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.
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!
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
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.
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."
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
Yes, you pay for bandwidth, but the fee you pay for that doesn't go to websites that provide content for you to download. They have to pay for bandwidth too, as well as sysadmins, writers, graphic designers, programmers, etc..
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>
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.
[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 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.
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"Yeah. It smells, too..."