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Subdomains Part Of The Patent Frenzy
Colonel Angus writes "Web Hosting Industry is carrying a story about a company called Ideaflood that has been sending out letters to web hosting firms claiming that they own a patent on subdomains and are claiming a license needs to be purchased to continue to use them. This is reminding me of the hyperlink patent from a couple years back." Maybe Frank Weyer will ask them to wrestle.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"This is reminding me of the hyperlink patent from a couple years back." Also reminds me of thr SCO "snafu" that still isnt worked out.
They can't fathom that someone wouldn't patent something even if it is totally trivial/common sense.
UPS Sucks
What am I missing here? Isn't DNS by definition hierarchical? What does their patent claim?
prior art = November 1987
And in other news, tomorrow, I'm patenting the misspelling of referrer in electronic comunication.
Just piss me off. This is obviously nothing more than an attempt to get a bit of fast cash. It's just as bad as the person that deliberately slips on some ice outside a shopowners store and then sues them for millions due to physical anguish.
kiss.my.org
There goes that plan for porkrinds.slashdot.org.
Damnit...
From the article:
"Business method patents that cover software programs weren't legal until a few years ago," Dicig says, "so there is no comprehensive way for the PTO to search for software and computer-related technology that's already been invented, other than that described in patents and published applications. For instance, if the patent office didn't know about WordPerfect 1, it could issue a patent on word processing because it has no way to know that word processing was already invented."
I'm sorry, but this is just a ridiculous argument. Firstly, the USPTO must use technology to some degree, so if someone visited "news.yahoo.com" two years before this patent was ever issued, they've got their prior art right there.
Secondly, what kind of organisation is restricted to only doing research with its own prior body of work? Can you imagine if every doctor in the country called the CDC when they saw their first flu patient? (Doctor: Quick! There's this new disease I've never seen before and it completely debilitates the patient!)
As I said, just ridiculous.
libertarianswag.com
Ya know, up until I saw this I was against blanket tort reform (ya know, the price of overreaction and such).
Screw it. I'm overreacting.
However, some little rational side of me asks this question: Do patent laws really have this much teeth? Some evidence I've been seeing lately implies it may not...
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
I stand to gain millions. Invest in me now or fear my wrath when I have a laser death canon on the mooon!
I've read comments on this subject from IBM, the largest patent holder in the world, indicating they might even endorse patent reform. Their stance has been that they use patents primarily as a defense, adding that until the system is fixed, they don't have much of a choice.
This is also putting a rush to patent everything, worse than a gold rush, not so much to profit like these annoying cases, but to build a defense, like IBM does. Only, as we all know, the little guy has little defense. Thus there is both a chill and imbalance on innovation today.
Is anyone lobbying congress for patent reform? I'd like to know what we can do.
Open Standards Portal
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lan
etc.
Dummies. Isn't that like firemen practicing on their own house?
Looking at the "patents" they have and I'm really confused. On their (or really Steven's) page they have listed a patent for: PATENT NO: US 6,270,409 - Method and apparatus for gaming
If you actually look at the text of the patent though, it reads completely different and the patent number is also different. It is patent 6,304,788 and relates to a patent for "Method and apparatus for controlling medical monitoring devices over the internet".
And now that I look at it, the first patent link is incorrect too. The text states that it is patent #6,389,458 but it links to patent #6,687,746.
WTF?
I think this guy is trying extortion, plain and simple.
Casual Games/Downloads
I am patenting my ASS. I will be sending a photo of my ass to IdeaFlood with a cease-and-desist demanding they stop acting like asses or I will have to sue them for infringing on my patent.
whois.net says:
I say:
(PS. We're so big we don't even run our own nameservers!)
This reminds me of the time they let a guy patent the wheel in Australia.
"Industries, especially in the information technology space, often develop more quickly than the applicable patents come to light."
Well, don't you think that this means it's a good time to reform the system? Doesn't the fact that innovation occurs so rapidly negate the value of a first-come-first-serve approach to granting patents?
"This can be a rude awakening for companies that have not already factored into their business plans the likelihood that someone will come knocking with a patent they may infringe."
IT companies should not have to operate in fear of frivolous lawsuits from greedy do-nothings. Quoth Bill Gates:
Forgive me if I'm taking this personally, but I'm starting my PhD in molecular biology (and doing significant amounts of software development at the same time), and at the rate the lawyers are moving in on my field, by the time I graduate I'll probably have to take out a patent license to publish my research.
"Gee, that's an awful nice "yro" you got there. Be an awful shame if anything were to happen to it."
"All your subdomain are belong to us."
Keep your eyes to the sky.
The problem with the patent office is the same problem we have: They can't be experts in everything.
The reason software patents makes me sick is because although I can keep track of whether or not I'm copying from anyone, I can't keep track of all the possibilities of all the patents I may someday be accused of violating.
The patent office itself has the same problem. They can tell if someone else patented the same thing (did they copy?) but they simply don't have resources to tell if some technical thing has ever occured before.
Sure, we all know about domains, but we're computer nerds. Most people in the patent office could probably not make that claim, just as they couldn't claim to be automobile designers or materials scientists.
TW
Hand over the dough or I'll plug ya full of lead!
Except the lead in this case is lawsuits originating from frivolous patents...
http://www.ideaflood.com/apps.asp
Whenever he is bored, I send him a link to a slashdot US-patent story.
Let's say he's not bored for long...
This really has to be a joke. This is a general knowledge type deal. How can it be patented?
It sure isn't helping anything that what's *legal* varies from what's *ethical*. And then combine that with a clueless USPTO and a pile of ambulance-chasers...
Sorry, just had to vent it; I'm pissed.
C|N>K
I think the PTO should be sued every time a patent that has caused problems becomes invalid after a court case. Then it might just give them an incentive to actually DO their job. Actually, I think the individual examiners should be held responsable; then they're really have an incentive to do it right!
AC comments get piped to
http://www.uspto.gov/
g =english&p_d=trmk
On the left side, under the 'Patents' column:
'Status' link: http://pair.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/final/home.pl
and under 'Trademarks':
'Status' link: http://tarr.uspto.gov/
'Search' link: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lan
So, how long have those been up? Does the USPTO understand what this patent means? It means that even the patent office is in violation of this patent, if it is valid.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Ideaflood just isn't in their league
with that man's ass in the bathroom?
I don't think it's a lawsuit that's in order.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Open-Source Patent Examination anyone?
AC comments get piped to
Due to the USPTO's current high demand to patent everything under the sun, they have been increasingly outsourcing their positions to Mayotte, having a workforce that "fits the qualifications of our most rigid analysis positions", cites one top official. That same official said that due to some difficulties in getting the children in the country Internet access, however, they probably won't be able to surpass the 90% outsourcing objective they recently peaked at.
Open Standards Portal
Ah, but you miss an important point - USPTO grants patents because its also a source of income (and a pretty good one at that).
Its not their duty to make sure that its upheld - if its not, its _your_ problem - as an applicant.
However, within the limited scope of their resources (and intellect), they issue as many patents as they can simply because they can. If its a bad one, its going to be dragged to court at some point or the other and shot dead. If not, great, you have great IP on your hands.
Ofcourse, I can see the flaw in this that corporates can bully the less powerful - but hey! Thats corporate Amerika for you.
I own a server, and it has subdomains on it. In fact, I think I'll go create a few dozen more subdomains. And this is my personal and public invitation for Ideaflood to suck my big fat wingy-wang.
I've said it before (mostly about SCO) and I'll say it again...
Those who can, innovate.
Those who can't, litigate.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I just dared them to sue me. I wonder if that was wise....
This sig no verb.
What I want to know is: what kind of moronic lawyers pick up cases like this? There's really no hope of winning something like this, all that will happen is there will be a long, drawn-out hearing and appeals process with people citing obvious prior art and the judge having a good laugh.
I know a lot of lawyers only get money if they win and occaisionally gamble on a big case in the hopes that statistics will keep their business going in the long run. But a case like this has no hope of making any money.
Personally, I think that lawyers need to have something of a deterrant to bringing up frivolous lawsuits (as happens so often in the US, from what I can tell). I'm sure there is a protocol for this in place, but it's obviously not working. Any ideas?
True story.
There is no way that Ideaflood owns the patent on Subdomains. Remember, Al Gore invented the Internet. He owns all the patents on these technologies, and I know for a fact, from extremely reliable sources, that he did not transfer ownership of these patents to Ideaflood. I have bulletproof evidence: Two people, who claim not to know each other, both told me the same thing one day.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> They can't be experts in everything.
:)
:)
I dunno. It seems anymore they aren't experts in ANYTHING.
One would like to think that with their 6,500 employees and 1.3 billion dollar budget (in 2003) there would be at least ONE person that actually reads the applications would have some basic awareness of the world and be able to react appropriately. Or hell, even ask a question.
6,500 people is simply too great a number for the entire organization to be so grossly ignorant. There has to be ONE person at least, right?
So can I patent the number 7? It's a good number. Plus, how many people can really avoid using it? Sure, you could represent it in different ways... 4+3, 2+5, 1+6, .0001+6.9999....
but that would get old quickly. And just think about how many times it is used!!
Besides which, I'm pretty sure that nobody else has patented the number 7 yet.
What about the English language? Anybody have a patent on that? I can just see it:
"Excuse me Mr. Director... you can't direct this movie in English unless you pay me first."
Let's get real. This is completely silly.
DATA comments; PROC SORT DATA = comments BY score; PROC DELETE comments >> 1; RUN; DATA entertainment SET commen
Back in my day, before these idealfoods people made subdomains, I had fun on all the websites on the internet. I used to go to gov, mil, com, edu and sometimes org.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
What I want to know is: what kind of moronic lawyers pick up cases like this?
Win or lose, they get paid... you don't have to be a good lawyer to get paid. Some lawyers find it hard to get a case at all, so they will jump through hoops on command if someone offers them enough money to do it.
5468652047616D65
Actual Email sent to steven@ideaflood.com :
The internet has had subdomains WAY BEFORE YOU FILED...
You have no case... just like SCO.. wait.. I bet you too
have linux running as your Server, dont you? Well if you
can think that you will win with this patent, then you
must think SCO has a case too.. better go get a license
from SCO before you get sued as well!
Also.. go ahead and try to sue me.. I need publicity..
I have all sorts of subdomains.. Lets see.. www. for
many of them, as well as irc. and main. and members.
Yep.. Im guilty of an idea you didn't even think of
yourself, and took someone elses idea, only because
no one put a patent in.. because they are not dumb
enough to actually try to patent an idea like that..
Its a service on the internet, not a new wave of
technology...
The End...
Just me
There's an article on the Foundation for Programming Freedom by Richard Stallman titled 'Anatomy of a Trivial Patent'. Read this and you will see how people sneak these patents past the PO.
Hah, I'm gonna patent 1 and 0! All digital media is MINE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
Well, for one they are civil service employees who get there job assignments just after getting their frontal lobotomy. Maybe the USPTO is trying so hard to objectively review patent applications that it ends up ignoring common sense. Maybe, as you're alluding to, there may be some qualification issues.
s /jobs.htm
I looked at some job listings at the USPTO office, and it looks okay. I'd prefer a little more professional experience for these guys, especially GS-11s and above, but I guess you don't go from famed celebrity computer engineer to patent examiner. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/ohr/job
In one circumstance, to apply for a job as a patent examiner for biotechnology and organic chemistry, the applicant must have a four-year course of study leading to a Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university. The higher you go in rank (GS-7 and above), the academic requirements increment by one year graduate school experience in same or related field.
Vacancy Announcement for Patent Examiner (Biotechnology and Organic Chemistry)
The requirements are pretty similar with requirements for other jobs. So, based on this, I default back to my earlier statement about the frontal lobotomy.
If I'm not mistaken, its pretty darned hard to patent facts - the only exception I know of is the patenting of genome sequences.
.0000e-34343 does not require skill, and is neither new nor non-obvious.
One of the criteria for patents is that your invention should be new and non-obvious to someone who is skilled in that area - unfortunately, even a highschool kid can prove that 7 or 2+5 or even
I'll quote from this site -
You can not patent a scientific principle, an abstract theorem, an idea, a method of doing business, a computer program or a medical treatment.
The thing is that _even_ if you did get around patenting that stuff, you would not really stand a chance because just about everyone else will go ahead and use it. What are you going to do? Sue half the population of America for using 7?
Your case will simply be thrown out.
Patents are usually filed for credit and as a _defense_ - its unfortunate that shitty bastards like Ideaflood abuse the system. But there is nothing they can do, really.
When the whole world has adopted the system, and when they cannot prove with absolute certainty that they were the first to come up with the idea, their idea will be thrown out.
Let's get real. This is completely silly.
I never said it isn't - its just inevitable, thats all. And unfortunate too, ofcourse.
I can't help but feel civil disobedience is the only way that the masses will be heard. The problem is that they know this and hence target the "easy game" of medium to small businesses - too much invested to take a stand, not enough to fight to the death...
To any /. reader, and most in the industry, it is obvious that patent reform is required. The problem is that the only groups powerful enough to bribe (sorry I mean lobby) politicians are those exact same groups interested in keeping the status quo. Isn't that right Disney, PanIP, SCOX??
Q.
Insert Signature Here
I have a friend that works for the government.
She's not at the Patent Office, but the rules at her Municipal Courts job just might apply for the Patent Office people (and this would be scary)...
No Internet access allowed.
Subject says it all.
http://www.ideaflood.com/patent_this
h tm l6 3,5 13020,00.html
h ttp://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/ntbugtraq/2 003-q4/0282.html
or any other 404 generating string.
some select quotes...
o The 458 patent is generally described as covering "exit traffic."
o hundreds of thousands of web sites (millions by some estimates) have adopted this technology
o generated several hundred million dollars in revenues
o Advertising applications...trade visitors with other web sites
o new offers once they have decided to exit an e-commerce site
o market segments, online casinos and adult entertainment
o site operator
o derive revenue...from just 50% of infringers across the sectors
o The content of this document is confidential
which explains the open posting of it on their website.
http://www.klixxx.com/stories/web/patentthenet.
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,178
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3078633/
Shuster, Brian Mark
Shuster, Gary Stephen
etc, etc, etc, rtfm, seek and ye shall find.
but ya know, who wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of a porno money stream...
the funny tidbit is, since noone can 'own' a domain, how can they lay claim to something like a subdomain? All domainnames are property, and remain such, of ICANN, or ICANNs selected registrars (for cctld's).
good thing they check patents a little better here in europe... or I'dd probably get some major headaches along the way
Pay up slashdot!
Sure, actually there are several dozen people at the patent offices who are knowledgeable about most, if not all, of the subjects that are covered by these silly patents and each takes the time to read them when presented with them.
They're the janitorial staff and they giggle like mad every time they empty the wastepaper baskets.
I posted earlier in the thread about the educational background of patent examiners. There are specific patent examiner posts that require education in the field the examiners are working on. For example, there are patent examiners that focus on biotechnology and organic chemistry. Others focus on electrical engineering and semiconductors. So, while patent clerks can't claim to be experts in all fields, they can claim to be automobile designers (mechanical engineers with some aerospace engineering knowledge) or material scientists. Someone in the patent office understands domains.
So I'm left wondering. I'm thinking that since the USPTO must get a lot of patent applications, the organization probably has a tendency to get overrun. If there aren't enough patent examiners who understand computer technologies, maybe a stack of related patent applications winds up on the desk of some patent examiner who knows mechanical engineering, or perhaps the junior level patent examiners don't really know how to approach the review process since they lack the real-world experience dealing with the technologies they're evaluating.
Ooh Ooh!! If there's not enough patent clerks, maybe the USPTO will outsource to India!
That was so ridden with typos, I can't seem to read it. Someone translate, please!
... loosely it's the non implemented idea called "loser pays". If someone brings suit and loses, they pay the opposing sides costs-along with their own of course. It, like most law reform ideas, has plusses and minuses.
..stupid.. that somehow this is a good thing for everyone. it ain't, it's only good for them. they shouldn't be passing millions of laws all the time, never (hardly) eliminating any already passed. Where's the outside limit on totality of laws passed? There ain't one..
:)
My idea is to bring back dueling, I think it would be cheaper and more effective. Simple attrition would eliminate a slew of over-litiginous bozos.
Another one I think, that lawyers don't like people to know about, would be to eliminate lawyers minimum fees schedules, making the profession less attractive, and to make it a conflict of interest for anyone with a law degree to be a member of a legislative body. That's a biggee to me, we have legislatures who's only job is totally in their self interest, the idea that by making society and government more complex and
now, to get back to dueling...
....the FAA has announced that everyone using the air and oxygen in the air is in violation of FAA code and must pay a breathing tax.
Yeah, right.
-Valiss
I hope so, will make the case that much more interesting.
President ISES
(International Society for Elimination of Sigs)
I wonder if its time to cash in on that sliced bread patent
-------
Chunky Bacon
Your UID is in the 500,000s...don't you think it's a bit soon to start telling others they have a high UID?
I can see your point to a degree, but shouldn't software be like patenting a process? On one hand, it is language, so copyright, on the other hand it is a process of manipulating information and therefore patentable. Just playing devils advocate, personally I'm not sure!
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
They also look at the references you provide. I know; I got hammered because I provided lots of references, and had to spend months explaining how my work was novel over the referenced documents. If I'd just skipped doing the prior art myself, I would have saved myself a lot of time and legal fees.
http://ideafloodsucks.systemrecycler.com
Still one or two days to go to April 1. Maybe they thought they needed some practice....
http://www.ideaflood.com/apps.asp
Method and system for operating a network server to discourage inappropriate use
how in the fuck can they claim something stupid like that. God if that aint prior art then what is?
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
Obviously, the submitter didn't bother any more than any of you to follow through to the source...
The patent is for an automated procedure for licensing sub-domain names via an Internet portal , not on subdomains - the submitter's claim is considerably more absurd than the patent claim, no matter your views on software and business model patents.
"We're an apex predator with the fecundity of a base level herbivore... We're a virus with shoes..." RazorJAK
Try going to http://www.ideaflood.com/youre_a_bunch_of_asswipes
I think their 404 page is broken =]
you guys and girls are being paid for nothing
that's because they are in a government that doesn't work errrr... so i've heard
Not that I would condone anything like that... but it is tempting.
They list only two patents that have actually been granted, "Method,apparatus and system for directing access to content on a computer network" (which seems to cover cross-linking between web sites where there's some sort of traffic-exchange system in place, such as ad banners) and "Method and apparatus for gaming" (guaranteeing a minimum payout for gambling.)
The article doesn't say what patent the letter refers to, if indeed it references an actual patent at all. They have an _application_ for a patent on Method and apparatus for conducting domain name service, whose idea seems to be that ICANN doesn't control subdomains, so you can sell your subdomains yourself as long as you manage it.
That is, if you own foo.com, you can't really sell "bar.foo.com" to somebody else, at least not using the standard domain registries, because they just don't do that. The solution (running your own domain name server and providing a web site to control it, basically acting like your own TLD) is pretty damn obvious, but not a whole lot more obvious than lots of other patents that have been granted.
But the thing is, at least as far as I can tell, they don't have a patent yet. They only have an application. Suing people is WAY jumping the gun. It might even be illegal, but IANAL. That patent is over two and a half years old, so it's about time the thing got approved. Maybe it is approved and the USPTO hasn't updated its web site, and ideaflood is being quick off the mark.
As far as I can tell, the usual advice seems to apply: it's a pointless patent with lots of prior art, so don't cave in and don't send these idiots a penny.
Sure, there will be lots of innovation, and it will mostly be in countries that don't have a retardedly broken patent system or just simply ignore U.S. patents.
It's like the issue with Indian outsourcing. It's all fine and good when corporations save money at the expense of Joe Taxpayer... until there are enough Joe Taxpayers out of work that it notibly affects the economy... there aren't enough Joe Taxpayers paying taxes... or buying products... because they're all of of work or working for barely-scraping-by wage as that's all there is.
It's the same with patents, innovation will be strangled, but some big corps will profit greatly. Then at some point, the US will realize that they're beating beaten out in the world market, since another country (China perhaps) is making a similar product but with more attractive pricing/features. Then eventually they will notice that they're being beat out in the local market, and finally you end up with 2 results:
The US becomes the next Rome... where the few profit over the many... until the many become so weak that they are overtaken and the whole deck of cards starts to tumble.
Massive reform, and not just patents... but most of the legal system, the electoral system, the policing system. Eventually it has to come, or rot will continue to spread from the core.
Remember, no one person makes up a country, but a lot of those "one persons" (P2Pers, startup companies, outsourced employees) start suffering and the damage becomes more visible.
Slashdot owes me dup royalties. I own the patent on dupes.
How long until EV1-Servers buys a license to protect its customers?
They basically say their business model is to crapflood the patent office and see who the can fuck.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
HAHAHAHA!!!!
I have the @ and the . patent
This is CRAP... they should name DiarreaFlood
Now exorbitant licensing fees will force stupid websites to give up their 'www.', and, one can hope that as a result they'll fix their virtual host to work if you simply type 'sitename.com' instead of 'www.sitename.com'.
(P.S.: For the humour impaired, yes patents suck, especially this most ridiculous of patents.)
Random and weird software I've written.
Me thinks SourceForge uses automatic creation of subdomains and they may be in trouble if this actually goes through.
There used to be a set of requirements for the issuance of a patent. Something had to be 'not obvious to an expert in the field' before it became patentable. The USPTO in its current form has made a joke out of the patent system as a whole, and this one is a very clear example. I'm not even an expert in the field, but, i had my own email subdomain (mydomain.somedomain.com) more than 15 years ago. I've still got the reciepts to prove it, so, it will be acceptable as 'demonstrateable prior art' in just about any court in the world, except the courts of the usa. They have converted the patent system into a 'first to apply' concept rather than a 'first to innovate' concept. There is no longer any requirement for uniqueness, or innovation at the USPTO, just 'first'.
Patents like this one have devalued the system, and value of a real patent, to the point where the time is not far off that more countries are going to reject american patents wholesale. Since it's not possible to filter the mess for 'what is a good patent' and 'what is a bad patent', the whole lot is going to be rejected in total. I for one am already starting to plant the political seeds in my own country to do just that, and this little escapade is great fodder for the cannon. Politicians are not bright at the best of times, but even the densest of them can understand the concept when it's laid out to them. I had email by subdomains laid out and in operation 15 years ago, it's obvious. Today, suddenly it becomes 'licensable' by american patent laws. i dont need my business to be held for ransom by a foreign company that's in the business of 'legal extortion'. The only way we are going to stop this, is to get the ball rolling to make american patents invalid in our country, because today they are upheld.
The choice in this case is really up to american business. If you want patents to be upheld worldwide, put the value back in them, fix the system. Leave it unchecked with crap like this coming out of the system, and the rest of the world is gonna reject them. it's good for bypassing the crap like this patent, but it's very bad for real innovation that requires real expenditures in research and development.
This is actually a very fundamental issue in terms of IP laws and protections in a global economy. IP is protected thru patents, and, patents like this paint a very sour color on the whole lot of them. Acceptance of US patents in other countries is an all or nothing deal, and many places have chosen 'none'. I live in a country that has chosen 'all', but, that's going to change if the USPTO doesn't. It has to, because if we continue to honor every patent that comes out of the US patent office, it's only a matter of time till we have to pay a licensing fee just to breathe.
Sorry, there is prior art.
This isn't perfect because two transpositions or other typos would screw up the logic. Please make checks out to Ian Nertia.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003May/gee20030 508019910.htm
Look, the Patent Office is simply overwhelmed. I hear that the practice is supposed to end soon, but patent fees have been diverted to other government agencies, depriving the PTO of resources.
In the meantime, merely getting a patent can take 18 months. Again, I am told that a patent examiner can spend roughly twenty hours total on each application. That doesn't leave a lot of time for luxuries like common sense.
With constraints like that, is it any wonder that junk patents get through?
It's actually much worse than "nothing." "Nothing" would imply (at least) there isn't harm done.
The trivial CRAP that's being given a patent (like the guy with the laser pointer aka cat toy), actually does much worse. As far as I'm concerned, stuff like this literally amounts to theft from the USA's coffers.
What happens after the patent is granted? Even if it sits there idle, that number and the corresponding crap information have to be stored, tracked, sifted through, and referenced against again and again and again.
Every time a new *legitimate* patent is filed, the poor bastards applying AND the people in the patent office have to sift through not just legitimate patents but all the extra @#$%^&* crap in there, too! ARRRRRGH!
There has to be a better way.
----------
Nope. Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. Not at this juncture.
Did they get rooted?
20020087429 Method and apparatus for securing delivery of goods [uspto.gov/.....] they might not be geeks, but i would think that ups would be prior art when it comes to "securing delivery of goods," they have only been in business for since 1907.... (just one of the bs patents on the ideafoods site...)
Incorrect. That would be an absolute killer for a patent as an example of pubically accessable prior art. I can't think of anything better as an example of prior art, except perhaps RFC 799 published in 1981. Of course, I am not an attorney, your milage may vary, contents may have settled in shipping.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
In some sense, the more this happens, the better. A large number of bad patents diminishes the authority of the USPTO. After a few dozen of these make it though the courts, there will be a fair body of case law that defense lawyers can point at and say "Your honor, the Patent Office has a long history of granting patents without doing appropriate research, and this case is just one more example." At least one of the following will happen:
Any of the above except the last item would be an improvement. Of course, the last item seems the most likely, but it would really just delay the necessary and inevitable patent reform.
Business right now relies on patents like an addict relies on his chosen drug. Withdrawal will be painful and reform will be difficult, but it will ultimately make the nation much healthier and more productive.
what kind of name is "I Deaf Lood"
I, Deaf Lood, do solemny swear....
Oh my bad, it's actually: "Ide: A Flo O.D."
didja check out the rest of their patents? ya, sounds like these guys are gonna be a ton-o-fun
I feel like a stuck record - the career of the future is law. The US is rapidly becoming a country of sue-rs and the sue-es. Like the judical system has nothing better to do than process numbskull litigations.
HIgh tech and IT careers are the pits. But corporate litigation and patent law is blooming.
One lawyer in my company was hired away by another firm, only to be re-hired with us for more bucks! There was a bidding war for this person. That hasnt happened to me in a long while ( Im in network engineering).
So, rather than complain about the job market, GO TO LAW SCHOOL.
You don't want to keep track of the patents you might be accused of infringing - if you do, you are liable for triple damages.
Better off to be ignorant than informed.
IANAL, of course, but that's my understanding.
The thing is that _even_ if you did get around patenting that stuff, you would not really stand a chance because just about everyone else will go ahead and use it. What are you going to do? Sue half the population of America for using 7?
No - a la Compuserve and GIFs you would identify and sue/threaten to sue a big customer or facilitator of the patent infringement. Compuserve (owners of the compression algorithm in GIF files) ended up with a deal with graphics program manafacturers and BT (supposed inventors of the hyperlink) were going after an ISP rather than each individual author of a web image/page.
But in the case of the number 7 they'd have to count on 7 really being a lucky number.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
come get it
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
Anyone know if there is a patent on "unwanted email advertisements" ? I could make a killing of off that!
So why are they allowed to make decisions that affect the very essence of these technologies?
I'd say it's because nobody in government or the patent office itself had the foresight to imagine that inventions would ever go beyond the obviously new like fire, the wheel and hats.
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:19:46 -0800
From: Chris Cappuccio
To: steven@ideaflood.com
Subject: Subdomain Hosting
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6i
Hi Steve,
I am directly responsible for registering, hosting, and maintaining thousands of subdomains and other second level domains for educational, commercial, and government entities throughout the North American continent.
These include locality domains like sunriver.or.us, and other sub domains from my own top level domains.
I would like to enter a reasonable licensing scheme whereby I pay you exactly $0 for an unlimited license to use subdomains according to your idea.
If you do not agree to these terms, please initiate a lawsuit against me to assert your patent rights (or you will lose them!)
You may reach me at:
Chris Cappuccio
Network Media
130 NW Greenwood Ave.
Bend, OR 97701
Thank you for your time,
-c
You mean this guy?
When their numbers dwindled from 50 to 8, the dwarves began to suspect Hungry.
Isn't it possible for a (small) company to file a lawsuit and argue that a pantent is for something either trivial or already done and widely used, and have the patent invalidated if the patent holder can't prove otherwise? Does this cost a fortune to do (and if so why)?
What's happening is really extortion. These asses are just pattenting trivial and widely used ideas and then asking money from small companies who lack the funds for big lawsuits. They won't ask everyone else to pay since they'd be crushed, but I guess they can make a living off a few dozen small companies.
The trouble is you can't sue them for extortion as long as they have a "valid" patent, so that needs to be killed first and fast.
With the way things are going, it may be necessary to create an open source organization to start patenting everything they can think of, and obviously not charging lisencing fees. I'm not too sure of the legal issues with this, and some twisted people would be needed to think of all the overly obvious things that could be patented. This has probably been suggested before, but I figured I'd throw it out there.
On a related topic with how stupid patents are getting, someone actually tried to patent the wheel to prove a point.
Attn: Accounts Payable
Your payment of $100,000 annual fee to use my patented (pending) method of remote modulation of colored phosphors or any other means of displaying colored pixels to convey information is DUE NOW. Failure to pay will result in all monitors only displaying grey scale when browsing your web site or displaying any banner ads or or other content linked to your site.
You will need to remit to Xerox your fee for black and white, and to IBM your fee for green and black.
When I was young, I had to rub sticks together to compute.
1.chage it away from the current system where there is an incentive to pass patents (even crappy ones) quickly since that makes more $ for the PTO
2.hire experts in all the fields and make sure that every patent has been looked at by at least 2 experts in the field that it applies to (with all the out-of-work-techies, finding experts to examine computer & tech related patents should be easy enough)
3.implement a special "patent court" which is where patent lawsuits get heard. Implement a looser-pays system for this court (with the lawyers not allowed to charge anyone until the lawsuit has been resolved and with the looser paying the winners court costs). This would make it easier for the "little guy being trampled on by a frivioluous patent" to fight it instead of just giving in and settling.
4.If a patent is rejected (either initally or later in the patent court), the patent holder has to pay $$$ to the PTO.
and 5.Anyone should be able to go to the PTO and request that a patent be re-examined. If the prior art they are submitting is genuine and valid, the patent is declared invalid. If it isnt valid, the person requesting a re-evaluation must pay $$$ (this would discourage people making stupid requests). Again, if the patent is thrown out, the holder has to pay $$$ to the PTO.
Also, make it easier to submit patents in the first place (cheaper etc) so that those with genuinely patentable things can get the patent easier (because of the big costs if its thrown out, this wont lead to more stupid patents being submitted)
Also, change the rules about what can be patentable. In particular, remove any protection given to the patenting of a gene or a whole organisim.
I received a letter from them a couple weeks ago claiming that they own a patent on subdomains using wildcards. Seems rediculous. I'm waiting to see what action they are going to take. I see this patent failing when it comes to court, I'll fight it if they intend to sue.
Why not require an extensive patent review by the patent office before any patent lawsuit can be brought against an alleged infringer?
Post official notices of all patent reviews and allow all interested parties to submit to the patent office any and all related material they think should be considered in the patent review.
Then, if the patent is still in place after the review, allow the lawsuit to be filed.
Link to patent here.
Uhhh.. did you RMFP? Some lawyers don't get paid when they lose a case. As far as I know, this is a fairly common practice.
Also, I believe the correct quote is: Homer no function beer well without.
If it's possible to patent the wheel, maybe someone should try to patent Patents Office institution; He then should be owner of all patents hold by them :).
It reads like this... The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 5,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged". Just like the Fisherman's Affidavit, really hard to digest and understandable to a select few.
They aren't moronic. They do their job pretty well, within the rules. It's not their fault that slashdotters don't understand the rules and don't bother reading patents before attacking them. The patent appears to be 6,687,746.
It's a hard patent to read, but the key claim is the use of a DNS wildcard entry to handle user's subdomains. The applicants claim that as of August 1999 everyone was entering separate DNS records for each subdomain.
Can you find prior art? A published description of using a single DNS wildcard for user's subdomains prior to 8/99?
If so, great. You can kill this patent. But how should the examiners have been aware of this? Look at the large number of references the examiners plowed through - where do you expect them to draw the line?
Most of the "glaring mistakes" that slashdotters attribute to the PTO are simply myths. Lazy people who couldn't take the time to read a dense, techno-legal document made up alarmist stories based on the patent title or a few words that caught their eye. And you're lapping it up, like a right-winger inhaling his Rush Limbaugh horror stories or a left-winger gobbling up his Al Franken product.
If I'm not mistaken, its pretty darned hard to patent facts - the only exception I know of is the patenting of genome sequences.
But you can have the copyright on databases - collections of facts.
I think it's true for the EU and that the US also recently introduced it.
Wrong on both counts. That fact that there are many infringers does not impair the validity of a patent. In fact, in one respect it strengthens the validity - nobody can claim that the patent has no practical utility, which is one possible challenge to a patent.
Once a patent has been issued, it is presumed valid. In other words, the patent holder is not required to "prove with absolute certainty" that he invented his invention - rather the burden is on infringers to show that someone else invented the invention, or find another means of invalidating the patent.
The patent system works to a better degree in many other countries - in the USA it is diminishing to the role of a legal trick to play on your competition.
Some time back a company patented a projection system based on the principles of a Victorian age stage magic trick - then said they were going to sue David Copperfield. There's too many people out there looking for a way to screw money out of people who did things before instead of selling a new product. The big problem is that a hugely financially successful US legal industry is not going to be able to give the country enough money to buy the innovative products from overseas, so taking these things too far is most definately sociopathic.
A big export of the USA of the day is innovation - the actual parts are made elsewhere. If you kill off the innovation you are left with a film industry that doesn't pay tax and does as much overseas as possible, subsidised agriculture, a dying manufacturing industry, military manufacturers that depend on taxes and not much else.
If this method is truly novel, it could be patentable. It wouldn't be a patent on "9, and any number divisible by 9" but rather a Method for Detecting Transposition Errors in Arithmetic.
Of course slashdot would say that you had patented arithmetic, period.
Unfortunately, many patents issued these days fail the "high school kid" test. I'm sure they know exactly where they are going when they type in markhammil.geocities.com. While in theory a patent should be non-obvious... Can you say, 1-click shopping?
The site you reference is out of date, as methods of doing business have been declared patentable, as have mathematical formulas and many medical treatments. Again, 1-click shopping springs to mind. The Patent office has declared that it will accept patents on integer numbers. Apparently floating point numbers are not precise enough for the protection of the law. And while I can't think of a patent on a new revolutionary way to do CPR, there is a thriving industry on patenting drugs and devices for medical purposes.
Furthermore, as friends in law school have told me an this site repeats, only about 1% of patents are ever litigated, and as such only about a thousand patents per year are thrown out. That's out of 20,000 or so that are filed. Which means that the average patent has a 99.5% chance of holding as true.
Remember, Bezos' Bozo* one-click patent held up in court.
*I'm sure he's never heard that one before. Well, consider it a form of punishment Mr. We-must-have-business-process-patents.
The ______ Agenda
Actually, examiners work in pretty narrow areas. Check out other patents allowed by the same examiner. They're mostly computer/internet patents.
And it's not a patent on subdomains. Given that rather basic misunderstanding, isn't it possible that the guy who examines patents all day is right, and the slashdot crowd is wrong?
Excellent point.
The solution then, is to sue the crap out of USPTO. No, I don't mean just overturn the patent. That's a lose-lose. You pay money to undo the idiocy. I mean to go to court and say "The USPTO's negligence cost me money. I want reparation, and I want punitive damages."
Hell, given the scope of patents, it's begging for a class action. And I think we may have found a contender.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
does this site break the patent? I was too lazy to read the article.
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
farce. It was whittled down from a larger paragraph where is was more obvious. Still, it's not too far beyond the patent office's recent behaviors.
Sue the USPTO. Ask for reparation for any loss plus punitive damages. The USPTO makes money from awarding patents, any patents, even joke ones like this. They are, de facto, a commercial entity that has been granted an exclusive right to print money.
So USPTO currently has no incentive to refuse patents. If Congress won't reign them in, then it's up to us.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Stallman is at least half right there, but I have a feeling he doesn't quite understand the ideas behind claims drafting. The applicant doesn't want a long, complicated claim - he wants the shortest, simplest, and therefore broadest claim possible. The examiner forces him to add elements to his independent claim (claim 1 here) to narrow it. Because they both know that in a few years people will be previewing music in a similar, but different way, and the applicant would like to own that too.
Just a useless post to say "cool they quoted me!"
Whoops my 15 minutes are up.
--- www.f-theocean.com
every day.
/.
Folks here tend to get wildly upset when the subject of China not upholding patents and copyrights comes up here on
I think, while its safe to say that the Slashdot crowd now represents a much wider cross section then in the past, we are still (in general) not wild at all about patents and copyrights (although because of the GPL we are somewhat tolerant of the latter).
Now I'd agree with comments like:
Patents like this one have devalued the system
If I thought the current patent system had much value to begin with. But as far as I can see the USPTO is in the business of granting patents and leaves it to the court system to decide on the validity.
This probably used to work fine, but like a lot of other things, the volume and scope of todays incoming patents is probably quite astounding.
Quack, quack.
So if your subdomain is actually in DNS, you should be OK.
This doesn't seem to apply to ordinary virtual web hosting, where multiple domains map to the same IP address. Those domains are all in DNS; they just map to the same IP address.
What we're really seeing here is a patent on one of the lesser hacks used to get around the IPv4 address space shortage.
This means I can patent the idea of "A small company named SCO crashing and burning"!! yay. I'll enjoy the tiny $1000/sec license fee revenue coming from Darl...
We need a patent reform. NOW
-eventhorizon
#Secret Windows Source Code, in MS C% - if (uptime >= "24 hours") then bsod() else print "Windows License Violation!"
"They can't be experts in everything."
Given the importance of their function, maybe they could hire one or two experts in the computer area.
Maybe even outsource that function to a foreign country if we can't find anybody in the United States with any expertise in software and the internet.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
We first note that the application date is January 31, 2001, so any examples of prior art have to predate this date. I can think of several examples of prior art off the top of my head and I'm not even an expert in this field:
This patent application has no legal merit and should clearly be rejected. If it is accepted, it will be fairly easy to invalidate in court, although the cost of mounting a court battle would be a regrettable loss.
uspto.isgay.com
I just nearly wet myself there. That's the funniest thing I've read all day...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
If there was any doubt about their business plan their latest press release shows what they are doing: IDEAFLOOD, INC. TO SELL CORE INTERNET PATENT. They patent obvious web techniques and try to sell the patents to the highest bidder. This first subdomain patent threat may just be to show potential bidders that the patents they hold have a potential value. If they manage to sell their patents I do not think IdeaFlood will pursue patent violation claims anymore. They leave that to their patent buyers.
Somebody tell me if I'm hallucinating. Go to the site in the story, and change the URL from apps.asp to lameapps.asp. Guess what is on their 404 page: an ad for porn passwords!
If you have mod points please mod this up so it will be seen.
In this case, not only does the patent ignore the HTTP 1.1 prior art, which existed as an RFC two years before the patent application, but it makes a bunch of bogus claims about motivation - things like each domain name requiring a separate IP address (wasn't true after HTTP 1.1), domain names being expensive (they weren't then, and they're cheaper now), DNS name propagation time being 1-3 days (I think Verisign was updating 2LDs faster than daily in those days, and update time for subdomains is instantaneous - as fast as you can update your name server), manual entry of names taking a long time and lot of cost (that's what very small shell scripts are for), etc.
Bad, bad, bad.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Why then is the patent office so moronic when it comes to patenting ideas that are general knowledge?
Actually I don't even think it is an issue of things that are general knowlage. The issue is this is how the system was designed. More and more patents are coming out, patenting use of a facility as it was designed. Its kind of like if I created a car, heck even pantented it, then some one comes along a patents the process of putting fuel in the car. Other classic examples are patents on hypertext, use of static frames, etc.
Pretty much who ever thought it was a good idea to patent business processes, (which is what creating subdomains really is) should be shot for treason.
Shameless self promotion : The Misadvetures of the in
You can't sue the government generally, or it's agents, unless Congress gives you permission.
You are forgetting the fact that the rest of the world is quick to be "compatible" with the U.S. and E.U. patents systems (which are by the way in the process of merging, pracically the E.U. patent system will be like the U.S. one). WTO et. al. will ensure that all booming tech country prospects will be compatible with an aggressive patent system.
I remember reading about patents that you can't just take 2 existing things, combine them, and then patent the result. For example, you couldn't patent the thing in Stallmans article because people already use digital music, and people already use the web, so sending digital music over the web is just a combination of the two. (otherwise, I might have a valid patent for a method to recieve digital messages using a telecomunications device and a central server, and specially formatted user input which is known only to the server and the user, such that it is re-inputable, difficult to guess, and possible for the user to recall using only a graphite recording utility wand and some pressed and possibly bleached, dried wood pulp... nah) or even stupid things, like a car that also makes coffee, and a car that also is a generator for emergencies, or a blank that is also a blankety when blank and blankety are already known.
What am I missing?
Come on, how ignorant must the USPTO be to allow something like this to get through? Subdomains, hyperlinks, and frames have been used long before the patents for them were ever drafted. Some companies, like ideaflood, probably didn't even exist when domains (and therefore subdomains) were created; RFC 882 was created in 1983 and obsoleted in 1987. I know that the USPTO can't have an expert investigation into every patent that is filed, but the situation is still unacceptable. The government needs to crack down on companies whose sole purpose is to file patents on commonly-used proceses and who make the majority of their profits off of lawsuits, as these companies only destroy the progression of our society and don't contribute in producing goods or services.
I also notice that nowhere in the article is there a www. in front of the websites. Does this mean that someone could interpret www as a subdomain and they're afraid of being sued?
You might as well ask why politicians who don't necessarily have any knowledge of the matter at hand are allowed to make economical or social decisions.
The only difference is that the Patent Office probably isn't bribed as often and with as big sums as your average lobbying politician.
Face it, this is the way the system works - same wordplay as with Micro$oft Works - and unless it gets changed by the people, it stays the same. Democracy means you need to vote and make your opinion known. Sorta like in church: speak now or forever hold your peace.
To get back to the Patent Office a tad more, though: They really, REALLY should consult outside specialists. Probably the savings in unnecessary and silly lawsuits would more than make up for their salaries. This ofcourse just my 2 (Euro)cents
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
Sure, we all know about domains, but we're computer nerds
That is like "Of course we know about lightbulbs, but we're electronics experts".
You can't get anywhere on the Internet with out knowing a little about domain names.
All they need to be is data mining experts. Byond that use the advanced equipment they already have to research each application.
I don't actually exist.
Wait a minute - isn't that what Verisign's been doing with their top-level DNS wildcard that redirects to their search engine? Can Ideaflood actually put a legal muzzle on Verisign to make them stop?? Or will they simply sell/license the patent to Verisign for $$$$??
Ah, well, there's a simple solution to that then. Change the rules so that they receive the income whether or not they approve the patent. The fees paid to them (and government budget allotted to them) should be based on how many patents they review, not how many they grant.
Please patent the idea of:
1. The Internet.
2. The Domain Name.
3. The e-mail Address.
4. Anything in an RFC.
This would mean that assholes could not come along and claim more patents on technology that is already patented by somebody else. When I say somebody nice, I mean someone who'll leave their patent to rot in the office and only ever get shirty when someone else tries to overpatent public knowledge.
Hmm, I might be mistaken but I thought the supreme court ruled that patents on computer programs and business methods should be allowed?
Am I the only person who was on the internet pre-1998? Every day I see a patent relating to things that were plaguing us in 1995, and a company that honestly believes they can claim "2% of... the $9.5bn income this method generates".
Puhh-lease.The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
Sounds like it is time for someone in the USA to register a patent for "A novel technique for protecting novel ideas utilizing a public database registering said novel ideas and providing time-limited protection of the said novel ideas" (or something even more obscure ideally ;-)
Start charging the Patent Office licencing fees to do their own job and see how quickly things change....
(IANAL but...) I'm not sure where this comes from. It's quite easy to sue various forms of government and government agents, such as the police (false arrest, rights violations), prosecutors (prosecutorial misconduct), Congress , and various federal agencies.
I'm patenting the use of the letter 't' in url's. I'll get paid at least once for ftp:// urls, and at least twice for http://.
I won't collect on news://, but hey, I'm not greedy.
Find funky gifts
The patent is primarily for what has been used in CGI redirectors to simulate subdomains (not just user subdomains, but any subdomain). This is fairly common in some virtual servers.
They are not patenting subdomains per se; they are simulating subdomains using domain subdirectories!
Here's how a typical implementation works:
It sounds fairly trivial to me, but obviously didn't to the PTO. It seems pretty obvious this is close, if not the same, as what a web server does for supporting virtual domains on a same shared IP. Has anybody any other prior art on redirecting by code a *.domain.tld?
Why then is the patent office so moronic when it comes to patenting ideas that are general knowledge?
Money! IMHO, I tend to think that $$ is handed to the people involved in granting a patent by the applicant. That's the only explanation for this whole situation.
Heh, that's a good one. You can't sue the government unless it lets you. Guess again.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
this feature allows for an almost unlimited # of folks to 'latch on' to easy to locate/remember urls.
we're not surprised to discover it's not pateNTdead buy sumwon from the felonious payper liesense stock markup FraUD execrable bullshipping industrIE.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... sponsors of the wwwildly popular newclear power, & planet/population rescue initiatives.
IANAL but, its the federal government which you can not sue without permission. Its not quite easy, but the government does quite often extend this permission.
When is the last time you heard of an inmate suing for false imprisonment and getting a dime?
WRONG! Most slashdot readers actually ARE experts at everything.
When is the last time you heard of an inmate suing for false imprisonment and getting a dime?
Never. But I have heard of several cases where an ex-inmate has successfully sued for false imprisonment, when they were found innocent after serving some or all of their time, and getting several hundred thousand dimes.
Jesus, have you seen this one. Remember the fact that sendmail would delivermail addressed to user+keyword@foo.com to the address user@foo.com, and then user could filter on keyword? Well Ideaflood have patented that, too.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
If the current examiners aren't using other things besides other patents, then we as voters should do something about it - and by "something" I mean something more than just complaining about it.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Here in Europe, you can't patent stupid stuff. If the silly Americans rely on the "don't get mad, get even" litigatious compensation culture society that they insist on developing, is it any wonder that big business takes advantage of it. Stop whining and get the system changed - if you really do live in a democratic society that is.
Alright, thier little "virtual property" patent is bullshit.... Here's why....
Accroding to A Geocities History, Geocities was founded back in July of 1995. It was, and still is, essentially a "virtual property" area of the Internet, which I'm assuming is the bases of their claims. Even the Wayback machine has a cronicle of the community through its archives. Just a quick Google search brought this up.
Maybe our dear USPTO should also use Google to search for prior art? It's not quite as limited as their own database and search meathods.
a big community site here in the netherlands has been doing the exact same thing that is beeing patented here. :/ browse.php?id=
On www.cu2.nl teens can sign up and create their own little personal site which is available via
http://www.cu2.nl/~nickname
http://www.cu2.nl
AND
http://www.nickname.cu2.nl !
I don't know exactly how long they've been doing this, but the site is online since 2000 and as far as i know this feature has always been there.
Require a patent review before suit is allowed. This might also further define the scope of the patent for the judge.
meh
Maybe they'll sue microsoft (update.microsoft.com?) and apple (switch.apple.com?) and sco (all-your-linux.sco.com?)...
Odd. Websense is blocking this site as "sex".
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
They also seem to have applied for patents on:s er?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.h tml&r=3&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=Shuster.IN.&s2= Brian.IN.&OS=IN/Shuster+AND+IN/Brian&RS=IN/Shuster +AND+IN/Brian
a rser?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.h tml&r=10&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=Shuster.IN.&s2 =Brian.IN.&OS=IN/Shuster+AND+IN/Brian&RS=IN/Shuste r+AND+IN/Brian
- Parser?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.h tml&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=Shuster.IN.&s2= Gary.IN.&OS=IN/Shuster+AND+IN/Gary&RS=IN/Shuster+A ND+IN/Gary
S ect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.h tml&r=3&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=Shuster.IN.&s2= Gary.IN.&OS=IN/Shuster+AND+IN/Gary&RS=IN/Shuster+A ND+IN/Gary
? Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.h tml&r=7&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=Shuster.IN.&s2= Gary.IN.&OS=IN/Shuster+AND+IN/Gary&RS=IN/Shuster+A ND+IN/Gary
Spam Filters:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Par
Conducting DNS (affects anyone who provides DNS services):
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P
Traffic Shaping, and bandwidth limitations:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph
portions of IMAP, Active Directory, NIS, etc:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?
Similar to Traffic Shaping above, but looks to be increased to cover group collaboration on files (CVS anyone?, group access to databases, documents, html files, etc):
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser
Personally, this really sounds to me like an entire company based on abuse of the patent system. Another SCO in the making...
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
If the patent is for an automated procedure for licensing sub-domain names via an Internet portal, then isn't anything done on a computer a method of "automation"? SO whats the difference between a person typing it into the computer manually and a person writing a program that generates it on the computer?
Isn't ANY use of a computer "automating" the process??????
Definition of automate (www.dictionary.com):
1.) To convert to automatic operation: automate a factory.
2.) To control or operate by automation.
So regardless of whether a program wrote it or not, the patent can be used to argue ANY subdomain level creation is their property since YOU HAVE TO USE A COMPUTER TO DO IT and ANY COMPUTER YOU USE is an AUTOMATION that you control or operate???
I guess I just DON't see the innovation here that a patent is supposed to defend....
Actually, this is a true statement. The doctrine of sovereign immunity protects the government from being sued unless it allows the suit. This is a pretty complex subject, so I'll try to make this as "user-friendly" as I can. The Federal Government and the governments of the individual states are protected from suit unless they allow it. In order to allow the suit, the legislative body (Congress, state assembly, etc.) has to pass a law allowing the suit. Most states and the Federal Government have passed statutes that allow you to sue them under specified circumstances, i.e., for specified types of claims (civil rights violations, tort claims, breach of contract claims), but only if you comply with strict notice requirements. If you don't comply with the requirements of the statute, your case gets thrown out because of sovereign immunity. So I guess the answer really is "You can sue the government, but only if they let you."
I don't know about being general knowledge. I do quite a bit of tech-support in my job. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get customers to understand to get to our Web-mail program you have to type 'webmail.ourdomain.com'.
It simply doesn't occur to most people that you can have something other than 'www' there. And that's frightening because it means there are PHBs that will pony up the cash for this ridiculous licsense, making this firm seem crediable (and making matters worse).
The Anti-Blog
What about the www subdomain? There is no way they can overlook that.
It's not only about "not being patented already", the article says that to patent something :
The invention must be new or novel. It must be non-obvious. The persons claiming the patent must be the inventors. And the patent application must be filed within one year of a public disclosure or sale.
Now, is it new? We'd need to check the exact date and time of the patent to determine when subdomains were new and when they became old.
Is it non-obvious? Again, it probably was non-obvious in the early 80's, but it's definitely very obvious since 95.
Are they the inventor of sub-domain... I don't know them, but I would bet that they aren't.
Did they file the patent less than a year after public disclosure? If they had, we would have heard of it much earlier.
They just don't have a case here.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
The patent office uses a lot of other prior art sources than just the published patent and application database.
They use IEEE journals, derwent database, the EPO and JPO databases, the internet, various private databases, usenet, trade journals, a good sized libary or old manuals just to name a few. They have a whole staff dedicated to non patent literature searches and resources.
Look at a published patent and most of the time, you will see non patent literature cited as prior art of record.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
n/t *cough* Not Safe For Work you insensative clods *cough*
Actually the average patent examiner knows quite a bit about a particular subject.
Each examiner only works in a specific technology, for example an examiner who looks at fasteners, will not be the same examiner who examines biotechnology. Examiners only examine patents in a particular subset of a technolofy, and as such, they may even know more than the actual engineers in that technology.
What most people don't understand is that specific implementations get patented. Check and see how many mousetrap patents there are, each one has some additional limitation which differentiates a patent.
Plus the slashdot crowd does seem to have a problem with the concept of inpermissible hindsight. Remember, everything looks obvious in hindsight. The job of the examiner is to decide if something is obvious AT THE TIME OF INVENTION. That can be particularily difficult if an application has priority 10+ years back.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
The site you reference is out of date, as methods of doing business have been declared patentable...
Err... Only in Soviet Russia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H America...
You are required by law to present all prior art you are aware off.
Now if you did a search on your own, you should disclose those references.
If you read some published patents, the inventor discusses some of the cited references and how the invention differes from the prior art.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
That's a nice idea, but I don't think it's economically sound. Maybe at first, they would get the same amount of money, but after awhile, people would stop submitting (and paying for) patent requests that would likely be turned down. Thus, they wouldn't get as much money as they would if they approved everything.
A simple, "Look, I know you're struggling, but you can't patent subdomains. Please go find a job and move on" will do just fine.
These people must be living in alternate realities. That's like me trying to patent the letter I and making everyone who ever uses it pay me $100 per occurrance.
Ah well, it's good to know that we can sit back and laugh at these idiots as they waste their energy, time, and money blindly believing they can even remotely get away with it.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
my coworker saw me try that link.
you'd think i'd learn but nooooooo
I had an email in a subdomain around '94.
I might still even have the old business cards lying around somewhere.
IT was: myaddress@host.division.bigcorp.com
Note that names have been changed to protect the guilty company.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
I just used their ISPs online form to complain that they are hosting offensive material:
m l
http://www.globalreachinc.com/contact.asp
You can use a NSFW link like:
http://www.ideaflood.com/buyillegalporn.ht
(Someone posted earlier about their 404 page pointing to this.)
Sure, we all know about domains, but we're computer nerds.
Well, isn't that the bar.... (note: exact phrase may be wrong): "Non-obvious to a skilled practitioner in the art"?
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
to capitalize on your brilliant idea, you don't deserve the money.
If you come up with some brilliant sceme, but are a person whose idea:implementation ratio is really bad, find someone to partner with who has the drive and split the profit$.
Don't wait until others implement your idea and then claim some right of ownership.
The idea of patenting a concept pisses me off anyway... A process, fine. A product, certainly.
It is the result of the concept that should be patrentable, not the concept itself.
DAN the name prevalent on these patents is Brian Shuster? Topic of a previous /. article and mentioned in a MSNBC.com article back last May.
Or he could be responsible for some of the finest cinema ever. (I especially like Santa with Muscles).
I'm going to patent the process of making babies. I of course came up with this concept when I was 16 so I'm sure I was the first as I owned the world that day. Just think about all the money I will make on an hourly basis!!!
;)
Of course if anyone has some prior "art" feel free to post it
-- Powered By Linux
And I'm sure if you had submitted your patent application with a section reading "Prior Art? None!", they wouldn't have scoffed or told you to cram it. The patent office knows there's nothing new under the sun.
Actually you still pay the fees even if the application is rejected. But the USPTO has tended to allow everything because rejected applicants are allowed to sue them while the victims of maliciously invalid patents are not.
The way to rectify this is to start suing malicious applicants for perjury.
The particular patent in question is not simply for subdomains, it is for mapping subdomains onto email addresses so that alice@example.com has web site alice.example.com.
This is an old, old convention that was widely used long before 1998. the patent was filled in 1999, under the idiotic rules the 'inventor' is allowed to effectively claim to have invented it a year earlier. But even so, there is plenty of prior art.
One of the many reforms that is urgently needed at the USPTO is to make the filing date the date for prior art. At the moment a malicious applicant can go to a meeting, listen to a good idea, and file an application claiming to have invented it a year earlier. This goes on all the time.
Another overdue reform is publishing all applications for a challenge period of a year before they are issued and requiring the examiners to consider all prior art objections raised. At the moment the USPTO has deliberately tried to prevent the publication of applications being used as a challenge period, the examiners are not allowed to see arguments about prior art.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
When companies like Ideaflood are formed that can be described as "Intellectual Property holding companies". Is it me or does that just sound wrong?
The "shitty bastards" are apparently engaged in barratry.
But it works! Their patents might not stand, but they will do enormous social damage in the meanwhile, and turn a big profit.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Patents != Trademark
An organization can defend against patent infringement selectively. They do not lose the patent rights. It becomes harder to collect damages though, since they did not try to mitigate the loss.
Unisys patented LZW and saw it used everywhere. Then they started charging for licenses. The fact that they knew what was happening didn't invalidate the patent. Sleazy, sure, but legal.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Or you could patent the process of making rediculous patents then sue everyone!
Ah, but you miss an important point - USPTO grants patents because its also a source of income (and a pretty good one at that).
In which case what difference would it make to them if applications are accepted or rejected? Indeed it might make more sense to reject any questionable applications ASAP.
Never. But I have heard of several cases where an ex-inmate has successfully sued for false imprisonment, when they were found innocent after serving some or all of their time, and getting several hundred thousand dimes.
No doubt US authorities will try and emulate an idea from Britain. Where the government attempts to charge innocent people "board and lodging" fees for time they spent in prison.
Unfortunately, many patents issued these days fail the "high school kid" test.
:)
Maybe the first test of a patent application should be to show it to some high school kids
Is it non-obvious? Again, it probably was non-obvious in the early 80's, but it's definitely very obvious since 95.
The DNS dates from 1982. The earliest example of a "sub-domain" is in RFC 819 which dates from August of that year.
Are they the inventor of sub-domain... I don't know them, but I would bet that they aren't.
Unless they are either Jon Postal (who is dead) or Zaw-Sing Su then they self evidently arn't.
Finding the relevent "prior art" takes seconds using Google.
The patent office itself has the same problem. They can tell if someone else patented the same thing (did they copy?) but they simply don't have resources to tell if some technical thing has ever occured before.
In which case they should either reject applications in areas they are not competent to research or not accept these applications in the first place.
Sure, we all know about domains, but we're computer nerds.
Patents should not be "obvious" to those "skilled in the art". Regardless of if they are in-obvious to people with some other specialty.
Most people in the patent office could probably not make that claim, just as they couldn't claim to be automobile designers or materials scientists.
In which case they shouldn't be handling applications for automobiles or materials...
Squatting on stupid obvious patents is the same as squattng on stupid obvious domain names isnt it? This and the business plan of trading patents/ip for profit wasnt the intention of the patent system surely? so why hasnt this been fixed years ago? The patent system was supposed to give an incentive to innovate (which is debatable on its own) instead patents are just a commodety! Whats next? companies will start buying and selling jail time - you got jail? sell it to a company who will pay someone else _less_ money to take the sentence for you!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
My biggest problem is that I'm not sure that Intellectual Property as used today makes any kind of logical or rational sense. I find it pretty laughable that someone can own an idea. Well more specifically, I can't see how it is practical much less logical to try and own an idea.
Here's where I find the problems with our system today(in the USA): Primarialy the protections offered to "IP" are too broad and long lasting - and what counts as IP is way too broadly defined.
The ideas I am presenting here are hardly new on slashdot, but does anyone honestly expect me, or anyone else, to know whose ideas they originally were - much less track down some way to pay them royalties so I can use them in discussion? Such an expectation seems crazy to me, but isn't that what many of these patents are currently analogous to?
It seems to me - that it is ok to let someone own something like the StarTrek, but that ownership needs to be specific. It seems fair to restrict exact copying of the episodes or the technical manual(for a limited time - again to myself the original 14 years seems like plenty).However the overall universe should not be copywrightable, the idea of StarTrek. There ought not be any possible challenge to people who want to write fanfiction(the ones who make up a new crew/ship in the generic ST universe). It's trickier for those who want to write about the established characters, Kirk et al, but I still can't see how that would cause harm in any real sense to Paramount or whoever owns them now.
Many such franchises allow all fanfiction specifically because it encourages fans to be interested in their products. It should be a given by law that some specific things you can own - a specific story, but that characters or world/environments are fair game for anyone to write in. Of course the 3rd party works should not be able to claim to be cannon, hence anyone could totally avoid them if they wanted to.
Another example showing that allowing compatible 3rd party works helps a company/system rather than hurts it is in the 3rd+ Edition of D&D. Ever since Wizards of the Coast opened up the system they use to 3rd party developers(much like OSS) there has been an explosion of products for their system. Many more than one company alone could produce. And every one needed their Core books to play, because that laid out the system in full.(The system seems like it should also be ok to patent/copywright - it is a specific system for generating characters - it is not an ownership of creating RPG style characters)
So where am I going with all this? Simple - in many cases, even outside of computing, allowing or insisting on ownership of an idea, a system if you will, has hurt the public, and limited the amount of products produced thereby limiting the economy revolving around that original product. In cases where such systems or ideas have been opened up, everyone has benefited. So - we as a society have a NEED for a public domain, and that has been lost in law and public understanding in the last few years.
So to summarize:
1. Copyright/Patents(IP) are ok, and probably good as long as they are for short terms, 14 yrs maybe at the top end.(I personally liked the idea of 5yrs renewable in 5yr increments up to 20 yrs max or so - less in software.)
2. Copyright/Patents(IP) need to be specific - no patents on concepts, no copyrights on concepts. (I went to the store today.:copyrightable - going to the store - not copyrightable. Example 2 - momma's chocolate fudge recipe. Use 3 eggs, 2tbps cocoa etc...:copyrightable, Chocolate Fudge: Not copyrightable.)
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
True enough, but I was lazy this morning ;-)
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
although I can keep track of whether or not I'm copying from anyone, I can't keep track of all the possibilities of all the patents I may someday be accused of violating.
This is the single biggest proof that the patent system is broken.
Most people (here) know that the only reason that patents exist is to "promote progress in science and the useful arts." - So let's see how this is doing:
If you're a technology 'creator' (programmer, engineer, whatever) ask any patent lawyer, and he'll tell you not to go looking up patents, because it can get you into trouble.
So, if looking up patents can get you into trouble, how the hell is this promoting progress?!?!?!
The patent system is broken, plain and simple.
It's called sovergn immunity. You can not sue someone for acting as a government agent, even if what they did was unjust and illegal UNLESS the government specifically allows you to do so. People are always amazed by this but I learned about it in middle school :/
You say that gene patents are an exception, but if they are so is software. They are actually more similar than you suggest. Or do you mean gene patents don't have the same requirements as for other types (i.e. not obvious, etc.)?
Change the rules so that...
You are aware who makes the rules, right? Hint: It's not the EFF or anybody remotely like them. Changing rules like these in any logical(non-corrupt) way would require massive public attention and input. With the economic interest in maintaining the status quo, I doubt there will be any significant change anytime soon.
What?
If you can't sue the government, then sue the patent examiner individually for negligence.
Or is that the same as suing the gubbernment?
My spoon is too big.
I patent procreating. Now please send a SASE with $200(For your licsense, of course), to ...
Maybe if I send Ev1Servers a threatning letter, they will buy a few....
hmmm....
fairly new to the concept of government, aren't you?
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
"He patented the idea - and retired."
This is exactly the sort of (ab-)use of the patent system that needs to be highlighted: people that use the system to innovate once in their life and then retire on the licensing fees they collect from the patent. Nature and the Real World don't function this way at all... there is no free lunch and everyone should be encouraged to engage in a process of CONTINUOUS innovation. In such an environment the threat of copy-catters is insignificant because continued improvements - change - create a continuous process of obsolescence. IBM, Intel, and some other technology companies have learned this lesson quite well, and even abuse it to bankrupt some competitors by creating various "standards" and then abandoning them after the competition has become heavily vested in them.
Now we have "intellectual property holding companies" like Ideaflood, who don't actually produce any tangible product at all and often don't even originate or innovate anything, but instead merely traffic in IP and patents, buying "low" and selling "high" to the highest bidders as if it were nothing more than a stock market commodity.
In what twisted alternate-reality Earth is this supposed to be conducive to competition, innovation, and incremental evolution? I'd thought the patent system was originally intended to protect the little-guy garage inventor from being raped; perhaps that was never the reality in the first place and it just wasn't obvious until now, but it's creating an environment of corrupt and dishonest tactics that is especially injurious to the Little Guy, who is now being horse-whipped by the system, e.g. freelance or Mom-and-Pop programmers and developers. It's not good for business, definitely not good for consumers, and bad for overall productivity; the only people who seem to benefit from this system now are IP and patent lawyers and their deep-pocketed ligitious clients.
every big creature has parasites...
-- Howto: Get +5 (1) Whine about M$ (2) Namedrop Gentoo (3) Casually Abuse Mods (4) Namedrop Early Computer Model
They may not have patented it, but I'm pretty sure they HAVE copyrighted it: The Children's Television Workshop.
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