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Location-Based Search Was Patented In 1999
greenbird writes "Another patent fiasco has begun. Wired reports that a patent on location-based Internet searches was filed in 1996 and granted in 1999 (patent is here). A patent troll company name Geomas acquired the patent and has filed suit against Verizon in none other than Marshall, Texas. They claim this is the first in what will be a long line of lawsuits. Geomas has amassed a $20M war chest in venture capital to use for getting rich off of a clearly obvious idea."
The patent was filed in 1998 and in almost a decade, they have yet to implement a useful location based search engine. Yet by the time the idea has become obvious and more than one party has applications using that idea, the original patent filers still don't have a product. Isn't this example the very reason that software patents outrages intelligent people? It did not contribute to innovation back in 1998. It holds back innovation in 2007.
A) A phone book did not have on-line information in 1996
B) A phone book is not connected to a computer network.
C) A phone book does not duplicate items into different regions.
D) This is definately not a software patent. Claim 1 clearly states that they are patenting a sytem comprising a network and a organizer (server).
You can get a patent on a system running software, just not on the software itself. A CD or hard disk with the code is also patentable.
I'm not saying this was novel at the time, but it most certaintly was not anticipated by a phone book. Just remember, to reject a claim, you need a document published before the filing of the application which teaches every limitation, or, multiple documents which when combined, teach the limitations and explicit motivation (known at the time of filing) for doing so.