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USPTO Grants CA Lawyer Domain-Naming Patent
SpecialAgentXXX writes "Geek.com reports
that as of Dec 30, 2003, CA lawyer Frank Weyer holds patent #6,671,714
which is 'a method for assigning URL's and e-mail addresses to members of a group comprising the steps of: assigning
each member of said group a URL of the form name.subdomain.domain and assigning each member of said group an e-mail
address of the form name@subdomain.domain.' He's now, in SCO-like fashion, suing Network
Solutions and Register.com for infringing on his patent. This is
nonsense. My friend who ran for political office in 2000 used this exact naming scheme for his web site. All of us here
can see how asinine this is. Will our legal system?"
This patent was filed on November 23, 1999.
There has to be prior art out there that shoots this down.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Don't get mad. This is good news. It means we're one day closer to patent reform.
I am now in danger of stepping on his IP!! Technically couldn't this guy sue any website owner under the 'name@subdomain.domain' portion? Is it possible this person is doing this, though, for a good cause? Maybe he is sick of seeing this sort of thing happen so he worked out this scheme to make the legal system look at how rediculous alot of these patents are? It's just a theory. I sure hope that is the case though.
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." -D. Adams
All of us here can see how asinine this is. Will our legal system?
Yes.
Next story?
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
a method for assigning URL's and e-mail addresses to members of a group comprising the steps of: assigning each member of said group a URL of the form name.subdomain.domain and assigning each member of said group an e-mail address of the form name@subdomain.domain.'
...
You know what's funny? the USPTO is supposed to do prior art research to grant patents. Well guess where you can find prior art for this method? at the USPTO itself. Here for example:
estta.uspto.gov is a live server, and
estta@uspto.gov is a valid email address at USPTO.
You gotta love these guys
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Given your friend ran for office in 2000 and this patent was filed in 1999 that doesn't constitute prior art. It just means that your friend might have been violating the patent.
I think it's stupid and it sucks but that's the worst-thought-out "reason" for having a patent overturned I've heard since... well, for a good few days at least.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
While America works to protect intellectual property, everyone else is innovating.
The present invention overcomes the limitations of the prior art by providing a method, apparatus and business system that allow a user to quickly communicate online with a member of a particular business, professional or other group regardless of whether the member has an internet presence (e.g. e-mail address or website) and without the user needing to know or find the internet address for the recipient.
He's already refereing to prior art, and it actualy seems his "idea" is a bit different from what we already use and know.
The patented system would allow someone to write directly to some professional without knowing his email address. It would be a simpler system than to have to use a search engine and then search an email on the website to communicate.
I must agree this is a very subtle difference and the guy's interpretation is stupid. However, just because of that, I am vey curious to see how the lawsuits turn out.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
As long as I can remember I got addresses from Hypermart like:
- testpharm.hypermart.net (I got it in 1998-1999)
- dthomas9.hypermart.net
and the email address was accordinglyname@testpharm.hypermart.net
Also as far as I can remember Yahoo had addresses that I could use to go directly to the relevant page rather than going via the home page - like
- finance.yahoo.com
- my.yahoo.com
- news.yahoo.com
- etc
AndThese are some of the applications I remember offhand, and I am sure there has to be stuff like this that was there before this patent was filed.
As it is, it is pretty stupid to give a patent for something that is quite functional - but is it innovative ? And worse, should you be able to prevent others from using it without paying extortion money ?
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
I HAVE PRIOR ART ...
.. as nobody gets a NEW business card after they have quit the company!)
Back in 1997 I was working for Andersen Consulting, the then global consulting company now known as Accenture.
All email addresses (over 50,000 staff) were of the form firstname.lastname@andersen.com, or firstname.initial.lastname@andersen.com in the case of name-clashes.
For prior art you simply need to look at any Andersen Consulting business card from that time (the best way to establish "prior" would be to get the card of someone who departed before the patent filing date
I am sure Accenture would gladly oblige in supporting this statement were the USPTO to get off their LAZY FSCKING ARSES and do some RESEARCH for once!
I am also sure that many thousands of corporations worldwide would also have similar prior art examples, and only one is needed, right?!
However, for every voter who votes against software patents, there are 1000 more logic-impaired voters who will pick whichever candidate who says they'll simultaneously cut taxes and increase government handouts.
As absurd as this is, this guy is an attorney. He has the knowledge and ability to fight this as long as he likes. He can also file any number of countless lawsuits and fight them all himself thus costing millions of dollars in attorney fees to those he is sueing. He could make the arguement.. it is better to settle than fight this forever. Extorsion.
Even if prior art is found, patents are assumed by courts to be of good quality. So, even if someone argues, successfully, prior art, some of the patent claims could still be used against other defendants. Basically, this is legal extortion by the patent holder and a make-work program for attourneys. And guess what! Attourneys are one of the most powerful and well funded political organizations in the United States!
So yes, keep the PTO broken - so the legal system will "work" just fine. Where's my LSAT prep book?
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
And Robert begot Jacob and Jacob Begot Lisa and Lisa begot Tommy.
tommy.lisa.jacob.robert
Or for geography nuts remember this song
I live in a house in a city, in state, in country, on a continent, on a planet.... or
1234 Main St. Saint Paul, MN, USA, Earth
I mean prior art how about this history of earth. The patent claims the organization of individual under domain and subdomain. We have that for years. Look at the military structures. How phucktarded(TM) do you have to be in order to be blind enough to award the patent.
This post Copyrighted 2004.
I thought they were not supposed to be obvious to anyone skilled in the field. This is so damned obvious that anyone in or out of the field can see it. What the hell happened to common sense?
Infuriate left and right
I think that congress needs to make the patent office responsible for legal fees incurred by defendants in patent cases when a patent is found to be unenforceable. That would reduce the number of obviously non-original and non-novel patents being granted to unscrupulous lawyers who think they are going to hit the jackpot by patenting something that has already been done and then suing the companies that have two decades of prior art.