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.

Comments

The future of patents

[Openstandards.net]

Does anyone see this rising to a boiling point anytime soon? When will people start lobbying for patent reform?

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.

Re:Over and Over and Over

[Rogerborg]

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.