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URLs Patented, Domain Registrars Sued
theodp writes "A newly formed company is suing Network Solutions and Register.com for infringing on its e-mail and domain naming patent, which covers assigning each member of a group a URL of the form 'name.subdomain.domain' and an e-mail address of the form 'name@subdomain.domain.'"
Anybody can sue anyone about anything. It's only newsworthy if there's a slightest shred of the plaintiff winning.
I know this is going to sound wrong but I really hope Network Solutions and Register.com win this and then countersue their asses.
Even though NS and R.com are both companies who screw people royally, this group of f*ckwits is even worse. I will take the lesser of the 2 evils thanks.
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Wish I had a mod point for you. I knew this existed, although I thought it was older than this. You are absolutely correct, this RFC is much more descriptive of the process than the actual patent is, and describes in better detail the exact same contents of the patent, 22 YEARS before the patent was applied for.
It explicitly covers email addresses for subdomains, and even how some older software (pre-87) will break with it. (Thus the Request For Comment, to set a standard).
There needs to be some kind of punitive damage for people who attempt to patent things that are not only covered by prior art, but are in the Public Domain, for over 20 years before the application.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Do you have a couple hundred bucks to spend on patenting every idea you've ever come up with? If so, you're either one of the richest people in the world, or earth-shatteringly stupid, so I'll assume the answer is no and let my point stand.
Nevermind the fact that a great majority of people don't feel that something should be patentable, much like people who think their programs should be open source. What's the easiest way to allow an idea to be unpatentable? Think of it, do it, don't patent it. Apparently that doesn't work so well.
Finally, do you honestly believe that any of the ISPs who started offering this service have ever read this patent before, even if it was after the patent was filed? No? They came up with it on their own? Well in that case, even though these guys may officially own the rights, it is pretty clear that the patent is OBVIOUS. And therefore VOID.
Let me put it to you this way. I have noticed they're sending a lot of landers and such to Mars right now. Well, perhaps I should patent sending a rover to Pluto. NASA has never done that, no prior art, they have not patented it so clearly it's not obvious and they've never thought of it... Sure...
Random and weird software I've written.
Back in the days, before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals was created by corporations and Reagan, Patent Examiners used to be able to reject patent claims.
Sometimes, when someone files claims as blindingly obvious as these, the Examiners would be permitted to reject the claims as an "obvious design choice". This was something appropriate to do when the choice made by the "inventor" did not add any new functionality to the thing sought to be patented, but was merely shuffling around design features that did nothing in and of themselves.
That is exactly what is happening here with these claims. The naming scheme here is no more functional than is a scheme of naming your own children.
Hey, here is a patent claim for ya that I just made up!
1. A method comprising: a set of parents naming their first child Thomas, their second child Zebedee, and their third child Squeamish.
Since a patent examiner looking at such a claim could not find a "motivation" in the "prior art" for one to name their children those precise names in that exact order, one could easily get a patent.
Time to name the Enemy: the Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit. They are the malfeasors who have tied the hands of the US Patent Examiners so that they can no longer apply the laws of obviousness, but instead have to jump through absurd hoops looking for "motivation" to do that which take zero mental effort, like.... naming URLs (or kids, for that matter).
I completely fail to see how one can patent the use of domain names in this fashion. That strikes me like patenting the concept that a "record" corresponds to a physical object, citing an employee table as an example.
Obviously this patent was never examined by anyone with enough neurons to spark a thought.
Maybe it's time companies affected by these nonsense "patents" start suing the patent office to recover costs and damages for defending against such garbage.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.