IP-Based Location Determination Patented

little1973 writes "Digital Envoy recived patent 6,757,740 for determining, collecting and using geographic locations of Internet users. I didn't know a patent could be obtained for a simple traceroute and some lookups in a DB." The patent talks about a bit more than this (such as assigning confidence levels to bits of the looked-up information), but the long list of referenced previous patents reminds me of the saying "If you copy one person, it's plagiarism; if you copy a dozen, it's research."

Comments

Re:Prior art - here's mine from a year+ ago ..

[xmas2003]

I've had a IP to location tool on my personal web site for over a year - it uses one of the more simpler ways of determining location (use the Perl Module Geo::IPfree ... looks like the 0.1 release for that was 2002) so does this mean that my use of that module means I'm in violation of the patent ... or is the Perl Module itself in violation?

I'm going to patent the hammer and chisel

[max born]

A system collects the geographic information and allows web sites or other entities to request the geographic location of their visitors. The database of geographic locations may be stored in a central location or, alternatively, may be at least partially located at the web site.

Sounds like a patent on keeping geographical IP addresses in a database. These folks are truly great "inventors". Thanks to the PO for promoting the useful arts and sciences. Without such exclusive rights, nothing would get invented.