hit f12 click refuse pop-up windows
Your sig here!
You reckon Google's caching system has captured some of the old pop-under ads from the past year or so? If it's enough to get the USPTO to not grant the patent, then I say we get a bunch of /. types to bug the heck out of Google, or maybe Hemos and crew know someone over there who can help us out? All we need is a verifiable means of proving that pop-unders were in use in 2000. I know I've seen em.
I guess the question is, does anyone know if the court accepts a tape backup as proof/evidence?
IANAL, so I must await a lawyer's answer, or maybe just a judge.
ciao
2^3 * 31 * 647