Google and Others Sued For Automating Email

Dotnaught sends us to InformationWeek for news of the latest lawsuit by Polaris IP, which holds a patent on the idea of responding automatically to emails. The company has no products. It brought suit in the Eastern District in Texas, as many patent trolls do — though the article informs us that that venue has been getting less friendly of late to IP interests, and has actually invalidated some patents. The six companies being sued are AOL, Amazon, Borders, Google, IAC, and Yahoo. All previous suits based on this patent have been settled.

Comments

WOW!

[wamerocity]

"Six major Internet companies have been sued for using computers to process their e-mail."

As opposed have PEOPLE sort ELECTRONIC data?

Seriously, I'm glad to see someone hop on this in such a timely manner, because if Polaris IP doesn't nip this in the bud now, automated email response could become widespread in no time!!

Re:I for one...

[Tribbin]

== Auto-reply:

I'm sorry, I'm on a vacation to Italy,

I might respond to your post during the week if I get a chance.

Otherwise I will respond over the weekend.

Good luck,

Wow

[marcello_dl]

1. work at the patent office.
2. award patents with the magic 8 ball procedure (pat. pend.)
3. nobody fires you for that!
4. profit!!!
5. ??? (these are coming from those being sued for infringement)

Re:Wow

[EvanED]

award patents with the magic 8 ball procedure (pat. pend.)

Clearly they aren't using a magic 8 ball. The magic 8 ball sometimes says no.

Re:Wow

[pipingguy]

And also, "Outlook Not So Good".

That thing was way ahead of its time.

Related Arcitles

[BronsCon]

Firehose:Google and Others Sued For Automating E-mail by Dotnaught (223657)
Who'da thunk it... Betrayed by one of our own...

Dueling Automated Email Replies in 1995

[Esion Modnar]

I had automatic reply setup on a Vax email system, and I forget the exact situation, but my auto-reply got into a duel with another auto-reply while I was at lunch. Anyhoo, 2 hours later I had some 1200 emails in my inbox, all auto-replies to another auto-reply, which was replying to my auto-reply, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Good times. (Da Da Ding-Ding Ding-Ding Ding-Ding Diiiing.)

Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991

[JordanL]

Why keep us geeks ona retainer? Just sue Google, and it'll appear on Slashdot, then you'll get all the free prior art guidance you need.

I'm against the death penalty but....

[MosesJones]

Extending it to patent trolls would, I feel, certainly act as a deterrent.

And this is Texas after all....

Re:vacation(1) released in 1983

[tsm_sf]

Please respond with "unsubscribe" in the message body to be removed from this news aggregator.

Re:vacation(1) released in 1983

[Anonymous Coward]

So why does it have to be like that with you? Can't he/she just be, for example, mistaken, ill-informed, wrong, drunk, confused, or brain-farting? Why does he/she have to be, in *your* mind, an idiot? Would it really kill you to be just a touch more civil in your discourse, fucktard?

explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

sumbarine.

Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991

[temcat]

No guessing needed - it always has been > 0! 9/11/2001 is a constant and equals approximately 4.09e-4.

Re:ridiculous - looser pays

[Anonymous Coward]

"looser pays all costs"

SO the tighter doesn't have to pay anything? Cool.

Re:Procmail v1.0 released in 1991

[rjstegbauer]

You seem to know math really well factorial Now go study English alot factorial There! Fixed that for you.

Enjoy,
Randy.