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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
They can't fathom that someone wouldn't patent something even if it is totally trivial/common sense.
UPS Sucks
prior art = November 1987
And in other news, tomorrow, I'm patenting the misspelling of referrer in electronic comunication.
kiss.my.org
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
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
whois.net says:
I say:
(PS. We're so big we don't even run our own nameservers!)
"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
http://www.ideaflood.com/apps.asp
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.
Oh my GOD! The patented DNS!
/etc/hosts for me?
You Bastards!
I won't pay. No, no, no. Anyone got a complete
Free as in mason.
Open-Source Patent Examination anyone?
AC comments get piped to
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 =]
IP Voltron! Assemble!
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
Both actually...
Why do people insist on putting spaces in hyperlinks?
I see this question too often. So pay attention children, cause I don't want to repeat this 9000 more times.
Slashdot inserts random spaces intentionally to prevent the "wwwwwwwide" exploit on their system, and the parent didn't post an actual hyperlink so much as an IRL. A hyperlink would look like this:
<A HREF="http://whatever.com">link</A>
And it would show up like this: link
But most people don't bother to do that when they cut and paste IRL's into their text, and Slashdot has to insert the spaces or else you get a hideous side-scrolling effect that messes up the format of the page.
Now you know.
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
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.
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.
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.
They aren't claiming wildcards in general, nor even wildcards in DNS. They're claiming DNS wildcards used to host multiple user's domains on one virtual IP address.
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.
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.
(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.
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?
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."