Liquid Audio Sues In Pitiful Attempt to Appear Relevant

Emily writes: "Another case of patent abuse similar to the PanIP nonsense previously reported in Slashdot. This time, it's Liquid Audio suing geotargeting company Infosplit over patent infringement. I read their patent, it's hilarious! Liquid Audio basically received a patent for saying that a domain ending by "co.uk" is in the UK. More seriously, these lawsuits represent a serious threat to innovation in this country."

Comments

And in related news...

[WPIDalamar]

WPIDalamar recently filed a patent that covers "Determining people's location from their postal address". No prior art was found on this, and he intends to charge royalties to anyout who uses an address to travel to, ship items to, or explain directions.

Now I understand!

[Andy_R]

until I read this, I always wondered why spammers send mail about crap that is only available in the USA to me, when any fool with half an ounce of intelligence can tell from my address that I'm in the UK. Thanks for clearing this one up, /.!

Re:Holy crap, 23 pages??

[teamhasnoi]

I don't know Perl, so here it its in basic.

10 A$="U.S.A";B$="Rest Of World"
20 Input "Where are you from?",IP$
30 If IP$ = A$ Then Print "Due to Copyright Resrictions you are not allowed to listen to or view this Liquid Audio Media!": GOTO 50
40 If IP$ = B$ Then Print "WTF? Only Patent Office fearing Americans may listen to or view this Liquid Audio Media! Not some godless pirates the likes of you! Away foul beasts!":GOTO 50
50 Print "Your Name has been entered into our database of repeat offenders. An agency ending in 'AA' should be visiting you shortly. Thank you."
60 End

Sorry I didn't comment the code very well...

Re:Interview with the Patent Office?

[Danse]

Any chance we could arrange a Slashdot interview with either the Head of the Patent Office (or their main P.R. guy) or with the Senator heading up the Patent Office Committee (whatever that is)?

It would be a very frustrating endeavor. These are the kinds of people that can actually defend patents like this with a straight face. They can sit there and talk about how we just don't understand the innovation and that these patents really are worthy of protection. And they'll never once burst out in maniacal laughter. They're that good at what they do.