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SBC Getting Aggressive With Frames Patent

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the get-your-fear-on dept.

mpthompson writes "Aspects of the SBC patent shakedown were covered previously on SlashDot, but the following article has more details including the royalty fee schedules on the two patents that SBC is seeking to enforce against web sites that utilize frames in their design. In short, SBC has asserted that it is the exclusive owner of a technology for "structured document" browsing - the use of frames to provide hyperlinks to documents displayed by a browser. Apparently the strategy by SBC is to set precedent against small web sites that will presumably capitulate before going after the big guys. Based on the fee schedule, SBC seems to be pretty serious about this whole patent thing and may not go away so easily."

5 of 432 comments (clear)

  1. Cringely has already refuted the SBC patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Robert X. Cringely, the PBS Tech columnist, has already refuted this patent. See his article: "We've been framed."

  2. Re:Netscape by signe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, seeing as Navigator 2.0 was released in February, 1996, and the patents have invention dates of May, 1996 at the earliest, Netscape seems to be prior art.

    -Todd

    --
    "The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
  3. lots of prior art by g4dget · · Score: 5, Informative
    There is so much prior art for this that it isn't funny: lots of document browsers, WYSIWYG text editors, etc., had user interface features that provided this kind of navigational support.

    The HTML Menu package version 4.7, announced on USENET in January 1995 contained support for generating frame-based navigational elements.

    HTML 3.0, published in 1995, may not have standardized frames, but it did standardize the LINK element, which also constitutes prior art for this patent.

    Of course, this isn't even a question of prior art, it's a question of obviousness.

  4. PriorArt by stevenp · · Score: 5, Informative

    >> SBC Communication's claim of ownership for a common Web site formatting tool is based on a pair of patents, U.S. Patent No. 5,933,841, having a grant date of August 1999, and U.S. Patent No. 6,442,574, which issued three years later in 2002. Both patents cover a "structured document browser" having an invention date at least as early as May 1996, which is the filing date for both the original application that matured into the '841 patent and the continuation application that resulted in the '574 patent.

    In related news:
    >> February 1996
    >> Netscape Releases Netscape Navigator 2.0
    >> Netscape Communications recently released Netscape Navigator 2.0, a major new version of its popular client software for the Internet. This official release version runs under Macintosh, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, and X Window System operating environments.

    The Netscape Navigator 2.0 which allows the use of frames is released 3 months before the SBC-s applications are filed. The filing for the patent happens even 3 years later.
    What are they thinking???

  5. Re:then again... by Wakkow · · Score: 5, Informative
    Has anyone actually LOOKED at the site that got the letter from SBC? They don't use frames.. The term "frames" according to SBC means more than you might think.. Here's a quote:

    The letter suggests that any website which has static, linked information (top banners, menus, bottom banners) which are displayed while other sections of the page are displayed as non-static (the area where products appear on most websites) infringes upon the patents they hold.

    Doesn't that pretty much cover ALL websites?