URLs Patented, Domain Registrars Sued 650
theodp writes "A newly formed company is suing Network Solutions and Register.com for infringing on its e-mail and domain naming patent, which covers assigning each member of a group a URL of the form 'name.subdomain.domain' and an e-mail address of the form 'name@subdomain.domain.'"
Not as bad as SCO. (Score:5, Informative)
However, the one thing we can relax on is that this doesn't affect
So, this isn't exactly a sky-is-falling situation, but it's shysters trying to make a quick buck off of patent law....
Prior Art Anyone? (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a link to the patent. [com.com]
So, anyone have a website log or e-mail from before November 23,1999?
WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
1. A method for assigning URL's and e-mail addresses to members of a group comprising the steps of:
assigning each member of said group a URL of the form "name.subdomain.domain"; and
assigning each member of said group an e-mail address of the form "name@subdomain.domain;"
wherein the "name" portion of said URL and said e-mail address is the same and unique for each particular one of said members such that an only difference between said URL and said e-mail address for said member is that in said URL the "@" symbol of the e-mail address is replaced with a "." and wherein said "subdomain" portion of said URL and said e-mail address is the same for all members of said group.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said members of said group comprise members of a licensed profession.
Now... I'm going to try to remain calm here but HOW THE FUCK WAS THIS PATENTED?! Nothing is *invented* here, it's a method of organizing a system which ALREADY EXISTS (email and DNS). This just further shows the US Patent Office's stupidity.
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
On a side note.. the idea is also supposed to be "novel, useful, AND, nonobvious". This topic fails on at least two of the cases. It's neither novel, nor nonobvious. This is U.S. Patent Law. If you don't like it, talk to your congressman.
--sea
Credit of quotes: class notes (Computers and the Law.. yeah who the hell needs to look stuff up?)
Re:Not as bad as SCO. (Score:3, Informative)
United States Code, 35 USC Section 103:
Conditions for patentability; non-obvious subject matter
(a) A patent may not be obtained . . . if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.
So -- is this a trivial, obvious extension of the prior art?
Prior art, DNS zone files (Score:5, Informative)
From the patent documentation:
This is the precice format for e-mail addresses in DNS zone file, for the SOA record. See RFC 1034 [faqs.org], section 3.3. Date of prior art, 1987.
Bah - Prior Art is a no-brainer (Score:5, Informative)
A date even funnier: November 23 1999!! (Score:3, Informative)
Somehow I don't think its going to take a miracle to find prior art here.
I think the USPO could really do with being staffed by people with Common Sense(tm).
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Informative)
The first ISP I worked for offered customers:
www.customer.ccnet.com
and customer@ccnet.com
from about 1995 or so.
It's a silly patent.
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:5, Informative)
when setting up a zone file with bind you specify an email address of the admin in charge of the domain in the SOA record.
an email address of joeuser@somedomain.com would be written as joeuser.somedomain.com. admittedly its not a direct prior art, but i can definately see someone making a jump from this to what the patent is about.
just my 2 cents
Ophidian
Re:India patents zero and binary (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe Iraq could get a leg up on reconstruction by contesting that claim [andrews.edu] in an X-TREME CRADLE-OF-CIVILAZATION *SMACKDOWN*.
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:5, Informative)
This is beyond belief. I don't know to be upset with these idiots that filed the suite or the US patent office which uses the same naming convention (most government agencies do). I've heard they have Ph. D. working at the patent office but come on...who signs off on their Ph. Ds?
Re:Patent the patent (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. In the article they're described as "Javaher and Weyer were part of the original group that launched the .md domain in the United States in 1998. With the .md domain, physicians could register URLs ending in .md, such as www.janesmith.md."
No mention that ".md" is just another of those small countries (Moldova in this case) who've signed away rights to some scumbags who think that they can pretend the letters stand for something else. Similar ones: .la (Laos, pretending to be Los Angeles/Latin America (!)/Lousiana), .tv (Tuvalu, pretending to be television). Hopefully all these idiots get burnt when the national governments cancel their domains without compensation or unilaterally multiply the fees.
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:2, Informative)
The USPTO seemingly triages patents based on the law firm and the assignee. Joe Schmoe inventor gets pulled through knotholes ("office actions" in the jargon) while patents from big corps sail throught on "first action allowances" all the time.
I know several inventors, one in particular, who have had dozens of patents with big company names as the assignees that sail through no questions asked. This one person decided to patent another invention privately and it was five years of office actions, but finally it issued. He swears he'll never do it again as an individual.
So based on true personal experience, an individual or small company using a good but small lawyer or firm get a patent issued, it's probably a good patent. It takes years, so what may have been cutting edge when it was filed may become obvious (or revealed and then popularized during the prosecution phase). Then when it issues, there exists the legal basis to seek judicial remedy if the infringers do not agree to terms. That's the system.
Big companies, on the other hand, can patent anything and get away with it. The irony is that they can afford legal teams that that can turn bat turds into caviar. I'm speculating here, but I think that if the boot were on the other foot and M$ were suing the browser plugin guy, the guy would never have had the resources to unearth some ridiculously obscure document to assert prior art disclosure. It always comes down to this: money=right.
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:4, Informative)
The original inventors didnt benefit, the lightbulb would have happened with or without the patent as the surrounding technology had reached the point of making it practical.
World domination through bogus patents (Score:2, Informative)
I propose an IPR-based world domination plan:
Oh wait! the USA started implementing this plan already a decade ago...
Here is one example of what actually does happen when this plan is in action: When someone tries to apply for a real, innovative, detailed patent in another country, say EU for example, it will be rejected by the EU patent office because of an existing over-broad US "patent" which "covers everything". Perhaps patents from overly lax countries should be considered less valid by default?
P.S. Here's my prior art contribution for this bogus patent: IKI.FI, a non-profit society, has been doing since 1995 what they claim to have invented in 1999. I wrote a page about this at http://www.iki.fi/iki/faq/boguspatent6671714.html [www.iki.fi] so it's easy to find when googling with the patent number.
Re:Examiners Used to Be Allowed to Reject Patents (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I Smell MS (Score:1, Informative)