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Verisign Granted DNS Lookup Patent
mattgick writes "The Register has a story on how verisign was granted the DNS lookup patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,560,634). Scripts which check to see if a domainname has been taken would be in violation with this patent. A discussion on this subject is going on over here."
Atleast they didn't patten DNS lookups. Imagine having to memorize every IP address?
Misleading topic heading.
A discussion on this subject is going on over here
/. that one right now so we don't have to worry about monitoring TWO discussions on the same topic!
Let's go ahead and
To me it looks like companies are going to stop offering services and just sue the shit of everyone for their IP. Scary thought, looks like the patent office needs to take a closer look at all these tech patents they are giving out these days.
If you want to complain, go here:
http://65.205.249.60
Four years ago I was awarded a patent for human respiration while indoors. Now that humans have gotten used to the luxury, I will start asking for my royalties.
Oh My God! You slashdotted ICANN! You bastards!
Oh, wait, they aren't that cool anyways
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
The patent is for a system "that overcomes the shortcomings of existing domain name searching techniques by performing a multitude of searches simultaneously, transparent to the user."
This is for a specific method of retrieving domain name information and formatting it for the end user. If anybody actually knew how to read at the Register they would see that their simple script would not violate the patent as it is written.
So what exactly is the difference between having a human/monkey/pigeon do something as opposed to writing a script that does it?
When both accomplish the same thing in the end.
Now to start train my legion of patent violating monkeys and pigeons. Accepting applications now.
Sorry bub, I've already pattented the process for getting a patent to patent the patent getting process. Now cough up the dough.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
They're not interested in protecting what is covered by the patent, they're interested in making money. Sue the big players like Register.com, GoDaddy, eNom, BulkRegister, Tucows, etc. Who cares if people without money are infringing?
It would seem that the corps are well on the way to pushing this society down a path of Doom Spiral. I don't think I exaggerate when I say every one of us is now guilty of some egregious crime against corporations, whether we wrote some patent-infringing code, looked under the hood of the copy-extortion schemes built into our gadgets, or wrote something bad about scientology.
So far as I can tell, we've essentially made being a free thinker illegal in the United States. I'm glad that the UK and Australia are following suit, so that we can have a nice global village under the control of Microsoft, Verisign, and maybe a little Union Carbide and Monsanto for your physical health.
How did things get this bad? Why aren't we meeting on a weekly basis to take action against this annoying destruction of the public domain?
Oh, look! Matrix Reloaded is out! Gotta go.
fifth sigma, inc.
Are you sure? I also missed the original.
/. to write some Perl coding to check for dupes - probably by examining the links that two duplicate stories would have in common. The trouble is, unless/until this patent gets killed in court, such coding would fall under this patent.
Now, it would presumably be possible for
ouch.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
In further news, I'd like to announce that I am patenting the "ON/OFF" switch, a convenient device that enables safe, secure, and easy-to-use initiation and termination of electric current through a device.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The actual lookup isn't patented, it's just automatic lookups that are patented. This would be prior art if the actual lookup process was patented.
If the courts knew anything about computers, they would see structured programming as prior art for this. But, of course, something can be a new "invention" if a certain subcase is added. So, I should be able to patent "repetitive functions by a computing device used to search a file sharing network" and donate it to the RIAA to keep automated scripts from downloading from Kazaa.
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
Nope to obvious and already done. But apparently you CAN patent "a method of simultaneously looking up information, transparent to the user", of course with the exclusion that this would not involve looking up information regarding multiple DNS records with proposed system since that is now patented. Of course you would have to somehow prove that news portals do not constitute prior art before you turn around and collect royalties on the same portals
2) If so, how did they show this? If not, how did they get the patent?
3) How is it an original and inventive solution to a problem?
4) Does it cover any scripts that perform the task, or is it specifically a scripting solution that is patented? In other words, if I were to compile a binary to do the same thing, would this be a distinct solution and could I patent that please?
5) Do american lawyers/judges have as little understanding of how computer systems work as this suggests?
I'm going to take out a patent to patent the patent getting process.
No dice. I'll just point to the fact that you got that patent to prove prior art.
So I don't have a problem when American companies get their IP rights secured by patents such that the invested taxpayers money will give some revenues
By that reasoning, all American taxpayers should reap the benefits of said patents.
Furthermore despite having to leave the U.S. and return to Canada when my H1B expired (and post-9/11/01, my Labour Cert. as premilinary step for a Green Card was in indefinite limbo), I was and am an American taxpayer, so I too should benefit. Come to think of it, there are a lot of other foreigners who are American taxpayers. (Of course, to soothe your pro-American stance, this isn't quite correct: despite paying American taxes, as a non-citizen I was not entitled to many of the benefits they pay for, i.e. state unemployment insurance, for one. The point about taxpayers in general vs. corporations is correct, though.).
You could've hired me.
I patented people talking in caps in sentences in comment posting websites, so take that!
--------
Free your mind.
so the patent protects scripts that make multiple lookups transparent to the user (at least, according to the oh-so-trustworthy register). so just eliminate transparency: "looking up register.com" "looking up register.net" "looking up register.org" instead of not eliminating transparency: "looking up register" ouchies
This may sound like a flammable comment, but can anyone think of a *method* patent that you would deem actually worthy its patentability? Every modern method patent seems to be something that just doesn't pass the "innovative" component of the patent test (The "work" must be new, non-obvious, and innovative to be worthy of a patent, IIRC, though of course "innovative" in particular is a woefully vague term).
Conversely, a great many of these popularly "bad patents" -- e.g. one-click shopping, online auctioning/reverse auctioning, hyperlinking, and now multiple-simultaneous-DNS-lookups -- are process/method patents.
Maybe we should just scrap 'method' patents? How much of the problem would that solve? What sorts of innovation would a lack of method patents fail to protect? This is certainly (IMHO) a shining example of NON-innovation that has been awarded patent protection.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
USPTO for 6,560,634
I don't have the time, but could someone answer the above?
Perhaps we could get a new moderation category: -1: Joke made everytime topic comes up.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Now you cough up the money!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Here is a big ole RTFA to you!
.com registration. However, Lynx most certainly checks .com, .edu, .net, and .org of the name you give. From the Register article, this would violate the patent. However, Lynx has been doing this for as long as I can remember, which is prior than 1998 (the year the patent was applied for). Prior art, anyone?
And here is a big ole RTFC[omment] and your own personal RTFA! When you type in just "slashdot", Mozilla and IE first try slashdot.com. They may try slashdot.net, slashdot.org, and slashdot.edu, if slashdot.com fails, but I can't tell right now because I don't know a domain name off the top of my head that doesn't have a corresponding
I think that the only people this will effect are spammers, domian name squatters and terrorists. In other words, criminals and criminals. It's a well-known fact that such scripts are traded in the secret spammer forums (with the original purpose of finding open SMTP ports), and are later modified by domain name 'bounty hunters' to find unused IPs. As much as I hate to say something good could come out of the whole DMCA debacle, if enforcing this patent can stop one piece of spam or one terrorist act, I have a hard time objecting!
That's an awfully large-sized brush you're using to paint us with, Anonymous Eurocoward.
You just made almost a dozen categorical, unconstructive criticisms of the populace of an entire country. Interesting how, if I were to write something similar about "Arabs" or "Chinese people," I'd be accused of intolerance of even racism. But it remains ever-popular and completely OK to say things like "All Americans are nuts." Incredible. This is the attitude that many Americans (myself included) find so off-putting -- that somehow intolerance and prejudice is bad, except when it's directed towards Americans.
I'm not saying the USA doesn't have problems, I'm just saying that your snobbish, prejudiced attitude is not going to help us solve them.
And your comment "and even the colo(u)rful language they've brutally raped"... I can't even begin to understand what you mean by this idiotic statement. English has always been an "open source" language -- evolving, changing, adapting and improving with its times and settings. There is no central committee regulating the English language, unlike, say, French.
So what? Whenever something like this happens, we bitch about it on Slashdot, nobody bothers to do anything about it, a couple of companies get sued, and then we hear nothing more about it because these patents are retarded and unenforceable. No need to worry.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
In other news:
A poor intern known to the online community as ianjk, has filed a patent for a program, that upon execution, displays the text 'Hello World'.
so what if you're going to get modded to a flamebait "-2". if you believe so strongly against the US log yourself in, and them tell me what you think. if you are swayed in your opinions so easily that a movie can change your view of hate to pity, i pity you. and as an american i will respond to your statement.
...and even the colo(u)rful language they've brutally raped.
Fuck...the US.
slow down there son, it's not our fault one of our companies patented this. clam down
Their patent legislation
yes, this is a sad state and something horribly worng with the united states. there are citizens fight this every day and i really am against software patents in particular. it's unfair and unjust, i would like it changed as well
Their DMCA + enforcements
Their RIAA, MPAA, etc.
Again, i wish i could argue with you, but i feel strongly against these as well
Their Microsoft-style arrogant worldwide trusts and other übergreed corporations
now what does this mean? just because you use the word "microsoft" in a sentence doesn't mean whatever you are describing is bad or evil. our "ubergreed" corporations? the ones that made it possible for you to be on that box you are typing on today? if they are so bad, why do you use their technology?
Their "justice" system, giving justice just for rich white men
I honestly don't find the justice that the rich white men recieve as justice. the ones stealing from other americans by lying on quarterly reports just so they can sell their stocks high and not tried fairly. an uber-rich black man got away with urdering his ex wife. that's not justice either. our justice system does deliver justice, but your example makes it appear as if stealing and getting away with it is just. how?
Their gun laws
what about them? we are allowed to own them? what is so unappealing about our right to bear arms? sure criminals can get thier hands on them, but i'd rather live free with less security then all the security in the world being governed closely.
Their violency and their wars
our violency? we learned that from menbers of the EU. france and germany have fought for hundreds of years. we even help the french out a couple times. we didn't create violence, but we are not the only ones using it.
Their presidents and other politicians
how... HOW do you find this an argument to "Fuck" the us? what about our presidents and politicians? we have known for years politicians are sneaky and lie. most of our horrible joke float around this concept.
Their constitution
if you for one second are going against the constitution of the united states, you are a utter moron. what is wrong with our constitution? it guarantees liberty, freedom, justice. it's not our consitution that is wrong it's how it's being used, or the lack thereof. have you even read it? it's a pretty good deal that enables me to live my life the way i wnat it. The constitution is what makes america great. not our money, not our military, not our horrible rock music. it's the constitution. i stand by the constitution my forefathers wrote before i stand behind my current leader.
Their culture
our culture? which one? american is a place of many cultures of many people. it's not just one "pop" mtv culture -- there are many other way s to experience life aside from the glitz of music tlevision.
Their hypocrisy and their stupidity
how for one second do you find english colo(u)rful? it's an ugly germanic language. latin languages make so much more sence and have a beauty and a flow that feels like water coming off your tounge. as for our hipocrisy -- there are 300,000,000 of us. it's easy for half to say one thing and the other half to do another.
They're all just nuts.
can't argue. we are a little coo c
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
Oh well in that case...
;)
The world wide web was created at CERN by Tim Berners Lee, born in London England. As you also don't have a problem with American companies getting money back from their creation of 'the whole internet', then you also don't mind if Mr Berners Lee collects revenues from non-British companies?
I'd like to think you were joking. The granting of the Verisign multiple lookup patent is ridiculous.
--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
About two years ago I got into the "game" of buying up expired domain names, simply for fun. THere was an expired name I wanted and I got hooked on watching http://www.namewinner.com/ and other such ebay-style domain name bidding services. Over the last two years the big stink seems to be Verisign was pouty because namewinner and other such services (enom, snapnames, etc.) were making some big $$$ of of expired names. AFAIK, it was something like a grand to get into enoms "expired domain name club" just to be able to bid on names. I think playgirl.com went for something like 25k on namewinner.com.
Another thing verisign was pissed off about was that these clubs knew when domain names would be released, so you'd have a few servers *pounding* verisign for a certain amount of time, trying to get the domain names. Also, the various individual attempts by doing a who query every 5-10 minutes to see if it expired couldn't have helped either.
On one hand, I don't blame them, for the good of everyone. On the other hand, Verisign owns snapnames (or is affiliated with), and signed some of the bigger domain name contracts (ultsearch.com transferred his names over if i recall correctly) for what I'm sure amounted to special privilieges when registering domain names.
I stay away from Verisign. Them being a "trust provider" is a joke. I don't trust them enough to do my whois lookups on their site just because I'm not 100% certain they're not monitoring all the domain names that people search for (and that they won't sell that list to the highest bidder).
jay
You certainly won't find any prior art for it at the patent office.
Any spoon would be too big.
I just don't get the idea of software patents. Sure, if I write some nifty little app that someone copies/steals and sells as their own, I can see a problem there. But I'm having a hard time saying that if I write that nifty app and patent it, then no one else can write an app like mine, regardless of whether they come up with the code by themselves.
I guess somebody should have patented 'a program for creating and modifying documents which can then be electronically saved, printed or emailed to other people' or maybe patent 'a game where the player runs around in a 3d world with a first person perspective shooting everything in sight'.
Maybe that's why it's 2003 and I still don't have my flying car.. someone patented it so the big companies like GM and Ford can't mass produce them and make them affordable.
US Patent 6,368,227: Method of Swinging on a Swing I truly don't know how they didn't get busted for prior art on this, or obvousness. According to patent lawyers I know, the guy got away with it because it's an exceptionally well-written patent.
and US Patent 3,216,423: APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING THE BIRTH OF A CHILD BY CENTRIGUGAL FORCE, which I think is actually very non-obvious, and I doubt there's much prior art on it. But I'm not surprised it was never productized.
blah blah blah
I think you've been reading one too many ESR rants^H^H^H^H^Harticles, friend. ;)
The key word in that quote is "essential liberty". Life is an essential liberty and it's one that I am not willing to give up.
Especially not so that a few would-be script kiddies can ping-flood some hapless b0xen.
Having a few more laws in place to manage the out of control scripting activities in place on the www is a long way from violating our countries ideals. Indeed, since this country was founded by christians for christians, I think that by taking any steps to eliminate the threat of muslim terror, we're acting fully in line with our countries ideals and traditions.
lastly, there's the economic factor. Anyone who has watched the yo-yo that is the stock market over the last few quarters knows that stability is prerequisite for a functioning free market. and you cannot provide that stability without both laws, and the necessary (and sometimes necessarily covert) officers in place to enforce them.
I do agree with you, however. Homeland Security IS a joke; one that has the enemies of America in stitches...at your expense, and mine.
Without more resources (such as funding, equipment and legislation), we may find that homeland security has gone from being a joke to become a useless token gesture.
Quite likely we'll find that out by watching the muslim flag fly over the whitehouse!
Excellent retort. Our Constitution is one of the greatest documents written in the history of mankind. It's too bad fucktards like Ashcroft forget their job is to uphold and defend it, not rape it in a zealous fit of witch-hunting.
That's pretty much how I explained it to my wife when she moved to this country. At first she thought I was a bit to "religious" about the Constitution, but then she read it and understood why I love the Constitution.Go ahead and insult our politicians. Hell, we do. Burn our flag, it doesn't bother me one bit. Hate the influence our movies have on your culture (so stop watching them!), but don't be dis-ing the Constitution!
-- Will program for bandwidth
Not only that, but we'll have to modify the nslookup and host commands so they no longer tell you that a FQDN wasn't found, since that would be contributory infringement.
Also, all those browsers that have done URL completion for years will have to stop doing it, because it's also a (retroactive) violation of this patent.
So you'll have to specify whitehouse.gov or whitehouse.org; your browser won't be permitted to guess whether you want politics or porn.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I'm not bothering with any of your other arguments because it is obvious we won't agree. So I'll just respond to this one paragraph.
The availability of guns does not increase the likelihood of civil unrest. Just the opposite. During the "Rodney King" riots of Los Angeles (I was living there at the time, so this is first hand knowlege, not something I "heard about") rioters and looters (almost all unarmed, fyi) ran unchecked through much of South Central Los Angeles. One neighboorhood in the middle of the worse damage, however, remained completely untouched. That was because the shop owners armed themselves and patrolled their own neighborhood. Oddly enough, the police (when they finally did bother to show their cowardly asses) tried to get the shop owners to give up their weapons. Fortunately, the shopowners were smart enough to tell the police to piss off.
These shop owners had created an impromptu militia to protect themselves. But not, as you argue the 2nd Amendment is for, to fight the government. They banded together to defend themselves from thieves and treaspassers because the government had abandoned their responsibility. Shooting thieves and treaspassers is not something you can automatically do, as you presumed we can do. It is done as a last resort. Shooting a trespasser is justified if you have a reasonable belief that the person(s) is planning physical violence or property damage.
Now this point is extremely important. Some people will argue that protecting property is not as important as someone's life. The mistake is in believing the property's value is what is important. It's not. The situation is the same whether the property is valued at a million dollars or a single dollar. It is the person's right to live his life in security that is at stake. That is what is being protected.
You can not put a price on a person's life, but a thief has chosen to take his chances by conducting his activities outside the rules of civil society. Society, therefore, has no reason to extend any curtesy to such a person when he is in the act of violating its rules. We do give such a person a minimal amount of warning, however, because we are not barbarians. If the opportunity allows, we will warn the person that failure to cease their activities will result in the use of deadly force. This is what the shopowners did in South Central Los Angeles. I don't remember if they had to actually shoot anyone (I think they fired warning shots), but I have no doubt they would have shot dead anyone who failed to heed their warnings.
-- Will program for bandwidth
now I don't have to worry about that pesky "whois" command costing me money!
And pretty much every web browser out there..
..
And they have been around MUCH longer than the patent filing date of 1998!
Go download an old version of netscape prior to 1998, or a copy of lynx proir to 1998..
Type in a URL location of say.. "theregister" (example in the article.) the browser searches.. theregister.com, and it it's not found, theregister.org, and theregister.net..
I read the patent and i'm not sure if its really that big of a deal. It might cause a bit of problems, but the patent is pretty specific on how its done.
Search is started
Multiple requests are sent to DNS servers
Information is sent back
Information is formatted for the user (this has to be formatted in hypertext markup language according to the 2nd and 10th claims, probably others)
Add in many other things that I couldn't really understand, but it seems to be pretty specific.
So, its kinda like me patenting a method of searching for a hotel room on the third tuesday of every odd month, but skipping every 7th month.
If I made a page that had 10 buttons on it, with a box at the top for me type a domain name into, and each one of the buttons searched a different DNS server, but I had to hit these buttons manually, would that be part of this patent?
Its just too bad that it takes the patent office 6 years to approve of a patent, especially when it comes to the computer industry, where things can change drastically in much shorter times then 6 years..