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Patents

Liquid Audio Sues In Pitiful Attempt to Appear Relevant 235

Posted by chrisd from the i-have-a-patent-pending-for-the-letter-q dept.
Emily writes: "Another case of patent abuse similar to the PanIP nonsense previously reported in Slashdot. This time, it's Liquid Audio suing geotargeting company Infosplit over patent infringement. I read their patent, it's hilarious! Liquid Audio basically received a patent for saying that a domain ending by "co.uk" is in the UK. More seriously, these lawsuits represent a serious threat to innovation in this country."
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Liquid Audio Sues In Pitiful Attempt to Appear Relevant More

Liquid Audio Sues In Pitiful Attempt to Appear Relevant

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  • Seems to be the name of the game these days. Still, and publicity is good publicity - isn't it?

  • I've said it before, and I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WCMI92 ( 592436 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:04AM (#3893759) Homepage
    Such abuse of the US patent system is going to continue until tough civil and criminal penalties (how bout fraud and raceteering?) are enacted to discourage this.

    Also, the USPTO needs serious reform, training, and procedural improvement. They should be REVIEWING these things for relevance, prior art, etc, not just rubber stamping.

    Left as it is, the US patent system is going to hurt innovation, DISCOURAGE invention, and make our economy fall behind.

    The next great world power is going to be a country that has less stringent IP laws, and a reasonable patent system, one that encourages invention and improvement of invention. Not one like ours that has basically become a corporate blackmail and extortion tool.
    • The next great world power is going to be a country that has less stringent IP laws, and a reasonable patent system, one that encourages invention and improvement of invention.
      The next great world power is going to be China.
      • Does the so-called Great Firewall of China really allow for such development?
      • "The next great world power is going to be China."

        Through brute force only. China ignores IP laws for it's own convienence, not to foster innovation and opportunity.

        China lacks political freedom that is necessary to foster invention. There is a reason why communist countries have to put up walls to keep their people in, after all...

        Ultimately, though, the Chinese system will fail just like the soviet one did, once the people become advanced enough to crave freedom. It's just taking longer because China has MILLENIA of cultural acceptance of autocracy to overcome.

        • China ignores IP laws for it's own convienence, not to foster innovation and opportunity.
          Like the USA did, until it was to their advantage to enforce international rules.
          There is a reason why communist countries have to put up walls to keep their people in, after all...
          Oh, would you like a couple of hundred million Chinese emigrants? I have at least some sympathy for the Chinese system, it can't be easy to manage a billion people.
        • I'm going to have to disagree with you. I think China will continue to adapt until it more and more resembles fascism rather than communism, with enough local democracy to let the populace think it's in charge. It hasn't grown significantly less autocratic, but it has become more economically liberal, with the result that the political situation is stabilized. A number of my co-workers are Chinese (and had no problem coming here to work or study), and one said that as long as the economy continues to improve the people won't complain much about the oppressive regime.

          I think China has a great deal of potential, but their government is dangerous and needs to change. It doesn't appear likely to fall anytime soon, though- the best hope is for continuing liberalization.
    • Say it again to someone that can do something about it, like Congress.

    • Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:35AM (#3894028) Homepage
      Also, the USPTO needs serious reform, training, and procedural improvement. They should be REVIEWING these things for relevance, prior art, etc, not just rubber stamping.

      I just don't see that working. The USPTO (or any patent office) are just a bunch of clerks when it comes to the crunch. There is simply no amount of training that will enable them to pick up an arbitrary patent application and say whether it's bogus or not. They *should* be able to check for basic prior art, obviously bogus filing and so on, but that's really all they can be expected to do without being omnipotent.

      The only thing I can see working is that instead of simply rubber stamping it as "approved" at this point, it's stamped as "provisional". The patent can then go into a very public place on the PTO's site indexed under a variety of searchable keywords for peer review. That way the onus is on those who are going to be nailed by the patent to demonstrate applicable prior-art and expose wild claims for what they are. A failure to raise any suitable objections within a pre-defined period causes an automatic upgrading to "approved", while objections enter a pre-defined process of resolution.

      You can't rush out and make your own filing, because it will, (unless you are patenting time travel), have to be submitted after the date of the provisionally approved patent. The filer of the patent can't complain about their information being exposed to the public, because patents are a matter of public record anyway. There are probably a few other safeguards an expert patent lawyer could devise too, but blaming the PTO is not the way to go.

      Ever heard the saying "behind every sleazy lawyer is a sleazy client"? Clearly, behind every sleazy patent office is a sleazy patent applicant trying to abuse the system as well...

      • I am sorry but I take that rather personally.

        I am a patent examiner working for the European Patent Office and we operate somewhat differently from the USPTO. For a start, we spend MUCH more time researching a patent (2-3 times as much or more). Secondly we have a much bigger database and full external access to many more.

        Then there's this *new* thing the USPTO has started to do - which everyone else has been doing for ever, which is to publish a PATENT APPLICATION before it's been examined or granted. Thish gives people the opportunity (and the right) to submit to us any information they think might be relevant, if they so wish.

        So to recap.

        1. Patent Applications are published before being granted.
        2. That's PUBLICLY published (just try our website ;)
        3. Most places (i.e. Europe, Japan etc) do actually spend a decent amount of time on a search and, in our case using the largest, fully indexed knowledge database available (The USPTO are trying to buy our system).
        4. Please don't tar all of us with the USPTO brush. We all know they are crap - that's why most Americans ask the EPO to examine their internations patent applications.

        hohum

        Troc

        PS I am happy to do some sort of question/answer thing about this if you want.
        • Sounds like you are already doing a lot of my second paragraph then, which is a start, but ultimately patents *need* peer reviews. The number of potential fields for a patent is vast, too vast to expect a patent office to employ someone to know enough about an arbitrary subject to make a judgement of whether the patent is valid or not.

          Suppose I file a patent for the cat-flap (assuming we live in a parallel universe were it is a brand new thing and Isaac Newton only discovered gravity and invented the milled edge coin). It's a pretty simple matter to say, "Yes, that's a brand new and clever idea. Patent approved". Now suppose I file a bullshit, but highly technical, patent in the field of quantum mechanics. Unless there is a quantum physicist at the PTO concerned, then it's highly likely that no-one is going to understand the implications of the patent. Hell, even quantum physicists have problems comprehending quantum physics...

          I don't doubt the USPTO is amongst the worst of the bunch, and I applaud the EUPTO for *some* of their stands on software patents, but still feel that peer review is required with todays often highly complex patent applications, regardless of the PTO concerned. It's nice to see that at least some people are trying though, in spite of what appears to be the USPTO's apparent "approve everything and rely on the lawyers" approach.

          • And this is why we employ specialists (usually with PhDs in their field) for a partcular field. Most of us are published.

            i.e. the cat-flap specialist (and we have some!) won't get quantum mechanical applications. So, yes, we do have quantum physicists here. Ones who have worked at Cern. We also have fully trained, industrially adept biochemists etc etc. Just look at our recruitment requirements (the requirement to speak, read and write technical English, French and German is a toughie)

            The USPTO do have specialists too, however they don't specialise to such a degree - but their main problem is they are given no time for a search due to workload. Together with a shit approach to software patents it's true.

            So we don't make arbitraty judgements, people are hired to fit the niche they know and are specialists in and we are encouraged (conferences etc) to remain fully up to date in our field of expertise. When I joined /. (many years ago) I was a research scientist.

            Troc

            PS (again) to anyone like Rob... if you want to organise a Q&A session I will happily answer the /. questions.

        • Patent Applications are published before being granted

          This is the most important thing, as the USPTO has demonstrated that it is quite inept at finding prior art to obvious "inventions", whereas individuals who are actually motivated to stop patent absurdities will put a little more effort into it.

          There also needs to be a comment and moderation system to the review process, with moderation scores between -1 and +5...
        • Please don't tar all of us with the USPTO brush. We all know they are crap - that's why most Americans ask the EPO to examine their internations patent applications.

          Absolutely, my company does two types of patent, defensive patents and serious ones. With defensive patents all we are trying to do is to make sure that no shit comes along and files a claim on the stuff we developed (which has happened repeatedly). We file those at the USPTO, but by the time any are granted we have usually committed to granting a royalty free license to use the stuff in a standards body.

          If we have a real invention and think we may seriously demand royalty fees we also file in Europe and Japan, even if the invention is pretty US specific. The main reason we do that is for credibility. If you send someone a demand letter that cites a USPTO patent the recipient pretty much knows it is 95% certain to be extortion. If you can cite a European patent you have a heck of a lot more credibility.

      • Well there's just one extra check I'd love to see patent examiners do - use Google and do a search on each of the claims. That alone would probably weed out 70% of the obvious crap =).
      • The USPTO (or any patent office) are just a bunch of clerks when it comes to the crunch.
        Well, the 'crunch' is really the whole problem IMO. If they had time to research them, I doubt we'd have such a problem. How about some sort of limit on number of patents filed per unit time? IIRC, the idea of patents was to protect small time inventors from the big evil guys. So the garage R&D dept probably won't even notice the limit, but the people who abuse the system by filing hundreds of patents for anything and everything are now forced to pick only the really important stuff.
    • And you want to trust who with this authority? The people who set up the current system. How wonderful!

      The US patent system has been discouraging innovation since at least the 1950's. There's no "is going to" about it. Read Mark Clifton's "Trade Secret" (fiction), or Leonard Lockhard (a pseud., I think) for a description from the 1950's of what the patent office was like. It's worse now, but it seem to be only a natural progression of an ongoing trend.

  • Suggest legal reform (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smittyoneeach ( 243267 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:05AM (#3893764) Homepage Journal
    The only winners in these spurious suits are the lawyers.
    Note similar detrimental effects on healthcare.
    So we need reform. The real question: what political candidates have the required fortitude?
    Daresay the political landscape of the US is not promising...
    • "The only winners in these spurious suits are the lawyers.
      Note similar detrimental effects on healthcare.
      So we need reform. The real question: what political candidates have the required fortitude?
      Daresay the political landscape of the US is not promising..."

      With one of the two major parties (Democrats) in league with the trial lawyers (who LOVE things like this), and the other (Republicans) in bed with the corporations (who also LOVE this), there is not much chance of reform.
  • The patent system used to promote innovation and research. Now it is a broken system that is only used to fuel future legal battles.

    I once believed in the system because it rewarded those that came up with new ideas, but I am disgusted now how people try to use it to make a quick buck in the future.

    I wonder how the system will have to change to be effective again? Or perhaps some patents will just have to be not granted because they are obvious, or just plain stupid.
    • "I wonder how the system will have to change to be effective again? Or perhaps some patents will just have to be not granted because they are obvious, or just plain stupid."

      THAT would solve a lot of the problem. Indeed, if it became harder to get a patent (because they would require mandatory review, and maybe even require a public comment period for prior art), 90% of this abuse would cease.

      The other major reform needed to copyright and patent is to require mandatory, nondiscriminatory licensing. Meaning, that if it's licensed to SOMEONE, it has to be available to be licenced to anyone, under similar terms.

      What roils my stomach is how the RIAA got CARP approved, while running right out and signing deals with Yahoo! and others that is discrimanatory against small webcasters. IE, CARP's high rates only apply to those too small to have the weight to negotiate better.

      That is not free enterprise or capitalism. That is monopolistic command and control economy, don't let the corporatist "Capitalist" rhetoric fool you.
      • A-FUCKING MEN.

        Nonexclusive rights to copyright is absolutely REQUIRED if copyright is to serve the interest of the artistic community ever again.

        People seem to have forgotten that copyright was written to combat exclusive publishing deals given to the publishers in the 1600s. Now that copyright is again a commodity, and can be licenced exclusively, it is no different than the pre-copyright age which the current copyright proponants are selling as the dystopic vision of a world without _modern_ copyright law.

        Language is a powerful tool - its important to work around it and understand the actual workings of a system rather than how stuff supposedly plays out in its formed language and terminology.

        And yes, same with patents. They should all be non-discriminatory. Somewhere along the line, it became more profitable to create scarcity rather than to profit off equal-access to ones work.
        • Nonexclusive rights to copyright is absolutely REQUIRED if copyright is to serve the interest of the artistic community ever again.

          Or maybe a system which only addresses copying of actual works. Rather than arbitrary parts of works such as characters and settings. Which would also eliminate the whole "Micky Mouse" problem. Indeed this is the way copyright used to work in the UK...

          People seem to have forgotten that copyright was written to combat exclusive publishing deals given to the publishers in the 1600s. Now that copyright is again a commodity, and can be licenced exclusively,

          Not only that a large amount of copyright is in the hands of publishers. Especially, music and motion pictures.

          it is no different than the pre-copyright age which the current copyright proponants are selling as the dystopic vision of a world without _modern_ copyright law.

          Modern copyright law is different from that of even a few decades ago, let alone that of 3 centuries.
          There also tends to be the false dicotomy of either no copyright or the kind of copyright we have now.

  • They Patented Reading! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Cool, who would have ever thought of digging through DNS records to determine where someone may originate from? I know I wouldn't. I suggest you all stop using such patent infringing tools as nslint, dig, whois, nslookup, and even Arin [arin.net] immediately as you may inadvertantly (no excuse!) determine where a system may be. Heavan forbid that armed with such illecit knowledge you then try to distribute some content to them from a reasonable location.

  • I don't think.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 )
    A lot of people actually understand technology. They sort of see something wrong and think "hey, everyone's making money off the internet and computers, why can't I?" and they press charges [2600.com], sue, or generally become another nuisance to those with enough intelligence [slashdot.org] to see what's going on.
    Reminds me of homer simpson, "they have the internet on computers now?"

  • patent abstract (Score:4, Informative)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:08AM (#3893787) Journal
    Just so that we can be clear about this:

    • Description

    • Territorial determination of remote computer location in a wide area network for conditional delivery of digitized products

      Abstract

      Digital products are delivered to a client computer through a wide area network such as the Internet only upon determination that the client computer is located in a geopolitical territory, such as a country or state, for which delivery of the digital product is authorized.

      A server computer estimates the geopolitical location of the client computer from the client computer's network address through contact information in a network address allocation database.

      Alternatively, the server computer estimates the geopolitical location of the client computer from the client computer's custom name, e.g., domain name. The domain name itself can specify a country within which the client computer is located. Such can be conventional or can be parse according to ad hoc patterns developed by large, international organizations identified by a root domain name. In addition, contact information for the domain name can be retrieved and geopolitical territory information parsed from the contact information. A super-classification of the domain name can indicate a geopolitical territory. Records associating geopolitical territories with network address ranges are stored in such a manner that maximizes resolution within a cache of such records, perhaps at the expense of reduce efficiency but so as to maximum currency and accuracy.

    It almost sounds like they patented the use of somebody else's leg work

    [sigh]

    • Perhaps this patent can be overturned on the basis of bad proofreading. To wit:

      perhaps at the expense of reduce efficiency but so as to maximum currency and accuracy.

    • Re:patent abstract (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WEFUNK ( 471506 )
      Or, in a nutshell they've patented:

      A method of determining the location of a computer by looking up the location of the computer in a database that lists the location of computers so that information can be sent to the computer that is relevant to that computer's listed location.

      I don't think this is a case of looking for prior art, this is a matter of defining obviousness.

      This is simply what databases are made for. PERIOD. END OF CASE.

      Most of these frivolous cases revolve around the use of databases and other common computing technologies for precisely the purpose they were intended. This patent is like getting a copy of MS Word and then patenting the use of the spell checker for detecting spelling errors in documents - that's obviously what it was made for!!!

      Rather than worrying about prior art, maybe we should begin an active education campaign to define basic computing terms along with extensive examples of usage that clearly show how obvious so many of these patent applications are. Something like the IBM technical briefs that are often used to provide prior art and to prevent this very sort of thing.

      Also, while I understand the logic behind the esoteric language used to define patent claims, no patent should be granted unless the patent examiner can reword the claims into the simplest equivalent wording to prove that they understand them and that they are truly novel and unobvious.

  • And in related news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by WPIDalamar ( 122110 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:09AM (#3893799) Homepage
    WPIDalamar recently filed a patent that covers "Determining people's location from their postal address". No prior art was found on this, and he intends to charge royalties to anyout who uses an address to travel to, ship items to, or explain directions.
    • WPIDalamar recently filed a patent that covers "Determining people's location from their postal address". No prior art was found on this, and he intends to charge royalties to anyout who uses an address to travel to, ship items to, or explain directions.

      HaHa!! So your the one responsible for all that targeted direct mailings i get!

    • "Determining people's location from their postal address"

      The post office may have some prior art on this. Though if this practice was to obvious to actually write down in a document, you may have something...

  • Interview with the Patent Office? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nomad7674 ( 453223 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:09AM (#3893804) Homepage Journal
    This is just wierd. I read the patent and agree that it appears to say just what the poster days, though I am only the son of a lawyer and not one myself

    This is an on-going thread in Slashdot which appears to be uncovering important info. Any chance we could arrange a Slashdot interview with either the Head of the Patent Office (or their main P.R. guy) or with the Senator heading up the Patent Office Committee (whatever that is)?

    • Any chance we could arrange a Slashdot interview with either the Head of the Patent Office (or their main P.R. guy) or with the Senator heading up the Patent Office Committee (whatever that is)?

      None whatsoever.

      Do the words "small, vocal minority" mean anything to you?

    • Re:Interview with the Patent Office? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Danse ( 1026 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @12:12PM (#3894912)

      Any chance we could arrange a Slashdot interview with either the Head of the Patent Office (or their main P.R. guy) or with the Senator heading up the Patent Office Committee (whatever that is)?

      It would be a very frustrating endeavor. These are the kinds of people that can actually defend patents like this with a straight face. They can sit there and talk about how we just don't understand the innovation and that these patents really are worthy of protection. And they'll never once burst out in maniacal laughter. They're that good at what they do.

      • Okay, you've given me a conumdrum... I've got mod points, and I have a problem...

        I can't decide if this is flamebait or funny.... and there's not a category for both. :)

        So instead, I'll simply reply, and say "yeah, scary, isn't it?"

  • Now I understand! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:12AM (#3893822) Homepage Journal
    until I read this, I always wondered why spammers send mail about crap that is only available in the USA to me, when any fool with half an ounce of intelligence can tell from my address that I'm in the UK. Thanks for clearing this one up, /.!

  • Jus think... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bahtama ( 252146 )
    Just think if this silliness had always been around.

    The United States of America claim, in the year, 1776, to patent a method for breaking ties with your mother country and establishing a new autonomous country. Methods include guns, cannons, and other secret strategies involving tea. Use of any of these methods require a NDA to be signed and notorized. Any other countries for the next 250 years must pay royalties and licensing fees if they wish to do the same. A list of basic human rights is also claimed, with the right to free speech only allowable with our low cost licensing scheme.

  • There's more to the patent (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cacav ( 567890 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:13AM (#3893836)
    I agree this is a stupid patent, but I don't think it is quite as simple as "co.uk means the computer's in the UK". There's an extra portion to the patent which goes one step further, which is determining whether or not the digital content can be transmitted to the computer in it's current geo-political location. In essence, it sounds like a method to allow the implementation of national data filtering. For example, if it's illegal to view adult materials in a country, this patent covers any method which is used to determine that the client computer is in that nation, and then goes on to prevent the data from getting there.

    Granted, that's my interpretation and I'm not a patent lawyer. On the flip side, I don't see how this patent could ever be used by someone, because I think it could be circumvented too easily. If you go solely on hostname, you could probably fake that out. If you're depending on the computer to verify this information via hardware or software, someone could get around this (like region-free DVD players).

    • Re:There's more to the patent (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:22AM (#3893928) Homepage
      More importantly, it appears to patent a process rather than an implementation, which is, in the physical world, a no-no.

      They can't (or shouldnt be able to) patent "A tool for filtering content based on national laws, etc" .. but they can patent new implementations of such a tool. There's only one problem with it - it wouldn't be too tough an implementation, and it would be, algo & data structure wise, nearly identical to thousands of implementations of software that chooses to do one thing based on attributes on the user, and a local cache of 'rules' to govern data delivery and filtering.

      The patent appears ultra-superfuous.

      It illustrates why the Patent Office is not setup for software - in software, the same invention can be used for millions of uses (just think of the uses of a hashtable, as a technology) .. often, software doens't appear to be the same thing, but in terms of implemetnation, dataflow, etc, different software that solve totally different problems might be implemented in nearly the exact same way. And its always been the implementation that you patent, at least in the science world.

      Also, IANAL, so correct me at will.
      • More importantly, it appears to patent a process rather than an implementation, which is, in the physical world, a no-no.

        This seems to contradict your next sentence - did you mean to say that it appears to patent an implementation rather than a process?

        They can't (or shouldnt be able to) patent "A tool for filtering content based on national laws, etc" .. but they can patent new implementations of such a tool.

        I think you're reading too much in to the exact wording. They're patenting the concept of a tool that does this, not just one specific tool. Just read it as "A type of tool..." instead.

        • In the non-computer world, you can generally only patent specific tools, not concepts of tools. For example, if a pharmaceutical company comes up with a medicine that cures cancer, they can patent that particular medicine. They can't patent the concept of using medicines to cure cancer. Thus someone else could develop a different medicine to cure cancer without infringing on their patent.

          In the computer world this doesn't seem to be enforced.

    • Re:There's more to the patent (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually had to write something like this where we were limiting access to people from some other areas. What I did was a traceroute then check thier IP address, the two before thier address, and 2 random ones to see if thier were in the forbidden list.
      If any were in the list they were restricted access. The thinking was that while they could forge thier own, chances were they could not forge earlier ones(as easy) and then the random ones on the basis that if they were to go through on of the forbidden areas they were probably forbidden.
      If it had been really important would of probably checked all address in thier route, but it wasn't.

      Even with that, it was easy to bypass by just connecting to a computer in a legal area, then using that to connect our site. AC because I don't want to be sued.
    • For example, if it's illegal to view adult materials in a country, this patent covers any method which is used to determine that the client computer is in that nation, and then goes on to prevent the data from getting there.

      So basically they patented a method for saving their ass by obeying the law? How novel, to think you could avoid sending out content that might piss off foreign politicians just by looking at their address...

    • How is this new? How is this original?

      One example is DVDs. Another is encryption. This sounds to me as a patent on database lookup. Look at information from this database and compare it to this other one if there is a match do something with it. Oh WOW! how original....

    • Excuse me for laughing derisively. The more to the patent is using the result of the geographic locality check to decide whether or not certain content should be sent? Perhaps you're not a programmer, but that boils down to a hash table lookup and an if statement. That's something your average second-year computer science undergrad should be able to come up with. Patents are awarded for innovations "not obvious to someone skilled in the art". The "more" that you are suggesting is patent-worthy is obvious to someone JUST BEGINNING TO LEARN THE ART.

      In general, what you are saying is that given a method to determine some critical piece of information X, you should be able to patent using X to make a simple yes-or-no decision. That's ridiculous. Humans have been doing that for tens of thousands of years. "I am hungry. There is a fruit-bearing plant in front of me. Is the fruit poisonous or harmful to me in any way? If no, then eat it; if yes, then don't. Oh wait, I can't make a decision based on derived information because that's a patented process." With as little faith as I have in the USPTO, I think even they would reject that one.

  • Holy crap, 23 pages?? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am looking at the patent, and it looks like the patent really and honestly is exactly as the slashdot submitter represents it, and contains nothing more than obvious ramifications of open, globally developed network infrastructure..

    But good Lord! 23 pages for this patent? How did they do that? Just look at that language, they must have been purposefully trying to write something so incredibly verbose they knew the patent office wouldn't bother reading all the way through.

    So, just for fun, because i like Perl golf, here's a little Civil Disobedience Challenge for the slashdot populace: Who can create the smallest implementation of this patent possible? I'll bet you could fit the entire thing in half a page to a page of perl without even trying.

    Post your entries as replies to this comment. Posters of the winning entries get absolutely nothing, except maybe a cease and disist order if you attach your actual account to the comment. C'mon, it'll be fun :)

    • Re:Holy crap, 23 pages?? (Score:4, Funny)

      by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:29AM (#3893990) Journal
      I don't know Perl, so here it its in basic.

      10 A$="U.S.A";B$="Rest Of World"
      20 Input "Where are you from?",IP$
      30 If IP$ = A$ Then Print "Due to Copyright Resrictions you are not allowed to listen to or view this Liquid Audio Media!": GOTO 50
      40 If IP$ = B$ Then Print "WTF? Only Patent Office fearing Americans may listen to or view this Liquid Audio Media! Not some godless pirates the likes of you! Away foul beasts!":GOTO 50
      50 Print "Your Name has been entered into our database of repeat offenders. An agency ending in 'AA' should be visiting you shortly. Thank you."
      60 End

      Sorry I didn't comment the code very well...

    • 23 pages for this patent? How did they do that? Just look at that language, they must have been purposefully trying to write something so incredibly verbose they knew the patent office wouldn't bother reading all the way through.

      This really should condem the application to the wastepaper basket. However there appears to be a problem that difficult to understand gets interpreted as "innovation" rather than "waste of time".

  • ROFL (Score:2)

    by SirSlud ( 67381 )
    Holy shit.

    Yet another patent invented by millions of programmers around the world at various times with nary a second thought.

  • Plenty of People to Sue (Score:3, Informative)

    by Captain Large Face ( 559804 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:15AM (#3893850) Homepage

    Well, it looks they'll have plenty of people to sue if this is possible. Analog [analog.cx] also extracts the server's likely country of origin by parsing a resolved IP address, as do hundreds of other applications.

    It's hardly a big deal to equate a TLD to a country, and whilst it may take a little longer to map IP addresses to geographic locations, this data is already in the public domain!

  • Last names are now officially patented by me, also known as surnames. I declare the use of a last name to identify a person, his living relatives, phone number, or any other source to be exclusively my Intellectual property. Anyone who decides to use this method of identification will now have to pay me royalties based on an agreed upon rate. Use of a last name without my express permission is a violation of my intellectual property rights and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

    (J/k, in case you couldn't tell. :-)
    • I call bullshit. I see your name (MarvinMouse) and I'm quite sure that Walt Disney holds patents and trademarks on all possible english language alliterations involving a name ending in 'mouse'. Therefore it would seem that your own name is your undoing, as it clearly shows a case of prior art.
    • I think there might be prior art on this, but I'm not sure. We should grant it for now, just to safe.

      Patent Granted
  • I wonder what legal mumbo jumbo they would have if someone patented sex or any other normal everyday event. (OK, who is going to be the first to make a joke about that. Everyday sex and /. readers. Yes, yes, real funny) And would they patent different positions or just the whole act? Think of the licensing fees!

    The method of penis insertion for purposes of pleasure and/or reproduction.

    • I in fact own the the Patent#696969: Procreational Coitus and its Derivatives

      Please send me all relevant materials such as videos and pictures for review and to ensure that you are not infriging on this patent.



      sorry....I just had too...

      incidently I also own the Token Sex On Slashdot Idiot Post Patent...


  • How, what happends when someone connects to your megastore ? You do a DNS lookup of his/her IP address. And that is supposed to be a trustworthy way to determine the location of said IP address ??

    Would someone with in-addr.arpa access please say something like D.C.B.A IN PTR whatever.co.uk.

    99% of webd don't do a reverse lookup ..
    That should teach'em ...

    • Even if you do do a reverse lookup, that doesn't gaurantee that the address is physically located in that country. I could send a packet from an IP address which resolves, both forward and backward, to .ie, .ca or .bm. These are all on the same physical computer, which is actually located in Canada.
  • That headline sounds like it came from the Onion....Nice editing, you wouldn't want to sound biased or bitter.
  • I new this patent stuff reminded me of somthing....

    "My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims, like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy - the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament"
    -- Dr. Evil
  • Their problems aren't entirely their own fault. Read all about it here [com.com]

    Basically, it seems that congress has been using the patent office as a source of income, draining off millions of dollars that would be spend reviewing applications- seems like a good 15-20% of the fees that companies pay aren't used for reviewing applications at all.

    I'm not completely relieving the PO of blame, but it's something to think about anyway.
    • This doesn't just apply to the Patent Office. Application fees are only supposed to cover the cost of processing the application. If the number of applications increases significantly, more money is available to increase the workforce. If applications decreases, the workforce is reduced. At least this is the theory. In practice, Congress sees money and wants to spend it. Furthermore, government departments rarely, if ever, reduce their size.

      This results in two possible cases, neither good.

      1. A department in desperate need of expanding has it's revenue siphoned off and is unable to properly do its job.
      2. A department becomes bloated when it is needed, but does not reduce itself when it's services are no longer relevant. Ever hear of the Rural Electrification Administration?
      Fixing this problem would require an act of Congress - which would really require an act of god since they aren't about to cut off their money machines or favourite pork-barrel projects.
    • It doesn't really matter whose fault it is. The patent office has gotten so bad we'd be better off without it.

      Mind you, even with a careful and efficient patent office I wouldn't support software patents. That's just a bad idea. But the patent handling process in general is so bad that we'd be better off without it.

  • Unfortunately, I think this is becoming the new business model.

    Instead of:
    1. Great new product
    2. ???
    3. Success!

    We're seeing:
    1. Can't think up great new product.
    2. Get patent for something completely rediculous.
    3. Sue everyone in town.
    4. Success!
    • No, what somebody has to do is create a scoreboard, where you rate the superperfluousness of the patent, and then try to estimate their success in litigating a profit from it.

      Like cybersquatting - which, as far as I know, has been shown to be relatively unprofitable, despite every Tom, Dick and Harry seemingly getting into the act - .. we need to see if this really does work, and then feed that info back to these software companies .. to either encourage it until it flat-out breaks the system, or discourage it because it don't make no money.
  • Patent the idea of ridiculous patents.

    Sue anyone who then tries to claim a ridiculous patent idea like this.
  • Beyond the obvious, it throws out certain difficulties, like a multinational company, but its "invention" doesn't address how to determine where that person is.

    And how could it? If a company has its own international private net with one gateway to the internet behind a proxy, then any user, no matter what their location, would appear to come from the internic record location of the registrant or, if they did a traceroute (which they said they don't cause it's too time consuming) you might be able to determine where the proxy is located.

    Such utter bullshit.

  • An example of a much more refined version of this technique, Visualroute [visualroute.com], not only attempts to tell you where the IP address is, but it also gives you a geographic map of a traceroute to that address. Yes, occasionally it goofs up, but it's really pretty good overall. And it's been around since the late 90's.

    There are similar freeware/government/.edu developed tools floating around since the mid-90's, too. I seem to recall one from one of the national labs, LLNL or LBL? Many are mentioned in this Google Search [google.com].

    It's been years since I monitored them, but UUCP Maps were common in the 80's. These generally are not IP, but they do show that folks were relating geographic locations to addresses a couple of decades ago.

  • Related Link: NetWorldMap [networldmap.com], a n interesting project to map IP addresses and physical locations (within 3-4 hours drive).

  • But how good is it? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dilute ( 74234 )
    Yes, this one may indeed be "obvious" (and therefore invalid). It would have be well known to anyone who knew anything in this field in 1998 (when this patent was filed) that some URLs contain at least nominal indicators of geographic origin (like, doh). And it would have been obvious, I would say, to take advantage of this in order to qualify people on the Web (to an approximation) based on their location.

    On the other hand, how much clout does this patent have, anyway? On a (very) quick reading, the claims of the patent all seem to be limited to making a go/no go determination based on parsing the "custom" (domain) name or retrieving registrar data on it and making some sort of classification or probablistic determination based on the retrieved information. This seems like a pretty weak test to me - it would seem to me that one could do a little better, perhaps, by analyzing the network address itself, which this patent doesn't seem to cover (i.e., analyzing the network address based on IANA assignments and database info as opposed to retrieving and working with the "custom name").

    Does anyone know what the state of the art is these days in determining the true geographic location for someone accessing information over the Web? It seems to me that companies like Oracle (which provides downloads of software having export control issues) must have figured out a more reliable means than what is in this patent in order to verify a recipient's geographic location.

    It seems to me also that the probabilistic techniques disclosed here would be more suitable for analysis (e.g., marketing analysis) than for deciding who to allow to download content. But the patent seems only to cover the go/no go stuff. Maybe it would have been TOO brazen to have attempted to get a patent merely on reading one's logs!

  • Patents and the small-time engineer... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hklingon ( 109185 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @10:58AM (#3894253) Homepage
    Like many of you, I'm a (lifetime) student, a CS Major and a hobbyist. I love computer science, physics and math (in that order). I write software for grocery money (independent of some corporate entity..), do network administration and high-level training (i.e. teaching an IT department how to use samba.. etc). I'm also into hobby electronics, amateur robotocs, etc. As an individual inventor/hobbyist it is hard to see the US patent system as a means of anything but reinforcing corporate interest. There are only four possibilities, really:

    1. Hobbyist has patent, Company has patent. This one plays out in court. Likely, who has the most money wins. At the very most for the hobbyist, I'll bet you the ruling says the hobbist and the company developed the same thing independently.

    2. Hobbyist has patent, company doesn't but is granted patent. Again, this one will probably play out in court. The hobbyist is more favored, but legal representation matters.

    3. Hobbyist has no patent, Company has broad umbrella patent. Again, it plays out in court. What are the chances the court would decide that the hobbyist independently invented?

    4. No one has patents. This one is tough, though usually the company in question applies for a patent then initiates legal action with the hope that by the time it comes to trial, they will have been issued a patent. (findlaw)

    See a recurring theme? As a hobbyist, I worry about being brought into court, for no good reason, based on some good idea I have. I can't afford that. Its a drain on the soul as well as the coffer. I also get the feeling that I have to prove I'm innocent of alleged patent violations. It tends to make me bitter, and no longer a jubilant inventor. Whats worse, I'm told that if I invent something independently and realease it to the community I can be held accountable for abitrary amounts that represent "losses" in revenue of the patent holder if they make a strong enough case. Review the Ogg vs. Mp3 initial corporate statements that were tantamount to "Yeah, they may have worked independently, but this mathmusic thing is so complex, they must have ripped us off. No one would think of that!" Fortunately, I'm still a poor student and have nothing anyone could take.

    Baubles to you and I, in the hobbyist electronics/software algorithm sense, are incomprehensible to the court, and just about any argument can be made as to what they are, how complex they are, and how reasonable it would be to argue that a particular patent is a logical conclusion of other thoughts or a completely original thought.
    • But there are also things you can do to protect yourself. Anyone with a patent will already know this, but most of us don't have patents. In any patent dispute, your best asset is documentation. Accordingly, the best thing to do is keep a bound lab notebook (not looseleaf) and sign and date every page. Get a witness to sign the page too, when it is appropriate. Write all your inventions or work towards inventions down. If there is stuff that can be printed out rather that written, glue it into your notebook pages, describe it and sign it.

      This is of course a huge burden, and requires a completely different way of doing things to be effective. But it is cheaper than lawyers. And it is pretty much the only way to convince a judge that you really did develop an idea yourself, and before the other patent was disclosed.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The patent cannot be found invalid unless they decide to sue someone for infringement.

    Oh, wait.... they are.
  • an idea/innovation existed prior to the creation of a patent, has just been filed by yours truly. I can't believe they fell for it!
  • You people can't expect the patent examiners to have degrees in micro biology, genetic engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, etc... So they can't truly examine a patent. I think the better solution would be to allow a company that's supposedly infringing on a patent, have a "grace period" where it's allowed to find prior art or show that the patented thing is a common idea. If it finds prior art/common idea, the patent has to be thrown out.

    Maybe there should be a penalty too for the company that files the bad patent. This would deter companies from filing patents, but if a company does file a patent and takes it to court, it will give them a stronger reason to fight so they don't get penalized.

    Of course this doesn't solve the problem of the multibillion dollar corp defending their patent against Joe Bobs startup company. But that's another whole issue...
    • You people can't expect the patent examiners to have degrees in micro biology, genetic engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, etc...

      The actual fact of the matter is that patent examiners usually do have a technical background complete with the degrees you mention.

      The reason we are seeing too many bad patents is because the US patent system has some real flaws, including not-strict-enough criterea for unobviousness and utility. Other fixes that would help include publication of applications and allowance for commentary by other parties as part of the application process.

      • Re:You can't expect the USPTO to know everything. (Score:4, Informative)

        by bedessen ( 411686 ) on Tuesday July 16, 2002 @01:21PM (#3895497) Journal
        because the US patent system has some real flaws

        Such as the fact that it's in the best interest of lawmakers to encourage numerous patent filings (regardless of legitimacy) because the Office of Management and Budget can shuffle funds from the patent filing fees (which are supposed to hire and support engineers, scientists, researchers, etc. to verify claims) into the general fund. Worse, there's little oversight since none of the fees are taxpayer dollars so they fall under the radar. When you need some extra cash for your pet project this sort of thing is great.

        How much money are we talking about? The USPTO receives zero taxpayer dollars -- its entire budget is based on its fees. The fees amount to $710 to file an application, $1,240 due at issuance, followed by periodic maintenance fees of $850 due 3-1/2 years post-issue, $1,950 at seven years, and $2,990 at year 11. These fees are reduced by about half for independent inventors and small companies.

        The fees are supposed to nearly exactly track the actual costs of maintaining patents and paying researchers. However, when Congress can freely dip into the pool for cash it's not hard to see why they resort to retarded monkeys that wouldn't know prior art if it crawled up their ass and died.
  • Liquid Audio basically received a patent for saying that a domain ending by "co.uk" is in the UK.

    We all know that .com/.net/.org aren't restricted to the United States anymore, but even ccTLDs aren't necessarily geographically restricted. Years ago, there was a poster in one newsgroup I followed. I don't remember his name, but I recall that even though he was here in the US, since he worked for Ericsson, his email address ended in .se (this would've been before they snagged a .com [ericsson.com] address).

    There's also the little matter of ccTLDs (.to, .tv, .nu, etc.) that have been opened up to everybody. If for some strange reason I decided to register alfter.tv and associated that with my home server, I would be disappointed with a geolocation system that concluded from my domain name that I was on a tiny island in the south Pacific [cia.gov].

  • Liquid Audio basically received a patent for saying that a domain ending by "co.uk" is in the UK.

    M-x what-domain
    Domain: uk
    UK: The United Kingdom of Great Britain

    Richard's gonna love this..
  • Okay.
    So.
    Let me get this straight.

    You are saying that if someone has a patent on something, they should not enforce it? Or is it only some patent holders who should not be allowed to try to exercise the rights granted to them by the people, by way of a patent?

    Which patents are they? ones that you yourself determine are 'lame' ? Who decides?

    The USPTO is handing out patents. That means those who get them have the right to try to enforce them. IF you want change, attack the USPTO, not the people applying for them.

    What is pitiful about enforcing your patent?

  • Some of the other patents mentioned as references are either a good laugh or a sad commentary on our patent system, depending on what mood you're in:

    5366276 [uspto.gov] - delivering music over the Internet.
    5944790 [uspto.gov] - localization.
    5930474 [uspto.gov] - using clickable maps as a UI.

    Patents like the above are free money for bottom-third-of-their-class lawyers. Patent searches used to mean something, but obviously a software patent search is almost wasted effort nowadays. I wonder why the software industry as a body hasn't raised hell by this time? If a few of the bigger companies kicked in the missing $33 million or whatever with no strings attached, they would probably save themselves many times that in nuisance litigation.

    Or, how about funding the Patent Office with a royalty system? Say the gubmint gets a 1% royalty on every patent they grant? Sure, more big brother, but it would give the Patent Office itself financial incentive to investigate and determine infringement, and to become more capable at determining which patents are enforceable. Both things would automatically benefit legitimate patent holders.
  • Which simply can't be done....if it could be, there'd be only one white pages, not the dozen or so that are available here in LA.
  • It's not just domain name based.

    From my reading of the patent, it's not just the domain name in use; they also parse out the whois information for the owner information from the relevent whois information, and they support the concept of zoning by delegation (e.g. "freebsd.org" is in the U.S., but "uk.FreeBSD.org" is in the U.K., etc.).

    Basically, they have an entire process based on the information that was generally available at the time the patent was filed, and the information that was expected to be available, based on geographic information draft RFC's published around the time, and the ratified-but-seldom-implemented RFCs for inclusion of missle coordinates in your DNS, in case you wanted to inte an ICBM to land in your swimming pool.

    So it's technically patentable as a process patent, though I would certainly argue that it was obvious to a skilled practitioner in the arts.

    -- Terry
  • I wonder if these people ever read any of the stuff at the XTraceroute page http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d3august/xt/ or whether they read the RFCs mentioned http://rfc.net/rfc1712.html and http://rfc.net/rfc1876.html
    Seems like they are just reinventing the wheel but calling it seomthing new and marketable. Typical.

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