Slashdot Mirror
Doubleclick's Banner Ad Patent
Black Art writes "This Wired Story has information about Doubleclick's new patent on net banner ads. Yet another example that the patent office has lost all touch with reality. " Described as "Method of Delivery, Targeting, and Measuring Advertising Over Networks". Now might be an amusing time to mention that the
Free Banner Ad Server AdFu me and some of my cronies have contributed code to (Specifically Nate, Pater and Vroon) should have a patch out soon that you can already see in action on Slashdot: it integrates mod_perl, Adfu & Slash to allow ads to be served without Layers or IFRAMEs. (the old functionality is still in place if anyone needs that, but this way is much faster).
Hope it doesn't violate any patents. Note:
None of us have ever seen or used any of Doubleclicks stuff ;)
I agree.
I also think the case has problems with 'prior art'. When does DClick claim to have invented it? My guess is that these guys just copied it from 'prior art' already in the public domain. So they are not entitled to a patent! Everything in the public domain constitues 'prior art'.
oh....my!
Might not be a good thing, though. It would also give the big guys more ways to make it tough on the little guys.
One thing US jurisprudence really needs is a "loser pays" allocation of court costs, reasonable attorney fees, and perhaps reimbursement for other damages resulting from a lost suit. That would provide a financial disincentive for bogus lawsuits, and might be extended to damages resulting from the attempted enforcement of bogus patents, providing a financial disincentive there, too.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Hey, this is a great idea. However I am a little foggy on the implementation. How do you specify the
Will
127.0.0.1 localhost www.doubleclick.com doubleclick.com
work?
I guess I should just try it...
Sinan
Maybe they need to change it so that the loser of a case pays costs.
So Doubleclick gets lame patent. OK, it takes someone $40K to get into patent court to argue the invalidity of the patent. Someone wins. Doubleclick owes that person for his/their courtcosts.
Doubleclick wins? Same.
At least for software patents.
You or I can create software algorithms up the wazoo without breaking a sweat and having our hands tied behind our backs and the only thing it costs us mainly is time.
Not as easy for you or I to create a new drug (process), for example.
I hate animated ads. Period. If the ads were static images, they could stay in my browser, but as it is, they're gone...
--
All Glory To The Hypnotoad!
> You can't override names in Windows the way you can in unix Yes, you can. Just doing it this way right now.
Well, the targetting doesn't always work :)
I searched for the band "Miranda Sex Garden".
Guess what sort of links I got?
Yup. Soft pr0n.
Just add an SOA to your DNS configuration for
doubleclick.com and alias it to 127.0.0.1
-kls
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
will that range do it? i see dblclick junk hit my firewall, and the ips vary, like: Name: uunyadgda1.doubleclick.net Address: 199.95.208.85 Name: uuny450adgda2.doubleclick.net Address: 204.253.104.139 and why are they sending things on port 7, anyway?
Accurate counting of hits, since the GIF isn't cached like the rest of the page (might be).
We do this at the site I work for (Don't click unless you want to see a really bloated site) to collect accurate statistics about which parts of the site are more (or less) popular. These are then used to make decisions about what to keep and what to toss, as well as how much to squeeze the advertisers for...
chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Let's not overreact. Doubleclick is not Big Brother. They may suck, but they aren't the thought police. If you are a paranoid freak, you can still make the Internet a very private and anonymous place for yourself. I, for one, do not care that doubleclick _knows_ that I bought a Kid Rock cd and a portable player. I may have to look at ads for Eminem and Dr. Dre for the rest of my life, but there are worse fates.
BTW, the economy won't crash because of impulse items and accumulated debt. Remember, Wal Mart does more business in one day than the entire Internet did in a year. This will change, but the retail economy is an elephant, and Internet sales are mere hairs on its ass.
It depends on the contract, but many ads are sold by impression. "CPM" refers to the cost per thousand banner impressions (1000 ads served).
Of course, contracts vary. As click through rates drop, some advertisers are paying only by the click. CPM is also declining over time.
I wonder when people/corporations will realize that there are better ways of helping themselves out than by patenting or copyrighting things. In some cases they do not even invent the new things, but only help to bring them more to the forefront of peoples view in the net world. Just the negative vibes send out from slashdot readers today toward doubleclick can't be financially good for them, even though now, they can claim all mighty supremecy over all banner companies worldwide. sound a bit like a company who didn't invent, only led the OS race for a while.
(sorry, this rant got a little screwed up as my mind wandered and my interest wained)
---
Idea: Since Slashdot's page is generated dynamically from a user profile anyway, how about letting people buy the option of having an ad-free page?
Most of us who filter ads aren't doing it because we want a free ride; it's because the ads are annoying. The graphics just suck up bandwidth uselessly, they don't cache, they are usually animated and distracting, sometimes they delay renderring of the rest of the page, etc. If it's a matter of "supporting Slashdot", there are better (and more efficient!) ways. Rob just hasn't tried 'em yet.
---
Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Now this is one patent I like. Block doubleclick.net and boom, no more adverts at all :-D
I think I could live with that.
Linux is great and there NO ads for it!!
I think this frivolous patent already infringes on the frivolous patent by The Thinking Media
1 2_11861,00.html
- media.html
briefly described here (oddly, all news about this patent is now missing from The Thinking Media's page):
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article/0,1087,
And which I discussed briefly here:
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/comments-thinking
My phrase "E-Data Mentality" applies to the DoubleClick patent, as well...
o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
Accurate counting of hits
This should read:
more accurate counting of hits etc.
I don't think there's actually any truly accurate method to count hits (as in number of times a page is loaded into a browser).
chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
I didn't find junkbuster too effective so I wrote my own. It actually looks at the HTML and edits it on the fly. I find this is much more powerful than just looking at URLs. It is not finished yet but you can try the current version at:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~nascheme/python/proxy.t
Editing the HTML was an original idea of my, search for proxy3 to find my inspiration.
wow I just checked this out. I am amazed !!! Does cookies too. screw the banner ads. Now if there was a 'junkbusters' for those billboards on the highways....
Has anyone patented the bureaucracy of patenting yet?
Any odds on how long till someone does?
Yeah, and for apples and oranges too. I've even seen ads for electricity here, in Israel. Electrical Company had launched ad company "It's better with electriity" - like at least 80% of population are constantly using only kerosene lamps and open-fire heaters. You can advertise anything, provided you have money and your media colnsultant wants them.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
I agree wholeheartedly with your statement. Ads suck wherever they are. Ad people seem to think the world would end without ads mucking up the scenery. Wooohoo for www.junkbusters.com !!!
Actually, HotWired invented it in 1994.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
How can Doubleclick enforce this patent? They have no case! What does it matter that the patent office issued it? They still have nothing. My guess is that these guys just copied it from public domain sources which were already in place. There is a good case for 'prior art' from the public domain!
We should focus on that. Getting 'prior art' status to all public domain areas, literature included! It's a good shield agains the hoarding tendancies...a derivative effect of wealth.
oh....my!
My proposed solution: every time an invalid software patent is allowed by our government, let's do a class action against the individual government employee(s) who approved it, on behalf of every person who uses computers and who will have to pay higher software prices to make up for legal fees of the companies unfairly targetted by the companies who receive the invalid patents. It shouldn't take long for the government employees to go bankrupt and figure out that next time they should do their job right. Of course we also need to do the same to every company that receives the invalid patents, so that they lose money by doing so. If we all signed up at maybe $1 a piece on each lawsuit, it would surely cover our end of legal fees. Oh, yeah... we need to figure out a way to do lawsuits against the lawyers representing firms who obtain false patents, so they go bankrupt spending all their time defending themselves. Ha.
(if you consider this to be flamebait, you are one of the guilty parties, and we will also find a way to sue you too!)
Isn't there some patent clause against those patents that would be obvious to somebody in the trade?
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
Actually, you can't use 127.0.0.1 any more. I just patented the idea of a loopback :)
Or Webwasher (if you use Windows).
...I think there may also be a ads2.doubleclick.net...
I want to file for a patent on patenting things that everyone already uses. Granted, there's a bit of trouble with prior art (ie, this entire the article in question), but that doesn't seem to matter anymore, does it?
So now I can sue anyone who attempts to get a patent on these kind of things.
Visit me on #weirdness on the Galaxynet.
Yes, it's a VERY bad thing. If it weren't for banner ads, then all the sites you go to with banners would either be nonexistent or would make you pay. And more people would look to spam for Internet advertising. That is NOT cool.
Banner ads suck, but they're a necessary evil. They are one of the few legitimate ways to advertise on the Internet.
Nope it says right in it that "you can already see in action on Slashdot...". This would mean that he already has the patch running on /. and that the banner ads you see right now and the way you see them will not change :). My question is why is he still using cgi... has he considered using Mason yet.
--MD--
--MD--
Your filter is missing some things for the NetGravity ads (the *.*/eveng.ng line).
You also need:
/image.ng
/js.ng
/html.ng
- An anonymous coward who administers a NetGravity installation.
Actually, officially patents on (mathematical) algorithms have never been allowed. However back in those days some clever patent attorneys had the idea of filing the patent for a mechanical implementation of the algorithm, which made them patentable. And of course every other implementation of the algorithm is covered by the same patent. Very screwy. If you look back at when patents were invented, they intended for there to be a restriction along the lines of "anything that could be used purely in the mind of human should not be patentable". This of course very specifically included mathematical algorithms, and to the best of my knowledge still does. However this doesn't consitute any protection against software patents any longer due to the many, many legal precedents. Which sucks.
Why dont you change the route to this ip addr?
If add the route via 127.0.0.1 then your machine will not know how to get there and reply quickly.
maybe...
By golly you're right .. I tried "ads.doubleclick.net" and when it failed I thought I was in the clear for *.doubleclick.net ..
yes, but they need to understand that if they rely on the courts for anything, it means many small companies and individuals have no rights, because patent litigation can be drawn out for years, and get very expensive.
"everyone has seen is the \"Got Milk?\" ads. What are they advertising?"
Advertising commodities. Large agribusiness consortia (-ums?) benefit from cooperative advertising. It works. It has measurable
impact on the bottom line of not just one but
many commodities producers.
The problem with any patent in the extremely volitile tech workplace is the amount of lawsuits relating to technologies that have been copied/developed at another company/imitated. By the time you get the lawsuit out the door, someone else's patent is out the door. When was this doubleclick one filed? It's more than half way through 1999! I remeber avoiding banner ads way before this! ;)
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
I am not a patent lawyer but I know ad agencies and banner advertising.
;), and to me the most "ethical" if such a word can be used in advertising, target by content of the site. With these agencies the idea is that the content will match the viewers. This can be true, most of the time. But I'm willing to bet that there are some people reading this or /. in general who are investment savy, or doctors, or even construction workers. If DC was handling the advertising for /. those people would be seeing different ads than the geeks, since it is likely that they (may) have been visiting a different variety of sites.
What DC has patented is their method of targeting, which is tracking where you are and what you view. Then when they have gathered information about your habits and what you like to view they tailor the ads to fit.
IMHO, of all the ad agencies on line, these guys are as close to the banner ad equivalent of "The Evil Empire". They track you, they watch you, and they sell that information to the highest bidder. In other words, if you don't cover your tracks, they OWN you.
Most of the others in this market (I will not give them free advertising
Even if I was an advertiser, that is f*cking evil, evil, and a little more evil. It is unethical, wrong, obnoxious, and is just as bad as all that government tracking and reading of email.
Personally I would love to see this backfire. What they are doing is saying they have patented spying on web surfers. Not only have they _admitted_ that they do it, they are now saying that they will charge others to do the same thing!
Eeeeevil.
What are the odds that this would get rid of most of the banner advertising on the web? I mean, would that be such a bad thing?
On the other hand, I'd hate to see Slashdot shut down because of loss of revenue. And I really hate bad patents.
Still....
--
QDMerge 0.21!
how to invest, a novice's guide
Nobody has mentioned this yet.
Though, whether or not you have seen any of doubleclicks stuff has no bearing on patent restirictions. The fact that remote ad servers are a simple application of standard engineering practices to an obvious problem *should* matter. How it will remains to be seen.
On that subject, there was a reference in the Wired article about 3d pie charts being patented. To my dismay, it's true: the claim is here.
Just how do you prove they werent using their strategy/code/etc? Change a few lines in it, add a few bytes here, voila.. New code. You're talking about copyright issues, while this is a patent issue. This is an entirely different thing. If they have a patent on it, then they can prevent anybody from doing the same, even if that other party does their own implementation, or even discovered the same thing independantly. (compare this to mp3-patents: you cannot sell an mp3 encoder without obtaining a license, even if you completely wrote it yourself)
...you can patent anything now, if you happen to get a not-so-bright patent official. Slashdot should patent online realtime news. Linus and the IPv6 kernel team should, well, patent IPv6. Who cares if this stuff is publicly owned and operated? Patent your right to intellectual property!
It all goes downhill from here, folks. Please leave your copyright at the door. Hey, leave your personal rights at the door, too.... we won't be neding them where we're going.
This whole thing really isn't good. Maybe our patent guidelines need to be reviewed.
Soon.
You'll eat it and you'll like it.
Exact details seem sketchy, though. Exactly how does its patented system of assembling information about user preferences work?
TweakDUN will work, but using a HOSTS or LMHOSTS file in Windows (98, I haven't tried it on NT yet) will not because of the resolution order.
Windows first checks the local WINS, then a DNS, and then hits your HOSTS file last.
You can't override names in Windows the way you can in unix
Sorry guys.
Doubleclick? Doubleclick? I'm trying to remember who they are. Lemme look in my hosts file... oh yeah. They're those guys at 127.0.0.1 whose banners never seem to load correctly. Oh well.
If this lowers the number of ads, I certainly don't mind.
Did I forget to mention that I patented the alphabet? You all owe me a lotta money...
---------------------------
"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
---------------------------
Heh, the leeches are fighting for a good spot on the body. Worst case scenerario, lawyers get money from leeching the leeches, and I only have one banner-ad company to maintain in my killfile. I doubt they will win though. Regardless of the turnout, chalk up another one for shameless greed and overall evil in the world.
Its grand that you don't look at the banners or you have a program that makes them not even come up... but when everyone starts doing that look out... we are heading back to the old days where most sites where account driven/pay :) Personally I said that cause I make a living off of creating sites that their only revenue is ads. I think its a great way to have a site. But beyond that I have also found a lot of kewl things though ads... not saying you should or should not look at them but you never know when your going to find something interesting. Usually ads are not there unless there is a good service or product cause they would not be able to pay for the ad space. Just my two cents.
--MD--
--MD--
I think this here is a strong case for web site owners to use software for serving ads that runs on their own web servers. This way, third parties aren't needed to track click-throughs and impressions. And a point of failure (manifesting itself as the third-party ad server) is removed.
I admit that I don't really understand the value of third-party ad servers, but I'm sure that this value can be achieved by other means, which probably involve the creation of standard protocols for repors and things like that.
--
--
This web site will cure all your ailments.
Don't television companies, or radio stations, have better (not that I agree!) claim over this than DoubleClick? :)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Back in the old days, the outer case of a dry cell was a cardboard tube wrapped around a zinc cup, and that zinc cup was the battery's sacrificial negative electrode. If you didn't throw out the battery before discharging it put the first hole in the zinc (i.e. while the flashlight still lit up just fine), the corrosive electrolyte paste would leak out and eat your flashlight.
Well Ray-O-Vac had a long-running R&D project to improve on that, and it had no luck. One day a member of the team came home in a blue funk and his wife (while cooking dinner) asked him what was wrong. He described the problem, and she says "Why don't you seal it in a steel can?"
Well, DUH!
So they tried it. And it worked. And Union Carbide (Everready), who had run similar but UNsuccessful long-term project, sued because it was "obvious".
So the judge asked the defense how long it had taken them to figure this out (I don't recall how many years). Then he asked the plaintif, and got a similar response. And he threw out the suit.
BUT...
The REAL issue is not whether it's obvious to a worker in the field, but whether the judge THINKS it is. So the game is to try to get it in front of the right judge. (For a long time patent challenges were always filed in the federal court district that tries its cases in Chicago, because there was this one judge who thought that EVERYTHING was obvious... B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Let's put it into calculation. Five people own a "company". This company, or these five people help eachother make money by contributing in various ways. Two persons write software code. One person handles the bills, and the remaining two sell the software. Who owns the software? Or should I say, who owns the fruit of the programmers minds? Before you go about answering this swiftly according to laws and all those legal matters, ponder it. I am sure it will amuse you as much as it does me.
I hope this spins off a good discussion.
Sincerely,
Alexander
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
I think I'll file a patent for "a process of filing patents."
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
There are a VERY few exceptions - such as for malicious violation of civil rights - but not for mere incompetence.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
To save without an extension in notepad use quotes:
save as
"c:\windows\hosts."
forces no extension... if you dont use quotes it will tack an etension on for you... or just use edlin....
Later
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
The application process for many Federal agencies includes a "public notice and comment" phase in which the applicant must describe what it is applying for in a publication and give interested parties the right to send comments to the Federal agency supporting or opposing the application. I believe that the patent applications have a similar phase. Does anyone know whether any of the free/open software organizations have put any effort into systematically trying to obtain notices of software patent applications and, if the applications seem invalid, filing comments to object to them -- for instance, by bringing to the attention of the Patent Office the existence of prior art in the area of the proposed patent?
Yes, they have no case; but this doesn't mean they can't enforce the
"patent".
All they have to do is find someone who is "infringing" their patent
and not paying the royalty, and then file a lawsuit. Instantly, their
competitor has a $40,000 legal bill, which get higher and higher the
longer the case goes on. It's not hard to imagine legal bills in the
six-figure range, which would cause serious grief to a small company.
Having the USPTO grant you a patent automatically makes you "in the
right" in the eyes of the court. You are defending your property
against those who have stolen from you.
It may be pretty easy to argue against this patent, but the sad fact
is that you have to pay to argue against it, and pay big.
$RANT_MODE=1;
How about just looking at the ads? It's cheaper than going out and buying software, and you are supporting Slashdot, which I think is very important.
My opinion is that if you don't want to look at the ads, don't waste Rob's CPU time and bandwidth. Keerist, do people think they're entitled to anything and everything without having to have ads on pages? Its either ads, subscription, or go out of buisness.
Just because you CAN get rid of ads, doesn't mean you should. I can't understand why people are so against keeping websites like Slashdot in business!
$RANT_MODE=0;
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
I needed to wrap text around figures, and the older latex package wasn't cutting it (losing the figures, but still giving them numbers).
So I set off to alta vista (still on it's DEC promo mission), and did a search for something like "latex and wrap"
It took me a while to figure out why I got inundated with porn . . . seems LaTeX is spelled with the same letters as that funny rubber. But why people would develop a sexual fetish for it . . .
Editing the hosts file works on Winblows 95, even through a proxy if you add the xxx.doubleclick.net to your hosts file, AND and add *.doubleclick.net to your proxy exception list in the prefs. BTW: Redirecting annoyances to localhost is a clever solution to a real annoyance. I wish I had though of it.
Don't get me wrong this IS interesting, but why is it moderated as such when the EXACT same comment 1 hour ago is ignored...SLASHDOT moderation SUCKS...I Speculate the moderator knows the commenter ?? someone let me know if I'm wrong... :)
Is there anyone out there besides me who realizes that a lot of the questionable patents could be weeded out if the patent office wasn't badly understaffed and undertrained and if they weren't under pressure by Congress to handle applications faster?
A little reality check here: the number of people working as patent clerks who have a strong background in high tech fields is probably very small. These people don't get paid the kind of money that can be made in the industry. And they're under a lot of pressure to get applications processed as soon as possible. How many of you would honestly be willing to take a job with the Patent Office? If it meant you could do something concrete to regulate what gets patented and what doesn't? Or what about lobbying to get more and better trained people working at the patent office and give them more time and resources to research patent applications? There's too much money invested in the system to expect it to just go away, but that doesn't mean the system can't be used properly.
Stop and think, How can they own you...Have you ever clicked on one of these banners... Have you ever actually purchased goods because of one of these banners. If not the you are winning, doubleclick is paying out for no return, just NEVER NEVER respond to a banner add and always shop at stores you choose...problem solved, Sites get money for displaying silly ads, and doublclick slowly goes bankrupt showing stoopid ads, who cares how targeted if you IGNORE THEM :)
they have a fond place in my IPCHAINS file: [...] ipchains -A input -i $EXTERNAL_INTERFACE -s 208.32.211.0/24 -j REJECT [...]
Someone needs to secure some very "general" patents & attempt to patent everything-maybe even the universe. Just to see how far the patent office will let you go. Patent's are more about creating monopolies than protecting the researcher currently. I read a few years ago that someone was trying to patent a half-man half-animal like creature to see how far the patent office would go. Wonder if they succeeded? This whole thing is kind of a dumb comment-but I have never really heard of any good coming from patents. It is always researcher y sold patent x to corporation z who owns 99% of the market in A now. I know corporations often fund the research, so is their any solution to the madness patents create? If some rights are not protected, then you have the following scenario. Researcher S spends 20yrs of their life developing invention M. Corporation N hires Operate K to break into the apartment/research facility where Researcher S's research/invention is stored. Corporation N then puts invention M into production & makes $400 billion dollars while researcher S is dirt poor & jumps off his apartment balcony. Not a pretty illustration.
Basically, this isn't all that surprising. And anyway, if the USPTO allows a patent, it can still always be thrown out in court. They don't really see themselves as a judiciary office. They're much more paperwork-oriented.
----
We all take pink lemonade for granted.
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
If you have to look at banner ads, wouldn't you rather see ads that you actually might be interested in? Ads are annoying, but if they were actually targetted to me, they might prove worthwhile occasionally. Of course, this ignores any privacy concerns regarding Doubleclick's user profiles.
cpeterso
Penumbra is to politics as digital is to computers as New World is to Cisco.
;-)
You just can't have a discussion on this topic without it, you see.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research(and Cisco
http://www.doxpara.com
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
I wish that I had on online source for this, but according to an IP/Patent attourney acquaintance of mine Microsoft was recently awarded a patent for a 'controlling an onscreen cursor with a handheld device' (aka the mouse).
Things are obtaining patents now, it's worse than I thought. It's a fairly old concept. Things also tend to band together in order to obtain patents and then use said patents to harrass the rest of the world in an attempt to garner money and power. Up here in Canada, we call them lawyers. c.
Log in or piss off.
But were those GIFs created with properly licensed software? :-)
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Anyone else appreciate the irony in storing the patents in GIF format?
Does the ISO scene count as prior-art here?
I'm glad to see the strategy of submitting patent applications for any and every obvious idea you can come up with occasionally pays off.
I should join the Patent Lottery and see if I can get a similar patent for something like making a Tom Collins, linked lists, or breathing.
On the other hand, maybe algore can get a patent for the Internet.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Ok, could someone with a modicum of USPTO understanding evaluate this thing and tell us if we're all leaping to conclusions or if this patent really is a broadly applicable as it seems?
I'm scared, but also suspicious....
It's worth a trip over to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office site (http://www.uspto.gov/), especially the page "General Information Concerning Patents," to see how they do things. It's clear they mainly concentrate on making sure that applications for patents are for gizmos that are patentable; they do a limited amount of checking to see that the thing isn't prior art and doesn't infringe prior patents. If sued by a patent holder, "the defendant may raise the question of the validity of the patent, which is then decided by the court." So if a patent is bogus, your remedy is to get sued and argue your case in court. That doesn't sound ideal, but for the Patent Office it's probably a real budget saver. How big a bureaucracy do you want there, and do you think a bigger one would really do the job better than the courts?
/sbin/ipchains -A output -p TCP -d 208.211.225.0/24 -j REJECT
enough said.
--
rm -rf ~/.signature
What are these 1x1 pixel GIFs used for? Ad tracking, I presume?
cpeterso
broad or narrow. For example, some companies build up big libraries of patents just to deter other companies from suing them. Just the threat of a retaliatory suit scares would-be plaintiffs away. This is one way that big companies protect themselves against the patent office's willingness to allow a patent on essentially anything.
The problem with that is that it turns the patent system into a sort of arms race, where small companies are at a huge disadvantage. The system is badly broken.
Hmm...I guess politics is out then. Well, I'm still left with literature and theology! -DY
Speaking of silly patents, does anybody remember IBM patenting processor Branch Prediction with part of the description saying "To choose one branch or another". =)
This type of procedure is similar to Congress passing laws. Some of their laws are overturned by Federal courts.
People here complain about some (all?) of patents that get awarded with respect to computer related technology. Much of the problem is that many of these issues are still unresolved because they are so new. What will eventually happen is that a few key test cases will be contested in Federal Court. The ultimate ruling (Supreme Court?) will then set the standard for later rulings.
See, what we are trying to do at ompages.com is to adjust networking services to according to the legal setting. The adjustment requires a cultural change. We really must take control over our networking services. There should be one networked server per household. Every business and banking transaction should be controlled by the individual's server (which is in his/her physical possession). Here, 'control' means physical control. How does this pertain to patents?
In the Open Source licensing arena, taking control over one's networking services is also taking control of the source code. Here 'control' means 'ownership.' Our theory is that it is not enough for the source code that runs the network to be open. The network links themselves should be as open as possible, and every part of putting a server on the internet should be open. It should not be costly or technically difficult to put a home server on the internet. From email servers to DNS to web servers, all these should facilitate the individuals presence on the internet. The presence should, in turn, represent ownership and control over one's communicated information. The model we live by now entrusts our communicated information to corporate entities that have interests adverse to our own. Namely, we as individuals have an interest in ownership and control over our communicated information and so do the corporations. Just like it is not possible for two people to have an identical ownership interest in a plot of land, it is not possible for two legal persons to have an identical interest in communicated information (unless there is some kind of agreement between the parties). Now, the agreements exist, but the alternative not to agree prevents one from using internet services.
The patent issue is part and parcel of this arrangement. The industry trend is for corporations to have greater and greater control over all aspects of communicated information (i.e., from the idea to the source code to the network services). The Open Source, FSF, etc. movement is helping take back the source code. But this is not enough to achieve freedom on the internet.
What patents do is they allow a legal person (corporations included) to own a monopoly over an idea or a process. The internet is one big mix of processes! Any one of these processes could potentially be patented! There are three ways to curtail the patent intrusions. 1) Abolish patents (completely and utterly unfeasible); 2) Adjust the statutes/case law to exclude software patents from the patentability of 'processes' (feasible but will take a long, long... time); 3) Hackers (and hacker organizations) should rush to the patent office and self-patent everything they do and release the patent under a DFSG-free license (this is the best solution because it keeps the process in the public domain without the risk of corporate opportunism, but it entails organization of efforts to fund the filing fees. Since filing fees are very high by most standards, the organization that facilitates the filings should combine process patents to include as many processes as possible in a single filing).
What licenses like the GPL do is they take legal monopolies (i.e., copyright, patent and trademark) and turn them on their heads. In effect, they say "I own a monopoly on this thing. Because I own this monopoly, I can do anything I choose with it. I choose to let anyone use thing in anyway they want as long as they show everybody." So far, this licensing scheme has only had effect on copyrights. Copyrights are different from patents because the come into existence the moment the author writes down the content (fixes it in a tangible medium of expression), and filing with the Copyright Office is optional. On the other hand, patents only come into existence when a 'claim' is filed, reviewed, and a patent is issued. Trademarks come into existence in sort of a hybrid of the ways patents and copyrights do. The point is that licenses of patented software processes *could* operate just like they do with copyrights on source code, but there are added legal and monetary hurdles to overcome (i.e., filings, and paying fees). Through organization, these hurdles can be assailed.
I some others work daily on ompages.com to achieve the lofty and difficult goals of obtaining and maintaining individual freedoms on the internet. We are not a public interest group. We are working on software and network infrastructure. Anyone can participate. We are not a commercial group. We seek to allow individuals greater control over *all* communications, including commercial communications. I think it's time for us to work on organizing ourselves to take control of patentable processes. I will post a proposal to be announced.
Pardon me if you feel this is an inappropriate forum to advertise a website. I don't see it that way. No, not at all. The way I see it (and many others as well) is that ompages.com is simply a model. We are modeling how a secure, freedom enhancing network should work. Freedom necessarily involves legal BS which is why a professional legal BS'er (in training) has been contributing to this website. We need hackers, web and graphic designers, network administrators, and even barbers, truckers and gardeners to get involved and stay involved. What's exciting about this project is that it is realistic and feasible. Sign up on mailing lists at and participate and you will learn about software packages that will allow you to put your server on the internet (like dhis.org), but with added legal protections coming soon. Basically we have been about a publically accessible secure wide area network (or VPN). Now I think we will also be about patenting every possible networkable process and freeing up the patent with a DFSG/free license. We are looking at the big picture here, and patents are part of it. Once you all apprehend and contemplate what we are trying to do here you will see that it is an extension of the Free Software/Open Source movement. The underlying issue that binds us is freedom. In our project, we are merely trying to adjust the movement to include networking services in an international legal setting. It is no easy task, but neither was the Linux kernel. I truly believe that if the efforts of ompages.com (or similar projects) do not receive widespread development we will have all this nice, freely available software but nothing legal to do with it, except sign an agreement with Corporation X for it to control our lives for a fee (oversimplification intended). I can't predict the future, but I can see a problematic trend. So, there really is no drawback to these efforts.
Actually, Windows has a 'hosts' file. C:\WINDOWS\hosts. At least I think it does. If it doesn't I'm kind of concerned about how the Windows machine I was gatewaying for this summer was finding my hostname..gremlins perhaps.. :-)
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Altavista has been doing that long before they started using Doubleclick. In 1995, I remember seeing a banner on Altavista for Nortel that mentioned Clemson Univ. and the date they would be interviewing on campus. I clicked on it, and had them send a friend some information. He now works for them at RTP. The ad worked perfectly, because it was aimed so preciesely. They got an Engineering graduate who was desperate for a job and could start almost immediately. The precision of the ad was amazing. *.eng.clemson.edu would elict one of three banner ads, and *.math.clemson.edu triggered a different set. Later that night, the thought that someone knew where I was, my major, and targeted a special ad to me, gave me the chills. The next week, I re-read 1984 in an attempt to guess what trend in Internet advertising we would see next. At the time, I thought that by the year 2K, no one would be safe from this much more effective advertising. I didn't think even I, a frugal consumer, could resist an onslaught of advertisements aimed so precisely. My prediction was that the economy would be in trouble by Y2K from the weight of money owed by 15-34 year-olds to pay for useless trinkets bought impulsively. Hasn't happened yet, but maybe in another 10 years. I wonder ... online auctions (eBay addictions?) might be more of a problem than these more effective ads?
Someone. Someone with SENSE. Invade this damn country and slaughter all these idiots! They'll shut me down as "another Dave Khoresh" before I get big enough to be a threat, if I try to do it myself.
I'm a sane man in an insane world.
I'm a sane man in an insane world.
I'm a sane man in an insane world.
I'm a sane man in an insane world.
Ah screw it. Insanity's more fun anyhow (pulls out his M60 with optional bayonet-mounted chainsaw and gets bloody).
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
People seem to overestimate the value of banner ads. Slashdot seemed to do just fine without 'em in its early days. So did the rest of the net. Banner ads generate bonus dollars, not web site sustaining dollars. Any site surviving solely because of advertising should be killed immediately and put out of its misery.
I think i'm allowed to post this... If not then... hmm... i'm sure someone will email me. =)
No, there is no requirement to put a "patent pending" notice. Supposedly it means "hey, we've filed a patent but we want to start selling this thing now, so don't bother trying to patent it yourself first." Maybe manufacturers get some satisfaction from putting it on, but it's just about completely meaningless.
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Slashdot now has those integral form banners now. Whoa.
cache busting
Well it's logical that only one would get a patent, since the USPTO patents are only valid in the US (thank god for that one) and the US is part of only one continent.
But critics aside. I am very thankful I live in Europe where software patents do not exist - yet.
But seeing how soon software patents will be annulled in the US (nobody can even remotely believe this patenting game will go on for more than 5 years), I seriously doubt software patents (or method patents, as the USPTO likes to call them) will ever happen in Europe, or for that matter, anywhere outside the US.
If because of some twisted play of faith however, the patent game is continued, then I think Europe will be becoming groudn zero of a LOT of software companies. It will be cheaper to place your developers in a non-software patent country, than to defend against every possible patent anyone could think of.
All in all, I think court decisions are more dangerous to society in general, since their relevance tends to grow beyond boundaries, unlike patents.
i was trying to find a tour schedule for one of my recent discoveries, an amazing band called "Blonde Redhead". imagine the kinds of crap AltaVista gave me... i never did find any mention of the band.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
What was completely revolutionary and on the fringe of computing 5 years ago is commonplace today. It may have been a reasonable sounding idea to patent windows 10 years ago, or to patent 3D shooters 7 years ago. Heck even the idea of transmiting graphics over a phone line had patent attempts. But now all of these technologies have permeated through the industry down to the level where hobbyists can develop clunky versions of any of them.
/.ers think?
What are the ramifications? Well, I think it is pretty widely accepted that patents can, and should be only for a limited time. That way the inventor gets a benifit from pioneering a field, but then the rest of the world can still reap the benifits too(eventually). So, then maybe patents aren't the problem for computing, but their speed is! In fact this double click patent may have been obsolete before it was even granted! What we need for IT patents is very fast processing, and a very short lifetime. I'm thinking maybe two years would be reasonable.
So, what do all or you
I'm a gnu world man.
Yes, when I was in Idaho, but one thing everyone has seen is the "Got Milk?" ads. What are they advertising? Milk. Is it genuinely useful? Well, cows dig it, so do babies, I like a glass now an again.
Sorta blows your argument straight to hell, huh?
Advertising sucks. But it's just another way to pay for a service. However, we internet denizens (yep, I live in the 'net. Well.. In an apartment next door, at least) have a bit more power than your average TV consumer. The web is not like TV, it is interactive, and we choose what we wish to see. There is no way to force an ad onto someone's screen if they have the knowledge and ability to keep you from doing it.
I use the Internet Junkbuster. I add domains to it fairly often. I had to add Slashdot's ad server (Adfu) the other day because it served me an ad that was so annoying that I couldn't take it anymore. Sorry Rob, I know it sucks, but I won't abide crap like that on my screen. Be more discriminating with your ads. A simple banner ad is fine, even with animation. But a banner ad does not need:
frames
form elements
layers
javascript
java applets (saw one recently that let you play pong with the mouse, in the background of the ad. Fun, yet annoying)
active x
any form of scripting for that matter (vb anyone?)
or any damn thing else other than a pic and a link. This one had four of the above. Look hard Rob, you'll find it.
But especially, ads do not need cookies.
If an ad server serves me cookies, and I notice it, WHAM, it goes in my cookie blockfile (yes, I know the cookie blockfile is reversed to allow cookies through, but I reworked it a bit).
In other words, don't take any shit from ad companies..
Wow, that's pretty rambling... Guess I'm done now.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
adzapper is a little program that prevents ads from being loaded-- it turns them into transparent (or solid colored) GIFs. it's similar to Internet Junkbuster...
http://www.pobox.com/~adamf/adzapper/
As far as I know the ad servers work when someone "clicks through" an ad, not when someone loads the image. On general principle I refuse to click through any ads on any site. So I'm just helping save bandwith by not loading any ads.
When you watch a TV show you really like, do you make sure to watch all the ads too? Do you make sure to buy all the products advertised?
Some may say I'm getting a free ride on Slashdot, and maybe that's true. I like to think I contribute by moderating, posting on-topic and informative material, and generally being a good user.
If the Slashdot powers that be disagree, they can feel free to block my access or ensure that I generate money for them in order to access the site. But I think that goes against the general idea of the values that Slashdot tends to represent.
How many hours of Quake2 did I play before I arrived at this soloution?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Let's kill off this crap, once and for all. Boycott any/all sponsors utilizing Doubleclick. Enough said.
Maybe Link Exchange was, but I definitely know
that Commonwealth (something that riddler.com
started) was around in 1995/1996, as I used it
for a brief time on my own pages. (I refuse
to do ads myself anymore unless I control
how they are displayed).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
"The old days" are when every web site was account driven/paid? You must be Merlin, living in reverse of me.
Fuck Slashdot
..cuz i'm sick of getting so much!! :-(
You know, I know I know this, but where is this from?
What would Brian Boytanno do??? He would write up a patent or two, that's what Brian Boytanno would do!!
Thanks
AC
On the subject of bogus patents, does anyone know what's happened with the patent on Style Sheets that Microsoft successfully recieved?
I can understand why they are doing it too. That does not mean that I condone it. That would be like saying, "I can understand X's reasoning behind murdering Y, so I forgive X completely, no charges". It just shouldn't work that way. It's unethical to patent something obvious. The fact that they did so to grant themselves a monopoly does not improve their standing in my eyes one bit.
As for Beanie Babies, it's not as if they were the first bean bag animals around. I remember bean bag snakes and lizards from years before I ever heard of Beanie Babies. True, they had a lot of imitators trying to cash in on the phenomenon, but some of those Mom & Pop shops had been selling similar toys before the craze. Even if Beanie Babies really were the first ever bean bag animals, they certainly wouldn't be worthy of a patent anyway. Simply changing the material used to stuff stuffed toys should not be considered unique enough. Maybe if they came up with a really unique way of making the toys, then the process could be patented, but that's it.
It's the same way with banner ad patents. Now, I'm guilty of not having read the article very well, and I certainly haven't read the patent, so I'm not very qualified to comment on it, but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone else... The article says that the patent is described as: "Method of Delivery, Targeting, and Measuring Advertising Over Network". I can't really tell from that whether that encompasses banner ads in general, or if they're defining a very narrow system. In any case, banner adds have been around for longer than this patent. Methods of targetting advertising have been around forever, and applying them to a slightly different medium should not be patentable. As for measurement, gathering statistics about where and when, etc. banner ads were delivered by the server is hardly novel and original.
So, anyway, regardless of their motivations, their actions appear to be unjustifiable (unless the scope of the patent really is much narrower than the story leads us to believe.
The biggest problem (or benefit if you are the advertizer) is that these ads are the perfect combination of television ads (push technology - you can't refuse the ads *AND* they're animated!), and individualized marketing. And in neither case, unless you really know what you are doing, can you *AVOID* either. I'm surprised with all the privacy concerns of late, that no one has flamed off at double click for collecting user profiles, and you cannot disable that unless you set up the appropriate proxy or host redirect as mentioned elsewhere in this thread.
Furthermore, the ad designers are getting trickier in their techniques - Java, ActiveX scripts, FORMs, Javascript -- you name it, I've seen it. Not only do these slow loading of pages, but all you need is a script kiddie getting into the ad server, and *BAM*, the ad distributor has suddenly allowed that kiddie to access a large number of user's computers. And this can be done unobtrusively -- wedge the code in tight enough, and no one will notice till it's too late.
What can be done about ads? It's a necessary evil for many of the non-corporation, non-profit sites to run with good bandwidth, but it will get out of hand shortly. I've got my own suggestions:
If there was an ad company that did any of these things, and did not to targeted advertizing beyond what I specify for my site (For example, my MST3K page, I would allow movie ads, sci-fi related ads, etc, and nothing else), I may consider banner ads again. But until they become less of a bear, I refuse to use them, and hope that this 'patent' will force others away from them, just as the Unisys LZW patent has done for GIFs. It can only make the web a better place.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Uhm.
Click on the monkey and win!?? I went out and got Internet Junkbuster after seeing YAABA (yet another annoying animated banner ad) last week. It's been browsing bliss for me and my roommates since then. I HATED that freaking stupid monkey...
Leave the advertising to those who don't know any better. There are now and will be for a good while many of those people, and when the banner ad scheme finally does implode, I'm sure there'll be something to replace it. Hopefully there will be something to counteract it, as well.
--
A host is a host from coast to coast...
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
The Spirit of Christmas
This article was in the LA Times today. Apparently some company has "patented" the idea of renting and selling movies over the internet. Mainly talks about the big boys, Disney, WB et al and the potential problems they face but it seems as though just about anything is patentable these days. Now if only I had patented the idea of selling naked pictures of "teens" I'd be "almost" as rich as BG.
I don't block the servers using a host file, even though I do have TweakDUN, because then the sites I visit don't get the revenue from the impression at all. I mean, if everybody set the ad servers to 127.0.0.1, all the sites that rely on ad revenue, and that's most of the good ones, would probably go under, and I don't want that to happen.
Ok, something to know and understand here is that the USPTO has taken a lot of crap over the last 30 years. Repeatedly the courts have blasted and reversed decisions by the USPTO office. I personally know of two a case where patents were denied, the USPTO was taken to court, and the plaintiff won. Not only did the take up USPTO time, but it also whittled away at the authority the office holds.
In addition to the effect that the courts have had on the system, the number of patents has been growing at an incredible rate. I mean you have to realize something, prior to computers and programming it was a big hassle to develop something new, build it and then prove it worked. Now days you can write a few lines of code, do something new and different, and then file. This means the USPTO has seen the same increase in users and fillings that the NYSE has seen. Computers have brought the actions and powers previously open only to the few to the masses.
The USPTO used to require that if something new was "devised" you either had to build it and prove that it worked. Or, develop detailed drawings and have engineers and others review them for "accuracy and operability". Now days it is hard to find and hire enough well trained programmers who are willing to spend their time just reviewing code.
So what does this mean? Well, quite simply the USPTO is tired of being reversed it court and flooded with administrative issues in the middle of the largest increase in fillings in history. So, they have turned the power to review patents over to the courts to decide. The USPTO rarely even checks patents to see if they are repeats or overlap others. This is the responsibility of the filler- and if he/she screws it up, then they have to pay up (in court). While the USPTO has removed most all of this administrative review functions- they have passed them along to the courts. So, if you file for something that already exist, it may be "covered", but you will be required to defend it in court.
Now, true some reviewers of patents simply refuse the ridiculous and ludicrous- especially in the trademark office. However, if the item is technical in any way they just let the individuals (or corporations) battle it out in court.
So, the real issue here is not that Doubleclick got a patent(s) for their design(s)- but whether or not they can hold on to and defend the patent(s). Most likely they will lose- not only do you have to be first, but you also have to prove that it is not "similar" to an existing media advertising form. That could be very difficult to prove- and thus the Doubleclick thing seems silly.
IMHO someone at Doubleclick said- "lets give this a try, if nothing else we get a lot of good frontage coverage (read advertising) on the web and in print. More than likely this thing will be challenged in court, by one of the heavy weights. Doubleclick will fail in its defense (if there is even one) and things will be back to 'normal'.
Just my 1½ cents
I've replied earlier, and have re-read what you have posted. You (at this moment) have a high score. This to me illustrates some of problems with the moderation as you present no real arguments but resort to long words. This then tells me that the average /. moderator has a limited vocabulary. Additionally, you present the USPTO as some idealitic world far removed from any contraints.
I have already responded to your incorrect argument about the USPTO and their authority.
What things can obtain a patent? How about traditional business models that have been extended to the computer industry? Have you looked at any patent applications? Hint: The patent applications have many references to prior patents. The new patent is simply an extension of prior work. However, many ppl here don't understand the limitations and potential of this.
Patents are usually very specific in terms of thier applicability. What some ppl hope to benefit from patents is by obtaining one that is vague and all incompassing. This one is close, maybe. I say this because IANAL.
I know that this is unpopular with the normal /. crowd. I also know that patents and IP are not popular subjects. But, consider this. I have a great new concept for the internet. MS then figures that they also want this.
My good idea is gone. MS now has extended and embraced my idea.
I don't care. I don't see ads anyhow :)
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Basically it comes down to capitolism. They make XXX amount of money from the people that pay to advertise. THat was all fine and dandy a year ago when there were only a few places out. Now, it seems, EVERYONE is trying to do these banner ads, so they feel threatened by it and attempt to stop this all with a patent. Granted, Im sure it will be re-examined and thrown out, but you do have to look at it from their view. Also, like someone else said, this may lead to a decrease in banner ads on the net. Its possible, though unlikely. Just how do you prove they werent using their strategy/code/etc? Change a few lines in it, add a few bytes here, voila.. New code. Companies do this type of stuff all the time. Beanie babies became HUGEEEEEEEEE, what happened? All of a suddent these little mom&pop shops began making similar products and selling them too. So, while possible, its unlikely that any of this will lead to less ads on the net. Face it, the power of the almighty buck follows the masses, and right now the masses are following the net. Does this make any sense to anyone? I need sleep. Nite. Judg3
*******
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
My little rant page on this topic: Block that Ad!
My suspicion is that they're not trying to patent the concept of a banner ad, but rather the nefarious method they use to deliver them.
They distribute ads to hundreds of sites, and they set a persisent browser cookie, thus (sort of) bypassing the fact that cookies can only be returned to the server that issued them.
Since the cgi that delivers the image and sets the cookie is on a doubleclick server, they can track someone through any or all of the client sites. That's how they develop "user profiles". Their cookie mechanism is pretty much the equivalent of a browser history file. It's just a history file that only includes sites that use the doubleclick system.
You wanna know what burns my booty about so many of these patents? The things that people get away with calling 'technology' are just the same crap we learned how to do in any basic programming class.
;)
For instance, these kids are going on about how their 'technology' 'targets' ads to certain sites based on who views what, blah blah blah. As tho databases and simple statistical analysis were something that no one had ever heard of..
I vote that no new patents be issued unless someone writes a whole new method of doing every single part of whatever it is they're doing, AND that new method is 34% faster on comparable hardware.
Or, of course, unless they write it as an apache module.. yum.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
The Junkbusters proxy can block or even fake up cookies for you. C code, U build it, for Un*x or W*****s.
Now if Doubleclick would just launch a massive lawsuit campaign to stop everyone using banner ads, the Web might become a lot easier to read...
Ideology is for ideots.
Geocities pages will become a lot less annoying very quickly.
Oh, I enjoy this.
Once Upon A Life, I used to debate competitively. A common procedure was to take some argument of the opponent and extend it to its "natural conclusion". Often these conclusions would be quite silly, and would be degraded as an example of Reducio Ad Absurdium(Reduction To The Absurd).
Saying that free software means that all programmers will starve to death would be a good example.
Saying that these programmers, in their hunger, will trigger a nuclear war that will destroy the earth is a realistic, debate world example. (I sh*t you not.)
Relevance, you ask? The absurd reduction of the concept that the patent office has the power to expand its own domain is that it will eventually allow ownership over the, well, patently obvious. An abusive debater would argue that government never, ever chooses to decrease its power, only to increase it(thus the use of counterbalanced powers--this way, one branch of government steals from another, and not from the overall pool of freedom), so the patent office would only limit its power grabbing up to the point where the courts would stop it.
Now, watch this. Since the patent office is the legal mediator between the "inventor" and the "infringer", it is ostensibly the objective expert in the matter of what makes a fair patent.
Courts defer to the experts. That the patent office possesses an extreme conflict of interest--it becomes more powerful(and rich) based on how much falls under its penumbra--is completely ignored.
So, given all that, the abusive debater would reduce the patent office into an agency that would apply patents to as much as it could possibly get away with, which would grow larger and larger with the passage of time, the deference of courts, and the greed of claimants.
Only what's funny is, as silly as this conclusion should be, we truly *are* seeing Reducio Ad Absurdium patents in widespread use. The concept of slapping a graphical advertisement on a virtual "page", just like one does with *gasp* real pages--this is not particularly inventive.
Neither, incidentally, is the exploitation of the most obvious security hole in cookie design. Nor, for that matter, naming your own price for a product and hoping somebody accepts it. (Ever been to a flea market?)
The general theme seems to be, if it's something common put online, it's automatically new and patentable. Not only is this an absurd conclusion, it's *debate* level absurd.
That basically means, from a philosophical point of view, one is ignoring every single piece of contravening reality to come to some conclusion that you desired in the first place. Amazingly, this pretty much describes what the patent office is doing.
But there's some beauty in all of this--remember when I was talking about counterbalanced powers? One agency of government has built up a pretty decent power base through its greed, but its completely unsecured. There's no "legitimacy value" to this power, so the potential exists to a) extract large amounts of campaign funding and b) get prestige and national name recognition(Americans love seeing corruption exposed, much like they like moving flower pots and seeing the insects writhe in the sunlight.) by going after the patent office.
In other words, greed will counter greed.
The more ridiculous the patents get, the more exposed businesses small and large become. The more exposed, the more willing to support a "champion" to defend their rights.
The Patent Agency is contributing to its own emasculation. This latest patent is just more of the same.
Run Lemming Run!
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
Targeting only becomes evil when it becomes possible to connect my name and address with all the invasive things they may know about me. Browsers need a better notion of user identity, so I can browse geeky stuff, kinky stuff, and each site I actually order stuff from (and have to give my Real Name to) using a different set of cookies.
I personally dislike seeing banner ads on web pages, but at the same time I realize they are needed by sites like Slashdot to generate enough revenue provide services for free. I currently use squid and a redirector called squidGuard to block banner adds. I only block them because the annoy me on web pages, not because I care about bandwith. I came up with a very interesting idea the other day that might solve the problem. (maybe I should patent it) /dev/null. This could be done at an offpeak time, when you're not using the net (if you care about bandwith). This could even be extended by simulating clicks (randomly) on the links, but this would probably get pretty complex.
What I would like to do is have my redirector (whatever it may be) cache up urls that have been blocked. Then with a cron job or in a seperate thread of the redirector, fetch the Urls and drop their content in
This way everyone can get along. You don't have to see nasty adds while browsing and places like Slashdot can still make money.
Just a thought...
Actually, I think banner ad arrangements often pay for both "views" and "click-throughs."
In this case you would probably be eliminating any revenue for views by not having the image served up in the first place, although the amount per view would generally be very, very low.
Plus, I don't know about the exact arrangment that Slashdot has, so they may in fact not be hurt at all by filtering ad images.
WRT posting comments, this ads "value" to the site only in the sense that it draws more users, who then see ads, click on ads, buy stuff, etc. You could have the entire world population reading Slashdot for the super-informative posts, but all that Andover would get out of it would be a really big bandwidth bill and invoices for lots of big servers. Unless of course they start charging for subscriptions or selling user statistics.
I've finished reading the doubleclick patent and I must confess that I'm a little ignorent as to how this ad thing really works. Doubleclick's patent seems to be for targeted advertisements. Somehow I doubt that slashdot advertisements are targeted towards individual accounts (a component of the doubleclick patent, but I'm sure that Andover.Net keeps track of how much "screen time" a company has bought. (also a component of this patent.) Any patent lawyers want to take a crack at this?
While I myself have never filed a patent, I do know some people well who are extremely familiar with it (as engineers and entreprenuers). According to them, getting the patent through the patent office is easy, and has always been. Making it stand up in court is a different issue.
This is not to say that there isn't any room for improvement. Or even that USPTO reviewers aren't really qualified to review many applications. But rather, the patent system has served us pretty well despite its flaws. The flawed system is certainly better than no patent system at all. Of this I am absolutely convinced.
That being said, however. The nature of patent fillings, the number of, the type of individuals/corporations filing for patents is changing rapidly. It is not so much that the patent office is changing, as it is that the internet (and a couple other choice industries) are creating new patent 'markets', if you will. The percieved barriers to entry are lower, and thus more people who are inexperienced with the patent office are bumping against it. These internet patents might prove to be a stumbling block for those providing certain services or developing internet content. As the internet tends require less capital to make a presence than previous ventures did. These individuals who don't even have the status of a startup company, may find it difficult to defend against a frivolous law suit. Likewise, individuals are also finding more things they can patent as the internet 'innovation' is more tangible for the average user, than say a patent on some complex piece of engineering. The combination of unsophisticated users on both ends is creating this friction.
I do think that most of these 'internet patents' are silly, as there was no investment, no risk, no real skill involved in bringing these 'innovations' into fruition (if they even indeed brought them about). However, I don't think the internet is as big of a thing as people make it out to be. It's still but a small sliver of our GNP. Nor are these issues as traumatic or earth shattering as many on
I don't have to look out, but you do, because you will be out of a job then. More and more people are ignoring or filtering out ads, click-through rates are going down fast. How sweet it is! Even better that even TV ad filtering is now possible with Tivo.
Personally I said that cause I make a living off of creating sites that their only revenue is ads. I think its a great way to have a site.
Sure, put on your site whatever you want, but never EVER presume that you can use my modem connection and display stuff on my computer screen that I don't approve of. I'm in control of my hardware.
Usually ads are not there unless there is a good service or product cause they would not be able to pay for the ad space.
Funny, my position is just the opposite: if it needs advertising, it must be some crap that nobody wants nor needs. Everything that is genuinely useful doesn't need advertising; people will search for and find it themselves. Ever seen an ad for potatos?
--
as you present no real arguments but resort to long words
And you do no better, except for the long words part. (Here I make the same mistake that you do, initiating my argument with an attack).
have already responded to your incorrect argument about the USPTO and their authority.
Yes I read your other post, and yes the Federal Courts do hear patent cases. This refutes the main thrust of the argument pertaining to a power grab by the USPTO, but it does not absolve the patent office from fufilling it's duty to make sure that the patents it grants are not obvious.
I had the most problem with the next paragraph.
What things can obtain a patent?
Things are obtaining patents now, it's worse than I thought.
How about traditional business models that have been extended to the computer industry?
How about them? I would think that most people would characterize such an extension as obvious and hence not patentable. Business models as a whole are only recently patentable. As you point out this is a court decision, not a patent office one, but it is a bad decision in any case.
Have you looked at any patent applications? Hint: The patent applications have many references to prior patents. The new patent is simply an extension of prior work.
The tone here is a little combative for my taste, but the point is clear enough. New patents tend to extend old patents and are seldom revolutionary. While this is true, the change should be novel and not obvious to a skilled practitioner of the art in question. It should never be enough to simply extend an old patent with no ingenuity.
Patents are usually very specific in terms of thier applicability. What some ppl hope to benefit from patents is by obtaining one that is vague and all incompassing.
An additional point that you might have made, but didn't, is that the claims on a patent always begin with absurd generality in the expectation that only the most specift claims will be accepted. Such a point, had it been made would have explained the apparent contradiction.
But, consider this. I have a great new
concept for the internet. MS then figures that they also want this.
My good idea is gone. MS now has extended and embraced my idea.
Ok, you have just made the point that patents are good for the holder of the patent. This is clearly true, otherwise there are millions of masochists and corporations that love losing money out there filing for patents left and right.
The issue is not what is good for the patent holder, or rather it is a means to an end. The issue is using law to maximize the societal benefits of innovation. Patents are a legal monopoly granted by the government in order to incentivize the production and publication of new ideas and technologies. They are not a right of the inventor. The only right the inventor has, under any reasonable conception of natural law, is to not have his actual property stolen, and to have his agreements with other parties adhered to. Patents allow the inventor to sell his product without worrying about enforcing individual non-disclosure agreements with each party. In this way they add to the efficiency and profitablity of invention and production.
The balance that must be struck is the encumberance that patents place on other inventors, every bit as inventive and productive as the first, who invent the same or similar technology or who wish to encorporate such a technology in their work, which in it's own right is beneficial to society. In the extreme patents might slow innovation to a halt as patent holders have no incentive to allow the transition to a better technology. While this is not the case, it is more of a threat the faster technology progresses. In the internet arena, patents should, at the very least, be drastically shorter than they are in the automotive hardware arena.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Ever seen an ad for potatos?
Ummm...yes... I go to college in eastern North Dakota, potato central next to Idaho. We have ads for potatoes.
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
imgis.com
doubleclick.net
preferences.com
linkexchange.com
flycast.com
valueclick.com
burstnet.com
nsads.hotwired.com
ads.msn.com
247media.com
imaginemedia.com
focalink.com
gravbots.com
diradserver.developer.com
ngadcenter.net
hitbox.com
ad*.zdnet.com
*.*/event.ng
click.go2net.com
adfu.blockstackers.com
ad.virtualave.com
members.tripod.com/adm/popup/
link4link.com
adlink.de
newads.cmpnet.com
ads.lycos.com
ads.x10.com
adimages.earthweb.com
ngserve.pcworld.com
startpath.com
ads.freshmeat.net
link4ads.com
geocities.com/toto
a32.g.a.yimg.com
gp.deja.com
/*.*/Ads
/*.*/ads
/*.*/adverts
/*.*/advertising
(Sorry about the adfu stuff there guys, but I Really Hate that banner ad crap...)
FWIW - this blockfile gets probably around 99.99% of all the banner ads I've encountered on the 'net.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Top 10 reasons Rob's system of moderated posts would pass muster with the patent office:
10: There's not a chance anyone in the USPTO would understand it.
9: For that matter we don't understand it either, but it's sure as hell original.
OK, slashdoters, help me out with numbers 8 through 1. I'm dry.
-DY
Just wait till someone patents first posts. :) Considering existent patent laws, I would say that's not a very far fetched idea.
I might as well try to file for a patent on sub routines like binary searches, heaps, binary trees.
Who knows I might get lucky.
Anyway this is another fine example of non-tech micro managers (patent morons) who can't boot their machines, making life harder for all programmers.
Frank Madison
For Unix Based Hosting Visit
http://www.innovativecreations.com
I do, from time to time.
...
I like the idea that this causes them to track various 'ghosts'
When will Netscape give an option to automatically refuse cookies from specified servers?
I know that there are many sites out there cataloging bizarre inventions...
But recent developments, patents like this one and other similar ones we've all read about lately make me wonder...
Is anyone out there cataloging the truly stupid or genuinely obvious "intellectual property" patents that has been granted, either recently, or over the span of time?
It was filed back in "Oct.29,1996" according to the IBM patent database. http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05948061__ You can also nominate it for the dumb/obscure patents gallery http://www.patents.ibm.com/vote/report?pn=US059480 61__
Start filing prior-art lawsuits on these things as soon as they go out the door (I'm sure Prodigy or AOL was doing exactly the shit they describe back in 1990.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I bet they could get it...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'd like to patent my idea of filtering all traffic to & from doubleclick.net. Cuz noone has done that before, either.
Use either lynx or Internet Junkbuster and you will never see another evil (patented or otherwise) banner ad again! BTW, I invented AND patented dirt, grass, and cheese. Pay up, folks! :) --Ben
--Ben
It seems that this kind of patent is just creating hassles. The only use for it is for Doubleclick to sue some other ad company for infringment. That's going to cost lots of money on both sides (and cost the government money in the process) and there is a high probablility that the patent will just get struck down anyway. There needs to be some kind of stricter patenting process that weeds out overbroad patents like this.
One of the problems with the wide use of computers and the internet, is that new things are being done everywhere, and in lots of different ways. Some one on another continent could be trying to solve the same problem as you, at the same time, and it seems a shame that only one would get a patent on it. (reminds me of Newton and Lebnitz[sp?])
1. Think of what is Right and True -- Miyamoto Musashi
demiurgeWasn't Link Exchange around before?
They both can bite my firewall.
If you see a remotely interesting ad on a site that you like, don't you usually click the ad to support the site? Banner ads like Eads banners aren't intrusive if they actually fit the site's content. I agree with the poster who said that they would just start spamming a hell of a lot more and would turn to e-commerce. How would you like it if /. had to start charging small monthly subscription fees to be able to pay for the bandwidth? Just my $.02
the power is on your hands, the *client*'s hands. you get to make the decision. support /. and don't block adfu; don't support doubleclick and block them. and so on and so on.
Interesting response. Entirely outside of what I expected.
/. moderator has a limited vocabulary.
/. moderator would mark this post as flamebait if I didn't limit my vocabulary.
For instance, you claim the following:
"you present the USPTO as some idealitic world far removed from any contraints."
Far from it. Rereading my post, I find that the federal courts are predisposed to favor the opinion of the official government body for determining patent fairness, the USPTO, when judging a patent infringement lawsuit. Such is the nature of the courts--stick to precendent, stay consistent, defer to experts.
My point was that the patent office is not an impartial judge of proper patentry, and as a method of power aggrandization will eventually attempt to usurp more and more power over obvious monopolies.
Again, I fail to understand how you could possibly claim that I believe the patent office exists without constraints; rather, I think that the primary constraints against it aren't truly counterbalancing, due to the expert deferrance. I also think new constraints will form as more and more money gets extorted from large companies.
While the ability to utilize patent extortion is a powerful source of leverage for many large corporations, the exposure possible from being extorted is so vast that we will see significant reforms on this front, if only because it will be cheaper to pay to get the law changed than to deal with the continual flow of frivolous patents.
Economics at work.
Lets look at some of the things you said. Could be fun.
This to me illustrates some of problems with the moderation as you present no real arguments but resort to long words. This then tells me that the average
This to me illustrates some of problems with your post as you present ad hominem attacks yet cannot intrepret long words. This then tells me that the average
Hint: The patent applications have many references to prior patents. The new patent is simply an extension of prior work.
This is not surprising. Here I am, arguing that the patent office is providing patents to more and more obvious things, and you're saying that the patent office is issuing patents related to previous patents.
The number 0 was novel once too, ya know.
You also have to consider, if you take a bunch of reference patents, then add something completely obvious(do it online!), you haven't particularly innovated much.
But, consider this. I have a great new concept for the internet. MS then figures that they also want this.
My good idea is gone. MS now has extended and embraced my idea.
We shouldn't be bashing Microsoft. They're standing up to Priceline. Brownie points from this Linux geek for that.
Lets extend your example into...like, reality. It's much more likely to be the other way around. MS has the money to patent any tiny idea that happens to spooge out in the middle of a board meeting, no matter how minute or obvious. You only patent your brilliance. Unfortunately, your one patent has been superceded by MS's thousands. They own your idea, or at least they threaten you into silence with expensive lawyers.
If I remember right, MS owns the concept to putting a computer in all those set top boxes that Everyone Will Buy and turning them into a distributed computing environment. Completely obvious to anyone in distributed computing.
Oh, sorry. Your great distributed computing idea...is now controlled by them. Sorry.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
I do *not* accept ads as a way to direct, or nudge my attention. thanks for trying though.
Bits and pieces of this already exist for some kinds of things, such as the RFCs for internet protocols. Previous (overbroad) patents, even if nonenforceable, still show prior art. But the point would be to put all this stuff together in one place, with verifiable sources for the dates.
Actually, you can edit the HOSTS file by hand (it's only text). In Win95/98 it's located at C:\\HOSTS and in NT it's c:\\SYSTEM\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS
The format is:
###.###.###.### hostname
Read hosts.sam in the directory if you're stuck.
Actually, you can edit the HOSTS file by hand (it's only text). In Win95/98 it's located at C:\<WINDIR>\HOSTS and in NT it's c:\<WINDIR>\SYSTEM\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS
The format is: ###.###.###.### hostname
Read hosts.sam in the directory if you're stuck.
Anyone else see an img src for "http://209.207.224.245/Slashdot/pc.gif?/index.pl, 4396849" on the main /. page? Is that a page counter?
Why have I never seen a "Patent Pending" notice on the DoubleClick.net site? Aren't you required to place such a notice, so that people aren't tricked into creating their own system? Or notified, so they can present prior-art claims to the Patent Office?
Perhaps this will encourage internet advertisers to host their ads outside the US!
I love it! More opportunity for the rest of the world to develop the advertising business.
:^)
Andrew.