Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.