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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.
They can't fathom that someone wouldn't patent something even if it is totally trivial/common sense.
UPS Sucks
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?
"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.
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
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!
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
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.
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Nope. Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. Not at this juncture.
People have been doing this with mod_vhost_alias with Apache for AGES.
Of course, I don't think anyone needs to get their panties in a wad over this, there are plenty of junk 'IP' corporations out there that are just paper tigers. They never actually do anything, and when it comes to court they (almost) always lose.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Yah, like "our sole purpose is to own stuff and sue the p00p out of anyone who thinks otherwise"
I guess this illustrates how far we've fallen. I seem to recall, from reading Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" (published in 1835) long ago in college, that citizens could sue public officials freely, and that this was considered one of the fundamental checks on abuse of governmental power that characterized American democracy.