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.
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.
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
I hope you are just joking about this. Because this will set a horrible precedence going into the future. I mean, what's going to be next? Patent using tables to layout web sites? Patent the use of 1 pixel gifs to place images?
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
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
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
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.
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.
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."
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
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
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,
"...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
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
"Options? Let's all go back to lynx and use the internet for academic pursuits. "
Sounds good to me.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Out of curiosity, are you in school, still? Those of us in the Real World(tm) generally pay for bandwidth.
On the other hand...
It takes less than a second to close a pop under.
Pants off? Figures you'd say that...that's what most of the pop-under ads are about anyways...
I'm for that too.. I remember back in 1994 when I used the "internet" for the very first time. So empty, so pure...
Remember the days of BBS's and such..ahh...
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
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.
I wouldn't call a line or two of JavaScript technology.
In a world where advertising must exist, I'll take popunders ahead of pop-ups ANY day.
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..
Actually it's the other way around. Research has shown that pop-unders are more effective then pop-up adds. The reason is this. If you have an ad that is blocking what you want to see, you are more likely to close it then go over to that new site. However, after you are done with reading what you want to see and you close the browser, the pop-under is now visible and you can devote your attention to that.
It's not just about impressions, but the effectiveness of it. and pop-unders are definitely more effective. I mean, personally, I've click on Orbitz's pop-under ad because I may be interested in a cheap flight. But if it was a pop-up on some site that I'm reading, I have 3 choices, minimize it, click it, or close it. Most people assume that when they click it, it will take over their current page. The majority of the people when dealing with pop-ups, automatically close it without reading it.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
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!
The goatse.cx guy?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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 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!
That's about as useful as a patent on the CueCat.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
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>
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
I believe someone from Cisco or something like that is the owner of the patent for the hyperlink. Interesting, isn't it?
blog & fiction: jd87
- 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.bandwidth is generally a fixed cost. it doesn't matter if your T-1 is at 80% m-f 8-6, and averages 2% the rest of the time, of if you're averaging a constant 70% all the time, the cost of the line is the same.
if those in the Real World (tm) want to limit their bandwidth by avoiding pop-x windows, they'll use (as you eluded to) a browser that doesn't allow pop-x windows (moz/opera).
in the Real World (tm), those that are too cheap, too frugal, or too cost conscious to purchase the needed bandwidth will setup a Squid (tm) proxy server
Note: Real World is trademarked by MTV corporation.
Squid is trademarked by the Squid Cache web proxy software organization.
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.
window.blur() has been around since JS 1.0 so what are they patenting? Putting an image in a window (been there done that) and loosing focus?
Only 'flamers' flame!
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."
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
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.
this will set a horrible precedent.
Um, it's already been set. Have you seen the kind of patents being handed out recently? Like the one on slashdot a couple weeks ago for using text and images on a webpage for commerce?
How many other things then could be patened? Links?
They're working on that.
Seriously, I think this is kind of funny. The more silly patents that get granted, the more irrelevant our patent system becomes... Ditto for copyright law. It's a joke, and becoming more of one all the time.
I like how google jokes on their lab site: Please email us your ideas, comments, suggestions, and patent infringement notices or post a message on the newsgroup for the particular demo you're referencing. (emphasis mine)
Btw, interested persons might enjoy checking out that labs.google.com site (thanks to k10k for the link..)
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
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!
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.
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.
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
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"
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.
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.
I use konqueror with "open javascript popups" set to "ask me first". I haven't seen any popup ads in the last year, I don't see what people's problem are really.
Oh, until I use a machine with IE on it of course.
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 perfect example of wrong + wrong = right