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Webvention Demanding $80k For Rollover Images
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Webvention is demanding that websites with rollover images pay $80,000 or face a patent lawsuit based on US patent 5,251,294, which it bought from Intellectual Ventures. Webvention claims to already have licensing deals with Apple, Google, Nokia, Sears, Sony and Orbitz. Right now, they're suing Abercrombie and Fitch, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dell, Gamestop, E*Trade, Neiman Marcus, Visa and ten others in a court in east Texas."
Eat their bones
It gets even better if you read further into the patent:
The new computing paradigm of the present invention starts from a new kind of world view: A global economy is emerging with rapid flows of capital, knowledge, products, and competitive pressures. A growing number of companies and industries face new needs to leapfrog their limits and become effective competitors on a global level, transforming their performance, productivity, adaptation, and innovation capabilities. Is it possible for a single leverage point to help fill part of these needs?
This new type of software is defined by its novel purposes: the improvement or fabrication of reality based on its users' ideas and imaginations.
I think someone managed to submit Timecube as a patent application, which is kind of awesome, although it still doesn't explain what it has to do with rollovers.
Reading things like this makes me realize what a complete joke America has become.
Yeah sure! This is patent World War I, in which patent France won and demanded patent Germany pay patent reparations. These patent reparations ultimately caused patent Hyperinflation in patent Germany and led to patent World War II. In patent WWII patent Stalin signed a patent non-aggression pact with patent Hitler and was completely taken by surprise when patent Russia was invaded by patent Germany. Patent Stalin allied with Patent USA eventually won and signed a patent peace where they divided up patent Europe in a patent cold war that lasted almost 50 years.
This almost sounds like a plausible analogy!
Where you in the business in the late 80's early 90's? it seemed like everything describing the net sounded like that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wait, so have they patented generic clipart and Venn diagrams? Is that what those figures are showing?
Imagine if calculus had been patented for 20 years in the seventeenth century! We would be centuries behind where we are now...
While this does seem like evil copyright trolling, I almost hope they win and purge the web of the stupid rollover images forever.
This almost sounds like a plausible analogy!
No, it's patently ridiculous.
The enemies of Democracy are
What about the companies you don't hear from? What about the patent troll abusers?
These are the companies out there who, when threatened with a patent lawsuit, will trot out a stack of evidence of prior art. The patent trolls have to decide: shall we go to court over this and possibly lose in public, and risk countersuits from everyone we've ever sued who are now trying to recover money from those prior arrangements, or should we pay this company a fat wad of hush money to sweep the whole unpleasant experience under the rug?
Nobody's out there defending the rights of these patent trolls being steamrollered by Corporate America. For the love of god, won't somebody think of the patent trolls?
2.) Patent covers a basic part of the HTML/JS spec, which is kind of like patenting a "for" loop.
That's why the FOSS community came up with the "while" loop.