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.

Comments

Ideas are patented, not code

[scottauld]

Are two lines of javascript worthy of a patent?"

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

I recommend Mozilla to block popunder adds

[brodiedreamyou.ca]

Just goto Edit > Prefrences > Advanced > Scripts and Windows > and disable the checkbox that says "open unrequested windows"

Re:I recommend Mozilla to block popunder adds

[Indras]

I recommend Opera. File -> Preferences -> Windows -> Pop-up Windows (set to refuse).

What's cool about this is it's the default setting.

Denied.

[chrysrobyn]

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.

Author Obviously Doesn't Know Much About Patents

[SquarePants]

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

Uhm ... 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

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!

Re:Author Obviously Doesn't Know Much About Patent

[SquarePants]

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!

Re:They actually did their homework

[SquarePants]

Actually, if you look at the patent application found here, you will note that they cite NO prior art (patent or non-patent) which is a dead giveaway that they know they have prior art problems. This thing will never issue and anyone who pays a royalty -- read blackmail -- will be throwing away their money.

Clap them in irons.

[Penguinoflight]

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.