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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!
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.
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."
Pants off? Figures you'd say that...that's what most of the pop-under ads are about anyways...
"Would I be able to patent the act of patenting stupid, obvious ideas?"
No, but you might be able to get one for beating dead horses.
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!
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.
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
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.
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