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Pop-Under Ads Patented

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-pretty-funny dept.

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.

6 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Bah. by MisterBlister · · Score: 4, Insightful
    As much as we'd all like to see pop-whatever ads go away, please never say that you support something like this. Even if the short term result would be nice, it gets us on an insanely slippery slope that we might not be able to get off of later.

    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'.

    1. Re:Bah. by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I'm not sure that this is necessarily a stupid patent, given that software ideas can be patented at all. The fact that it is two lines of javascript is as irrelevant as the fact that we all hate them. Complexity is not required -- originality is. Evacuating a light bulb so the filament doesn't burn is a simple operation, but it was original when it was first thought up.


      Since these things are in common use, if you can show these were created without direct or indirect knowledge of the company's work then you can make the case that the invention is obvious, and not original. Hmm. Maybe an application for Google? Quick, get me a patent lawyer.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. what next? patenting alert() calls? by Elphin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The USA! The land of the free! Where anyone can patent the parameters to a window.open() call!

  3. watch out, Cmdr-T by vex24 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. we can't have this both ways by Loki_1929 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  5. This is worse than a software patent... by Scratch-O-Matic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.