Singapore Firm Claims Patent Breach By Virtually All Websites

An anonymous reader writes "A Singapore firm, VueStar has threatened to sue websites that use pictures or graphics to link to another page, claiming it owns the patent for a technology used by millions around the world. The company is also planning to take on giants like Microsoft and Google. It is a battle that could, at least in theory, upend the Internet. The firm has been sending out invoices to Singapore companies since last week asking them to pay up."

Comments

Slightly Misleading

[eldavojohn]

I tracked down what I think is the patent in question and indeed it was originally accepted by the Australian Patent Office.

Here's the abstract:

The present invention provides a web-page (or web-site) search results list which includes images from the actual web-pages or web-sites identified in a user's search, or images associated with the actual organization operating a web-site. This assists a user to locate web-pages of interest or relevance to the user by providing images to assess the relevance of web-pages identified in a search, prior to the user having to hyperlink to the actual web-page itself. The invention also provides a method of assisting a user to be placed in contact with an organization, including the steps of: the user submitting a search request from a terminal, via a computer network, to a database server, the database server containing a database and a server-side application used as database searching software; the database searching software searching the database in accordance with the search request; identified database entries being transmitted to the terminal as a search results list, each entry of the search results list containing contact information for the organization; at least one entry of the search results list additionally containing visual content and/or audio content which relates to the organization. After reading the claims, this patent seems to be more targeting sites that use search engines to return images that relate to a user's query. Although this is a prime example of how the international patent system is broken, it's unlikely they could target "virtually all" web sites with this patent.

Easy to Prove

[Phantombrain]

Filing date: Oct 3, 2001
Issue date: Jun 20, 2006

Wayback machine: http://www.archive.org/

http://web.archive.org/web/19961017235908/http://www2.yahoo.com/

What's that? An image? Linked?!?! That is what one might call prior art.

Depends

[mpapet]

Technically? Depends on how much of the intellectual property is recognized by American courts. WIPO is supposed to be the global venue for patents.

Practically? No chance in hell. Even if they aren't laughed out of court, a little retroactive immunity legislation will fix that.

FYI, the American banking industry kneecaps patent holders that make it through the courts with retroactive immunity clauses with startling frequency. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021303731_pf.html

If only americans took an interest in their government. Most of it is too good/bad to be true.

but there *IS* a US patent...

[akahige]

Here's a link to US patent #7065520.

It was filed October 3, 2001, by an Australian guy who also holds patents in Oz and NZ.

More info re. their legal claims.

Here's a couple of choice quotes from their FAQ page:
Q: My site is worldwide, will I need licences for other territories?
A: Yes. Vuestar licences territory by territory â" VUESTAR System â.

Q: What happens if I donâ(TM)t pay?
A: You will not be granted the VUESTAR User Licence and will be unable lawfully to use visual images to access the worldwide web. Our collection agencies will recover unpaid fees.



So this is what happened to all those SCO execs...