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."
This is a perfect example why software patents need to be invalidated across the board. They do nothing to help consumers or innovation...they're just a tool used by companies to extort money from legitimate businesses.
Help me out...WTF does this mean, and WTF does it have to do with rollovers?
"Give me money. "
It's in legalese. You wouldn't understand, it's a lawyer thing.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Honestly, I think almost all patents should be invalid because they're completely incomprehensible to someone skilled in the art. Sadly it seems that patent law doesn't work like that.
Sure glad we didn't have software patents back when addition, subtraction, division, geometry, and calculus was invented.
We might have been set back centuries in advancement.
I actually fully agree. If a web developer themself has no clue at all what this patent is talking about, then who is it referring to? Shouldn't experts in the field understand the patent itself? If experts in the field have no clue what they are saying, then are they really saying anything?
Questions which make me fully agree that if a person in the field has no clue what it is saying, that it should be counted as not really saying anything. If it doesn't say anything, it is not really a patent, and we can get rid of it
The world is how you make it