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IP-Based Location Determination Patented

Posted by timothy on from the get-up-get-get-get-down dept.

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."

3 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Prior art by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I know web-sites having been doing this long ago. Can't find one at the moment, but this is definitely not new.

    --
    You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
    1. Re:Prior art by vsync64 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      What, like xtraceroute?
      First public release! (8-May-01998)
      --
      TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
  2. it certainly seems like.... by zogger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...anyone trying to determine anything relating to the internet and IP addresses, would have to notice there are things called DNS and search engines activated by keyword search algorithyms. This, a clever lawyer might say, is "publication in a peer journal", if it can be proven that the search terms would lead to the prior art site readily. If it's published on the web, it's published. If it's easily found, it's easily found. The web contains your peers as a subset of everyone. You have to search in a brticks and mortar library, either by actually looking here and there, or using a card catalog, or a microfoche catalog and slides, and so forth. Searching is searching.

    Need to bust these bogus patents. Need to bust up IP patents in general, take it back to tangibles only.

    Interesting trivia, when was the first non tangible patent issued, and what was it, and why was it issued?

    I don't know, just wondering.