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SBC Demands Royalties for Links in Frames

Posted by timothy on from the gutsy-and-bold-but-a-bad-aftertaste dept.

John Miles writes "Offering yet another persuasive argument in favor of employee substance-abuse testing at the US Patent and Trademark Office, SBC Communications is asserting exclusive ownership of the concept of links in browser frames. With SBC's convenient new rate plan, now you, too, can afford to license your favorite HTML feature!"

8 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. haha, this is great... by gyratedotorg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    i can't wait for them to sue the united states government for patent infringement.

    --
    Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
    1. Re:haha, this is great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      On that same train of thought, how could the U.S. GOVERNMENT *NOT* snagged whitehouse.com by now? You'd think they'd be able to pull a few strings with a registrar right before it expires. It *does* expire, right? Not until 2007, I guess.

      Organization:
      WhiteHouse.com Inc
      Dan Parisi
      295 Greenwich Street (Suite 184)
      New York, NY 10007
      US
      Phone: (973) 503 1785
      Email: dparisi@garden.net

      Registrar Name....: Register.com
      Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
      Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com

      Domain Name: WHITEHOUSE.COM

      Created on..............: Wed, May 21, 1997
      Expires on..............: Tue, May 22, 2007
      Record last updated on..: Fri, Nov 22, 2002

    2. Re:haha, this is great... by BruceRD · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually the page on the USPTO that displays the patent needs a licence. Follow the link in the summary then select "images" from the bottom of the page. You go to a frame based layout with consistent navigation (prev/next page, skip etc) in a left frame and the output of the browser in the right. Would be interesting to know if the USPTO have a licence, or are currently being hounded to get one!
      -Bruce

    3. Re:haha, this is great... by JCMay · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I got a spam this morning from vvitehouse.com. There's just no end to the possibilities, I guess.

  2. Re:W3C has prior art. by Fweeky · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, that's ok: very few sites use HTML, but rather use a HTML-like language commonly refered to as tag soup.

    http://www.museumtour.com/ claims to use HTML 4.01 Transitional, but even a quick glace at the header shows two closing HEAD tags; hence they're not using "a predefined structure [that conforms] to the Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML)."

  3. The Patent by fulldecent · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Here is the original abstract of the patent:
    A structured document browser includes a constant user interface for displaying and viewing sections of a document that is [sic] organized according to a pre-defined structure. The structured document browser displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes that specify the structure of the document. The tags are mapped to correspond to a set of icons. When the icon is selected while browsing a document, the browser will display the section of the structure corresponding to the icon selected, while preserving the constant user interface.
    Here is a re-interpretation of the same information:
    A [web browser] [works]. The [web browser] displays [HTML documents]. The [HTML] [uses IMG tags nested in A tags]. When [clicked], [the web browser] will [follow the link] [according to the TARGET property of the A tag].
    May 17, 1996
    --

    -- I was raised on the command line, bitch

  4. I know I'm just being stupid again, but... by Subjective · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't there some restriction on what you can patent, in form of its use?

    I know you can't patent an 'obvious' feature/advancement - what is obvious is decided by experts hired by the patent office (which is why new sciences always get odd patents through)

    A patent can be revoked if 'prior art' exists to prove the guy can't legally be the patent holder - BTW, can patents be moved this way - i.e. A patents his 'one-click' feature, B proves he did it first, so the patent moves from A to B? Or does it simply disappear?

    But isn't there some clause which says you can't patent a feature after everyone used it publicly for years?
    I can just imagine some huge-bearded 3' guy with a club, wearing only a loincloth saying: "Hey, guys, I invented the wheel some 10,000 years ago, so, uh, pay up"

    --
    My other .sig is also this bad
  5. Correction - sorry... by Subjective · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I got the idea wrong - they filed the patent 1996 - prior art may or may not exist, Im not sure - I think my dad wrote prior art several years before 1996 - I'll check it out.

    Anyway, it seems we're fscked ;)
    Everyone has been using formats which seem open and free and public, but are actually patented and the patenter could, at any time, pop up and demand his money (see the threats, etc. over MP3 creation programs)

    But still, it seems to me that the patent idea is ridicilous. They're not patenting a product they make, or a technique to make products, but an idea in product making - after all, anyone can claim they're not using 'their HTML' - you can't sue a person for writing 'what seems to be HTML' - only for using a product against its use license. I could be wrong, of course.

    I think the Information Age caught the patent office a bit off-guard...
    If these things don't sort out, we might find ourselves working in a completely patent/license world, where you have to pay to use every 'idea' someone made once.

    --
    My other .sig is also this bad