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Troll Patents Lists In Databases, Sues Everyone
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Florida patent troll called Channel Intelligence is suing everyone from Lemonade to Remember the Milk for infringing on patent 6,917,941, which covers storing a wishlist in a database. Amazon and eBay are absent from the list of targets, even though they very likely store users' wishlists in a database. With any luck, perhaps one of the defendants will get to use that precedent PJ found the other day from In re Lintner, which said, '[c]laims which are broad enough to read on obvious subject matter are unpatentable even though they also read on non-obvious subject matter.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wishlists are an obvious toy... used by everyone from little kids doing their Christmas list, to parents on their way to the grocery store. It only serves to follow that web based users wishing to track a list have it be stored on a database... considering there is no where else to reliably store it.
Crackin' Wise - Blogging about whatever we want
OK, I'll call your suit and raise you one
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Spanging this guy and all other patent trolls like him in the face with a coal shovel is high on my personal wishlist, and Slashdot is now storing that information in their comment database. Sorry Taco!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
He's not a very good Patent Troll, if he did his homework, he'd know this stuff only flies in Marshall, Texas. That's where those scum file their patent claims.
I'm less worried about the patent troll than the fact that the Patent Office allowed this crap to get through. I think it is time for some people to get fired.
The problem is that the patent troll gets to pick the court. Which means that they can slant it any way they want to. From judges that are pro-patents to judges that have no idea what the issue is and don't feel like educating themselves.
There are good judges out there. There are bad judges out there.
The trolls get to choose which ones they want to have their cases decided by.
1. Wish this wishlist on Slashdot
2. Wish this post is stored in database
3. Wish that troll sees it
4. Wish that troll sues Slashdot
5. Wish that troll wins case
6. Wish that I get credit for my efforts
7. Wish for profit from percentage of settlement
If you post it, they will read.
Guys, all we have to do to stop the madness is get the proper patent. Let's see...
"A method for securing profits by describing an idea of sufficient generality and utility that its use is inevitable, then bringing legal claims against the most successful groups to implement it."
PWND!!
I'll take "Something That Would Stop This Sort of Nonsense" for a thousand, Alex.
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
Poor Santa Clause is going to be sued for 1.8 billion infringements.
Table-ized A.I.
Would "assassination politics" work for patent trolls too? /waits for black helicopters.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Milk
Bread
Shitload of stamps
Ground Chuck
Vitamin Water
Carrots
Defense Attorney
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
Ok, guys: the critical date is December 28, 2001.
First person to post prior art gets a big pat on the back!
Santa Clause is SCREWED!
I am personally glad this is happening. First off, its the kind of news that is so ridiculous I can't help but become distracted from the real news, of which I am generally not a fan, and second it is just further evidence that we need so serious patent reform. Sry boot teh coma abooze. XD
posting anonymous for obvious reasons.. My Company uses Channel Intelligence to test the conversion rate on various checkout flows. We pay them $20,000 to test 6 flows on our major site, and if they increase conversion by a few percentage points on one of the flows, they get a $10,000 bonus. We have been working with them for a few months now, and I must say, I could have done this in my sleep.
Now this company has climbed past utter ridiculousness with this patent on "lists in a database". Who are they going to sue next, the publisher of a book on basic database algorithms?
More likely: Channel Intelligence isnâ(TM)t prepared to litigate against Amazon, who would likely lawyer CI into the ground over this âoepatent.â
CI most likely wants to get bought by Amazon, and then Amazon can sue everybody over this patent; the patent is quite complementary to their "one click" invention.
What in the world are they trying to pull patenting a wish list. People store stuff in db's all the time. What right do they have to tell people how they store their own data.
This is ridiculous...
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
Is the bad man going to sue Santa too?
What does "[c]laims which are broad enough to read on obvious subject matter are unpatentable even though they also read on nonobvious subject matter." mean? It almost makes sense, but the term "read on" appears to be legal jargon, because it breaks /brain/lib/english_parser.so for me.
Didn't someone patent the business model of being a patent troll?
If you win then you go after the big guys.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
you would think there would be somebody with a modicum of knowledge on the subject looking them over before they're approved.
Of course they store user wishlists in a db, but they're rich, there's no way anyone would go after them first...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
If storing data in a database is considered 'nonobvious' and patent worthy, then someone please tell me the 'obvious' method of storing data.
Geeze, it's just some guys at a patent office
that s why i read slashdot thanx for making my day
OK, I'm gonna bite...
I use Lotus Approach (the award-winning (well, at least in the 90's) database front-end) to manage my self-created applications (ranging from ships to screenplays), and I have in it a To-Do list, which essentially is a wish-list, collecting what, why, how inspired, when entered, thought of and due.
Other screenplay apps do this, too, making scrap books and what not. So, SUE me you pricks. Somebody needs to go chop off some heads in USPTO if there is a patent issued for this bullshit.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I hold the patent on:
3. ????
Slashdot alone will make me a very rich man.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
November 1999
-- Amazon.com launches its Wishlist service. Countless customers get presents they actually want for the holidays.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=502658&highlight=wishlist
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
I've just come up with a great idea! I'm going to store lists within a data storage system designed to store several lists.
Ok, you store data in a database, a wishlist is just data.
What's next, a patent on putting gas in a fuel tank, and then suing everyone who fills their tank with unleaded?
That's not just obvious, it's a bloody requirement!
Gee, maybe I'll patent the removal of ore bearing rocks from igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary matrixes. Then sue all mines in the world.
Well, if you've played D&D, you know the only way to permanently get rid of a Troll is to burn them to a crisp. Let's get the Torches and hunt some Patent Trolls !
Take a look at the table descriptions which provide a bit of a schema. Sounds like the Sharepoint database to me. Maybe this is all a ploy to get Microsoft!
There has evolved in our society a class of villains who would destroy the republic for love of profit. They are amoral and sociopathic, delighting in the money they steal from its citizens, allowed to thrive by our fatally broken legal system, and in the end relying on the armed strength of the government to confiscate their misgotten gains.
I no longer see a reason why these subpeople should be allowed to walk freely among the citizens of our country. They are guilty of treason by criminal negligence, and have forfeited their right to be considered equals under the law by their utter contempt of the same.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If this troll's case wins, that means anyone who votes for (or wishes) for a candidate in any election (state, city, federal, etc.) and has that information stored in a database, is in direct violation of a patent.
Therefore it would invalidate ALL votes that are casted and stored in any form of electronic database for tallying whatsoever.
Does Florida REALLY want to count those votes again? Likely not.
So I read the patent and that's exactly what they did. The abstract just describes a relational database in incredibly convoluted language. The mind reels.
Well, if they can get away with that, then my new patent is going to make me richer than God. I propose storing and manipulating information by reducing it to a set of states, said states being either "something" or "nothing" I propose these states be represented by two differing digits, "1" or "0".
Now, who's got my check?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Didn't someone patent the business model of being a patent troll?
People have talked about doing so on Slashdot.
Unfortunately, the patent trolls have prior art.
And, as this case shows, patenting being a patent troll "on the internet" or "using a web browser" isn't going to work, either.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
foils your plan.
Let's try abolishing patents instead. Ideally we would want companies to replace the lawyers with engineers afterward, and maybe export the lawyers overseas to prevent them from continuing to be a drain on society.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If software patents had the same limitations as pharma patents, this patent could have to pretty much provide the database schema and pseudo-code for managing that database.
Sadly software patents these days appear to be more about patenting concepts rather than concrete implementations. Until the rules are tightened up, these patent problems are just going to keep on popping up, as they have been already for many years.
The main point of a database is to store information. Therefore patenting "Common everyday collection of data, IN A DATABASE" is bloody pointless. Other software patent favourites include: ON THE INTERNET. OVER A WIRELESS CONNECTION. ON A COMPUTER even. All patents that couple common obvious or everyday activities and concepts with one of the above should be deleted. What other ones can you come up with?
PS: It's 2008, why the short comment title limit?
I just thought of the perfect way to fix the patent system. If you sue over a patent and there are more than, say, 3 defendants, if the defendants can all demonstrate they came up with the technology independently of you and of each other, then your patent is invalidated. Clearly, if an idea is so simple that three different people or companies are able to implement it before you're able to file suit, it must be an obvious idea not worthy of patent protection.
I have put in for a patent of storing data in a db that can be accessed by a "unique key." I will be rich rich rich when I sue everyone!
Anonymous Coward has prior art, you know.
Could I store wishlists in a text file, ascii ideally, and then store the file as a blob field in a database?
Or alternatively drop something large, explosive, and heavy on top of the US PTO to stop any more stupid patents being granted.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Wow, I'm just shocked that the patenting system and legal system in the United States is SO fucked up to the point where you can patent just about anything, regardless if you invented it or not, and sue everyone for using it.
I think I'll patent "The process of selecting a person, or voting, in a democratic election"... then sue the United States and everyone who votes in an election for infringement every 4 years! I WOULD BE RICH!
We have these trolls because not enough have been found dead.
The law should be updated to allow for obvious patent trolls to have a chair thrown and broken over their head. The law will appoint Steve to do the honors of throwing the aforementioned chair.
Ok, now on a more serious point, I really don't understand how patents like this get past the "expert" patent examiners who work at the USPTO. A database is something that is used to keep lists of things. It doesn't matter if it's a list of telephone numbers, a list of customers and vendors, a list of email addresses for a mailing list you manage, a list of husbands you've pissed off by screwing their wives, or a wishlist. Even a monkey can see that this is not only obvious, but is the first method that comes to mind in anyone's mind to keep a list of information. Even if you write down a shopping list on a piece of paper, that piece of paper is essentially a "database." So on a more serious note of how the law should be updated: If you file an obvious troll patent like this and it gets overturned on the grounds of being obvious, you should be compelled to pay back anyone you've charged for the use of the patent, plus interest, and the patent examiners who let it get past their desk get fired and ALL patents they've been involved in are revoked automatically. This will help fight the PROBLEM of a runaway patent system.
A patent system, as with a copyright system, is a good thing, but the rights of the entire population must be in balance with the time-limited (for a SHORT time) rights given to the patent or copyright holder. The purpose of both systems is to enrich the entire society by giving people incentive to invent, create, and/or release new things.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
I own the patent on patenting an obvious idea and then suing people to get money. They CLEARYLY violated my patent. I guess I'll have to sue.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Claim 58 is especially amusing. It's a claim on a database of arrays of name/value pairs. Yeah, no one's ever done that one before.
I'm pretty sure pieces of paper with "Wish List" written on top of them are okay.
They may also be okay if you scan them and post them online.
Anything beyond that, you're on your own.
Anything above this line will be Triple Dog Dare Sued!
nyah nyah nyah!
People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Why? Is there any shortage of bad ones?
f**k me. its a relational database.
well, i never!
Are they not the same?
All it is is a matter of labeling on the forms and name assignments in the table. And, the two can be relationally joined to serve the function of tracking the progress of the wishlist.
- I must (to do) add 4 new columns to track x, y, z...
- I wish we had 4 new columns to track x, y, z...
When I worked at DiviCom, we used Vantive, and we had in Vantive a wish list. It took submitter name, date, time, company work group/department (admin, ops, manufacturing, RMA, IT, engineering...), developer working the case/ticket/wishlist, tested by, action date...
Any homemade database, or even Drupal, et al can do this, online or offline. So, the assholes behind the patent troll may as well level their dicks (guns) at hundreds of millions of people.
We seriously need to bring back or enact a law enabling dueling (pistol operas might be fun, Miike style), or swordplay (Azumi style... murder the war-starters to save the people) so that F*TARDS like those can be put not only out of business, but force them to reincarnate ahead of schedule. It's not murder, it's just "fast-tracking" them to a new realm of existence. Hopefully, they come back as a better human, not an evil hungry ghost out to make everyone ELSE miserable for no purpose other than to make money.
Some power-mongering assholes out there think there is nothing WRONG with making as much money as they want, just because they can. But, when they hoard resources (money, capital/capitol, access, favorable interest rates, etc.) everyone ELSE either hast to work harder to get ahead or stay ahead, or become complacent. It's not fair and it's not right.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
...or so it seems. I've never been very keen on voting for lawyer candidates running for office. To me, it seems like hiring the inmates to be in charge of the asylum, or at best a bit of a conflict of interest.
Nonetheless, most of those who we elect to make the law are lawyers. This means that laws are purposefully designed to make more business for lawyers. I think patent reform is not happening largely because a patent system that worked would mean far less litigation, and thus less work for lawyers.
There needs to be an awful lot more lobbying by players in high-innovation industries to counter this inertia. Even evil MSFT has been burned by patent trolls and many within MSFT contend their patents are often "defensive". Lawyers tell their clients that it is important to protect their IP and file defensive patents even if they are trivial, just in case a troll slithers in to make a parasite of itself off your business operations. Do you think lawyers in DC are really keen on stopping a gravy train like that? You'd think the victims of patent trolling ranging from MSFT to RIM would be sick of the expense.
This latest case of a troll wielding a clearly illegitimate patent for using computers to manage a gift registry is simply another example of how patents have been perverted into a weapon to block innovation. The thing was filed at the end of 2001 and sites no patent older than 1999. Come on! All online gift registries could be read to violate this patent, and putting a gift registry in a computer database predates the WWW. This application should've been rejected on the first day of its review on the grounds it lacks novelty, but instead it was rubber-stamp-approved because there is no accountability in the patent office. Perhaps if a patent is struck down the patent office should be made to pay or be held accountable, then perhaps they'd be more careful in granting patents.
Several posters here have mentioned the possibility of these trolls suing Santa. Frankly, I hope they do! For years he was number 1 on the annual Forbes' list of the Fifteen Richest Fictional Characters because his wealth is clearly infinite. (They've removed him because of the number of complaints from children and the physical evidence (milk and cookies consumed, presents left)) However, if anybody has the resources to fight this and counter-sue those greedy bums into oblivion, it's Santa.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I patented the business practice of whoring Karma by posting about patenting the patent trolling business model.
paintball
Santa has prior art and if you say otherwise, he'll put you on his naughty list, find where you are sleeping, and gun you down.
Looks like they have un-moderated commenting allowed on their site Head on over, kids!
oO0Oo
Does the USPTO store a list of patents waiting to be processed in a database somewhere?
Their patent processing wishlist is probably in violation of this patent and they have opened themselves up to litigation by approving it.
Perhaps incompetence on the examiners part could be better explained by disgruntled malice.
Surly the USPO maintains a DB that contains a list of pattens pending that the patent applicant wishes to be granted, so sue the USPO
insert inflammatory comment here!
Back in 80-82 I created databases that did this.
In fact, I seem to recall one of the first uses for most computers used at home back then was to store recipe lists and shopping lists of ingredients.
They're about 20 years too late - it's public domain now, cause my software was coded in AppleSoft Basic.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
All it is is a matter of labeling on the forms and name assignments in the table. And, the two can be relationally joined to serve the function of tracking the progress of the wishlist.
They serve two different purposes, function in two different ways (soliciting others to buy specific items for you vs. setting forth activities in which you yourself plan to carry out).
We seriously need to bring back or enact a law enabling dueling (pistol operas might be fun, Miike style), or swordplay (Azumi style... murder the war-starters to save the people) so that F*TARDS like those can be put not only out of business, but force them to reincarnate ahead of schedule. It's not murder, it's just "fast-tracking" them to a new realm of existence. Hopefully, they come back as a better human, not an evil hungry ghost out to make everyone ELSE miserable for no purpose other than to make money.
You're assuming you'd win, though. Trial by combat doesn't always go to the virtuous, which is why they abolished it...
I want you all to know that i am going to file a patent on thinking. if you as much as think of a wish list i will sue. if you think about a counter suit i will just sue you for thinking that. i am sure there is not a patent on thinking so i should be gold!
I am not sure how old the patent is, but any mud from the late 80's/early 90's would have had a feature that let users indicate things they would like to see and store it in a database.
It's called a feature request database.
I am sure there are other examples.
Don't waste your time complaining about it here. Go out and let them know directly how you feel.
While you're at it, why don't you visit their partner list (there's some notable ones in there) and let their partners know that you'll be taking your business elsewhere until they no longer do business with this company.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
So, if i manage to sell copies of my screenplay application (as do others) and enable other users to collaborate (think: Celtx) and share ideas, then, other than commerce/cashflow requirement, how is this really different?
As for winning the duel, whether or not i get shot or cut depends on which one of us fails to cheat fastest. Those prick obviously had no compunction about the damage they are likely to cause to a great many people and businesses. So, why not take them out before they decide that we are impeding their "right" to make money?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Patents are supposed to protect an inventor from others stealing his invention--not his ideas. If you're non-specific about the METHOD by which your "invention" pushes a wish-list to a database (some proprietary programming or a new custom protocol), then you don't have anything to patent.
Unfortunately, the patent office knows only how to patent physical devices and they fail to understand the difference between the broad concept and the actual methodology.
Ignorant backwoods judges and juries don't understand either. That's why trolls love Marshall, TX.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I believe what most people fail to consider is the people that work in the PTO are most likely wage slaves. I do not know the inner working of the patent office but if it works like any other government agency then this is a higly likely scenario. Low totem pole guy recomends it not be approved send up to middle manager, middle manager not wanting to make waves changes to approved (Last guy got reprimanded for disallowing to many patents and retired without promotion)upper management barely skims it and bang approved. The company's getting sued need to sue the patent office itself and name the signatures that signed this patent in the law suit (individuals bueracrats in agency become responsible vs large govt agency). Could also be fun class projects for law schools across the nation, Find stupid patent, Sue on potential clients behalf, injuction etc against the PTO. Most likely only way any changes will be made. Govt Agency's can take huge hits until individuals (Higher the better) start getting named and paychecks/promotion get hit.
(I'm too lazy to read the patent to see what it actually claims. Life is short, and I've got better ways to waste my time.)
1. The patent is for the idea of storing a wishlist. This could, arguably, be patentable, with "in a database" being one of the subclaims. (Of course, there's prior art of wedding registries and such that goes a long way back, which would render the patent invalid.)
2. The patent is one of those stupid "something we always did, but on the internet" things that is so 1990s, and should never have been granted even then.
3. They really are patenting "storing it in a database", at which point Captain Obvious should order the patent to be taken out and shot.
As far as I can see, the patent is invalid no matter which alternative turns out to be true.
I reckon under the UK copyright laws a list could be argued to qualify as a database. And probably lots of other places too. So it makes no sense.
That couldn't be a real patent. It doesn't contain the word "plurality" a superfluous number of times...
The just lost a bid to overturn a $21 million patent-infringement verdict. They might face a ban on all Wii console sales.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601127&sid=aZmETSiEwaKE&refer=law
"The New Age. The New Beginning."
During prosecution, the PTO gets paid for just about anything the applicant files. That being said, after a patent is granted there are renewal fees.
You would think that examiners would simply allow allow allow, but that hasn't been the case in a while. The patent grant rate has actually dropped in the past few years.
http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/PatentlyO2006059.jpg
This is inpart due to greater focus on quality, and that allowance of an application is now reviewed multiple times even for primary examiners. In the same time period the backlog has grown as the result of a hiring freeze a couple years ago and fairly high attrition, and perhaps as part of a lower allowance rate.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Here we go, another patent fiasco, and the same replies of...
I'm gonna patent this.
I'm gonna patent that.
I'm gonna patent breathing.
I'm gonna patent breathing while jacking off, in Soviet Russia, to a diorama of Natalie Portman pouring hot grits down the pants of the goatse.cx guy. All the while wondering if a dead Stephen King could throw a chair at Steve Ballmer through a beowulf cluster of a series of tubes.
etc...
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Granted that's not great.
But the money gets reasonable at about 10 years experience; 100K+.
A cynical look at the data says for the median to be so close to the no experience number (they start at 61K) they have to be reclassifying senior 'patent examiners' into some other category to hide how OVERPAID they actually are. We all know you can't get a bureaucrat off the teat once attached, especially the really incompetent ones.
Fire all their worthless asses. Reopen the offices someplace cheap and depressed. Detroit sounds perfect. Unemployed auto workers would do a better job. They might be a little upset at the pay cut. The smart ones would be happy to find jobs, those are the ones you want anyhow.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Patent_Examiner/Salary
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Can we find out who the judge will be and contact him/her? Maybe we should make a habit of it.
Does it really matter anyway? Zoidberg is the only one to be deemed good by Santa!
That's nothing more than just "sorta something" and "kinda nothing," also known as "more" or "less" and I want my money, Dammit!
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Patent troll beating up shopkeeper for royalty money: very naughty.
Shopkeeper not paying royalty money: exactly as naughty
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How about this clever database scheme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridal_registry 1993 With link to relevant patent none the less.
Yeah, it'd seem that way, but read all of the statute:
Which seems pretty cut and dry. Except, of course, that it's not. In 1990, Congress updated the statute thus with 28 USC 1391:
which effectively means that you can file a patent suit anywhere, which interpretation was held in VE Holdings v. Johnson Gas Appliance Co. in 1990 (and tacitly affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1991 by refusal to grant writ of certiorari).
Yeah, sucks it, doesn't it? Write your congresscritter.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bridal and Baby registries where you use a bar code scanner to read merchandise you want people to buy you for said event.
That information is known to be stored in a database (and accessible via the web and in-store systems). Definite prior art, and been around for a long time.
> someone please tell me the 'obvious' method of storing data.
You do a ROT-13, then change the coding to EBCDIC. After that, you create some common Lisp code that takes two arguments--length and offset--and produces the EBCDIC output when run (or just the length of the data stored in the program data if both arguments are nil). Finally, you convert all the parentheses to square brackets (and vice versa, if there were any square brackets in the original), print it out, and photograph each page on a wooden table. You combine the JPEGs from your camera into one giant PDF and then store that in the database.
Simple, no?
The bastard patented the use of any tool or weapon to seek vengeance upon patent trolls.
The so-called "inventors" of this should be locked up for fraud, since they presented themselves as inventors of something that has existed for years, en masse. This is like trying to patent speadsheets 10 years after they began to be used widespread and claim, on a *legal* document, that you created them, and using you claim of having invented it years after they came into existence as a your basis for filing suit.
This action clearly constitutes:
1) Malicious prosecution,
2) Reckless Litigation,
3) Perjury,
4) Fraud,
and
5) Conspiracy to commit fraud.
The shitwit patent clerks that approved this should be fired without pay, forced to pay attorney's fees for every defendent listed, and prohibited from ever holding a government job again.
They should at least be liable for attorney's fees, since this was an exceptionally gross, very likely deliberate, misuse of authority and judgement.
THE IDIOTS RESPONSIBLE:
Primary Examiner: Greta Robinson .....sigh..... women.
Secondary Examiner: Cheryl Lewis
I wonder how many pairs of shoes they got in return for approval.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Looks to me like Google's patent-lookup does exactly what this patent covers. The patent covers the basics of a database system.
So, enter a patent number, the database pops it up, displays it. It's all there.
Is this irony?
Santa's a bit busy fighting warcrimes charges, at the moment.
I'll see you both in court.
I wrote a program back in 2004. so my family could store their St. Nicolas (Dutch version of Santa Claus) wishlists online and view them. As this patent was handed out in 2005, and my program isn't mentioned as Prior Art, it seems to me to be invalid.
Do I have any chance sueing the patenter? I didn't publish my work, but they should have done better research anyway.
I take life with a grain of salt...a slice of lemon and a dash of tequila
Not new. We have been storing wishlists in a database ever since the USPTO opened.
Why doesn't someone patent the process of patent trolling, and sue the bastards to hell and back ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
The legal system in this country is a joke.
Now that Karadzic has been arrested, things can only get better....
Santa Claus is gunning them down!
Oh, man, if that holds up as a precedent... the implications are breathtaking.
I just felt a disturbance in the force, as if every patent troll in the country suddenly started hyperventilating and reaching for their blood pressure medication.
If I patent the practice of patent trolling, it will require patent trolls to pay me $1M per patent troll case filed, and $10M for each case won, as well as paying for the legal fees of the defendant.
The royalties payed to me will be used help the defendant company further develop the patented technology in question. HA.
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
Patent LAW is a joke, when they can patent "process" over real invention.
Putting a freaking wish list in a database, is a process.
Any law that try to regulated thoughts are fascist! Thoughts are not owned! They are SHARED!
Freaking retarded law.
Jourdespoir
According to Dells History: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/about_dell/company/history/history?c=us&l=en&s=corp They used 'wish lists' stored in databases for your choice of laptop, desktop or server, which debuted back in 1996. I would think that would suffice for prior art!
Damn I read 'Satan' instead of Santa and expected to see a photo of Tony Bliar!
I've patented a method by which 'justice' can be served in a 'court' and for good measure, also the phrase "I'll see you in court" (and all derivatives of... You will indeed be seeing me in court mwuhaha :D
These addresses are listed on their site. I was going to list them for other /.ers to abuse, but then that list would be in /.'s database and Taco might get sued. So I'll comma delimit them.
niall.ogorman@channelintelligence.com, richard.fenn@channelintelligence.com
And as long as Santa doesn't store that list in a database his franchise will be safe.
The problem with it is it doesn't scale up. It works fine in a family setting where social pressure can encourage almost all people to contribute. That's how we run my family. On a national scale there are always the people who have an excessive sense of entitlement to exploit the efforts of the many. The many tire of this, and eventually stop trying and the whole thing grinds to a halt. In a family the cure for this is called "tough love". At a national level bureaucracy translates "tough love" into "genocide" and the whole thing falls apart. All systems have problems, but this defining problem of communism finds a failure state more quickly than other systems currently in the "noble experiment" phase.
It amazes me that an otherwise inquisitive and intelligent species has failed to find a system of organization that reliably and persistently works at a global level. Perhaps next year...
None of this has anything to do with the topic. Reforming or abolishing intellectual property law is about finding a solution that works "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Copyright and patent law currently work to prevent the progress of science and useful arts. We need the progress of science and useful arts. Badly. All of us, in whatever condition. Anything that prevents the progress of science and useful arts must be abolished if we are to conquer the challenges before us and survive as independent nations, or even as a species. It's important. Really.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
...to do something terrible and terroristic to them in the comments section.
It would be an interesting scenario if one of those defendants would be crazy enough to respond with, "In response to your suit claiming infringement on BS patents, we are standing by with several assassins and hired mercenaries, many pipe bombs and powdery white substances in USPS envelopes, and maps to your place of operations. If you would like to go ahead with this lawsuit then we'll consider that an act of war. Proceed at your own risk. *smile* Oh, and I get to personally shiv the guy who thought this particular patent trolling was a good idea. Sincerely, a dangerous individual and quite a good code slinger IMHO."