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.'"
Stop the World i wana get off (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though NS and R.com are both companies who screw people royally, this group of f*ckwits is even worse. I will take the lesser of the 2 evils thanks.
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: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:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:3, Interesting)
There should not be any need for prior art to defeat this. You're saying it yourself 'this naming convention'. Patents are for inventions, not conventions. It's called the nonobvious test for a patent.
(note: IANAL).
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:3, Insightful)
I find that the respect that I have for people with Ph.D.'s is inversely proportional to the time until I recieve my own Ph.D.
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:5, Interesting)
Easier than that. The patent was filed in November 1999. In the patent itself it references websites, including:
Webpage: Freeyellow.com, Apr., 1998.*
Webpage: switchboard.com, Jun. 1996.*
As in, Freeyellow (subdomain) . com (domain) and switchboard (subdomain) . com (domain). These frickin' crackheads used prior art three+ years before they filed the patent, and referenced it in the patent. Tell me it's April Fools' Day.
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:3, Informative)
They're just describing proper domain usage (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely fail to see how one can patent the use of domain names in this fashion. That strikes me like patenting the concept that a "record" corresponds to a physical object, citing an employee table as an example.
Obviously this patent was never examined by anyone with enough neurons to spark a thought.
Maybe it's time companies affected by these nonsense "patents" start suing the patent office to recover costs and damages for defending against such garbage.
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though this group of f*ckwits tries to screw people more than NS and R.com, the patent system is even worse. And until the majority understands that it was horribly broken a long time ago, nothing will change.
We need much more stupid patent lawsuits. Bring it on!
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, but "Beam me up" is a Trademark of Star Trek Enterprises, Inc. For your unauthorised use of this phrase, you owe us a Darl McBridely sum of $699.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Star Trek Enterprises, Inc. Legal Dept.
Re:Stop the World i wana get off (Score:5, Funny)
You SCO bastards, you killed my son. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!
Ok, now you gonna get it! (Score:3, Funny)
All your machinery are belong to me!
Patent the patent (Score:5, Funny)
[sigh]
Re:Patent the patent (Score:4, Funny)
i'm going to patent the idea that a business plan can be suing people who break alleged patents. then sue all the companies that sue companies for break patents because it breaks my patent.
or something like that.
Re:Patent the patent (Score:3, Funny)
I hope the originator patented the convention of attaching this joke to every patent story.
Examiners Used to Be Allowed to Reject Patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes, when someone files claims as blindingly obvious as these, the Examiners would be permitted to reject the claims as an "obvious design choice". This was something appropriate to do when the choice made by the "inventor" did not add any new functionality to the thing sought to be patented, but was merely shuffling around design features that did nothing in and of themselves.
That is exactly what is happening here with these claims. The naming scheme here is no more functional than is a scheme of naming your own children.
Hey, here is a patent claim for ya that I just made up!
1. A method comprising: a set of parents naming their first child Thomas, their second child Zebedee, and their third child Squeamish.
Since a patent examiner looking at such a claim could not find a "motivation" in the "prior art" for one to name their children those precise names in that exact order, one could easily get a patent.
Time to name the Enemy: the Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit. They are the malfeasors who have tied the hands of the US Patent Examiners so that they can no longer apply the laws of obviousness, but instead have to jump through absurd hoops looking for "motivation" to do that which take zero mental effort, like.... naming URLs (or kids, for that matter).
Slightly funnier take (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of an apropos joke:
What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?
One is a scum suking bottom dweller, and the other is a fish.
Thank you
--
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Insightful)
One had a lawyer to defend him after he was busted by Constitution-shredding RIAA private investigators after forgetting to load PeerGuardian while he downloaded the Complete Led Zeppelin off Suprnova, and the other one didn't.
As to the argument that "if the laws weren't so messed up, then the RIAA goons couldn't come after me" I'd ask
And to keep this on point, when you look at the broken patent system and you see that the USPTO is backlogged with frivolous patent applications that take advantage of examiners' overburden, underpay, and (perhaps) ignorance of the technology, and when you see that this broken patent system allows the issuing of patents like this one that allows some over-egoed plaintiffs lawyer to see his big payoff day by filing a case that would be frivolous if it were based in equity rather than a letter patent issued by the US Government, do you write your representative or senator? Do you write the president? Do you organize a get out the vote campaign to support candidates who will fix what's broken?
Corporations control America today not because the American system is broken, but because people bitch and bitch and bitch but aren't willing to do the hard work necessary to make sure the system does what it's supposed to. You wouldn't fill your car's gas tank up with water, right? And you wouldn't use a 10-year-old rubber band in place of a bike chain? You wouldn't build your beach house out of sand, would you?
You forget that abusive plaintiff's lawyers (the ones you're really griping about) only survive because the system is currently so chaotic and broken that they're able to make loads of money working the nooks and crannies of the broken system, just like a few college students and VCs made wads of money off of ignorance and exuberance in the mid-to-late 1990s. They went where the money and the opportunity to take it were.
This patent mess makes me sick. Why isn't there a good-faith requirement in the patent code?
Arg, sorry... People make lawyer jokes, and they're funny, I suppose. But just remember something someone who was in prison after having a crappy court-appointed lawyer lose his case for him told me: the only lawyer you ever wished you could have is the one you realized you needed after a lifetime telling yourself they weren't wanted.
As for the author of the parent, I apologize, you just got caught in a drive-by...
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact that having a lawyer is often necessary does not in any way make lawyers good.
As to the argument that "if the laws weren't so messed up, then the RIAA goons couldn't come after me" I'd ask /. collectively, when was the last time those of you who live in democracies voted? Do you vote eagerly? Do you wake up (in the US) on Primary Tuesdays and cast a vote so you won't be stuck with party candidates you hate?
Cripes, man, what are you talking about? If I vote, which lawyer (most politicians are lawyers) should I vote for? The entire root of the problem is that lawyers have been allowed to make law. Voting is a sham. It's a way for us citizens/children to make token gestures and claim "look Mommy, I'm helping!"
Corporations control America today not because the American system is broken, but because people bitch and bitch and bitch but aren't willing to do the hard work necessary to make sure the system does what it's supposed to. You wouldn't fill your car's gas tank up with water, right? And you wouldn't use a 10-year-old rubber band in place of a bike chain? You wouldn't build your beach house out of sand, would you?
That paragraph doesn't even make sense. Are you saying people are stupid and therefore shouldn't complain, or that complaining about bad laws is like a sand beach house?
You forget that abusive plaintiff's lawyers (the ones you're really griping about) only survive because the system is currently so chaotic and broken that they're able to make loads of money working the nooks and crannies of the broken system, just
So the voters' continually elect lawyers to write law, and it's the voters who shoulder all the blame because they should know better than to elect lawyers?
People make lawyer jokes, and they're funny, I suppose. But just remember something someone who was in prison after having a crappy court-appointed lawyer lose his case for him told me: the only lawyer you ever wished you could have is the one you realized you needed after a lifetime telling yourself they weren't wanted.
People make lawyer jokes because such a huge percentage of lawyers are scum. The law is a parasite on society. It's an arbitrary game of devised by an intellectually inbred subculture that has, by virtue of their power, made themselves necessary. Necessary is not the same thing as good. Lawyers are a necessary evil, and little else.
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Interesting)
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:5, Insightful)
Nevermind the fact that a great majority of people don't feel that something should be patentable, much like people who think their programs should be open source. What's the easiest way to allow an idea to be unpatentable? Think of it, do it, don't patent it. Apparently that doesn't work so well.
Finally, do you honestly believe that any of the ISPs who started offering this service have ever read this patent before, even if it was after the patent was filed? No? They came up with it on their own? Well in that case, even though these guys may officially own the rights, it is pretty clear that the patent is OBVIOUS. And therefore VOID.
Let me put it to you this way. I have noticed they're sending a lot of landers and such to Mars right now. Well, perhaps I should patent sending a rover to Pluto. NASA has never done that, no prior art, they have not patented it so clearly it's not obvious and they've never thought of it... Sure...
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:4, Insightful)
What's more likely, is that some huge faceless corp will blatantly steal your invention and then rack up millions of dollars in legal fees and crush you like an ant. When it's all over, you'll have no money, be bitter, deranged and living under a bridge.
Your best bet, is to partner with a cash rich mega corp with tons of cash, and go around either squishing peons and stealing their patents, or, as in this case, using bogus patents to extort cash from others for no purpose at all.
Finally, the reasons patents and copyright were given legal standing was that they were to enrich the public commons.
Since it's clear that copyright isn't doing that at all anymore, as virtually nothing under copyright gets released into the public commons, and patent law seems to be fashioned to make *only* lawyers loads of money, then perhaps we ought to get rid of both.
Either reform them, and do them as the framers of the constution intended, or simply scrap them. Their cost to society is huge, and IMHO, outweigh the benefits provided.
Cheers,
Greg
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.
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Interesting)
Technically, you can apply for a patent on anything. You could even apply for a patent on someone's else's patent if you were looking for a way to burn a lot of money real quick.
The thing is, people patent stupid shit all the time. Shining a flashlight on the floor and having a cat chase it is a patented exercise system for pets. The problem is that they'd never be able to enforce it, the owner of the patent would pretty much be laughed right out of the courtroom as long as the defendant showed up. Then, they'd lose it.
The USPTO will play lip service to any idiot that can pay them. They just sort of leave it up to the courts to decide whether or not there was any intelligent driving force behind the patent or not. Fear not, this "entrepreneur" will be shot down pretty quickly. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here, just a bunch of braindead corporate lawyers.
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:3, Troll)
You obviously don't prosecute patents for a living. I see 103 rejections all the time and for non-obvious material (35 USC 103 is the statute that bars the patenting of obvious subject matter). Contrary to what everyone on /. thinks, you don't just whip out a patent app, give the PTO a check, and poof, you have a patent. Most patents take years, and several Office actions, to get through if they do at all. You only think the
Re:Slightly funnier take (Score:5, Interesting)
Prior Art Before 1998. Like BIND and IAHC :-) (Score:3, Insightful)
Fortunately, BIND treats n
Re:Frothing at the mouth (Score:3, Insightful)
Getting in early. (Score:5, Funny)
Dave
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:A date even funnier: November 23 1999!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Too bad their prices have increased about tenfold in that time. It's not as cool now that you can get an entire full-service hosted domain for a bit more than their e-mail plus 5mb web site.
Re:A date even funnier: November 23 1999!! (Score:3, Funny)
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....
Re:Not as bad as SCO. (Score:3, Interesting)
For an example a little closer to home, look at sourceforge.net. project.sourceforge.net is how they hand out URLS. If they allow email addresses project@sourceforge.net, they'd be violating this patent as well, right?
Re:Not as bad as SCO. (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Not as bad as SCO. (Score:3, Funny)
They name countries after fridge leftovers? Is there a Slimistan? Rottovia? Burntoastan? Meltedicecreamatia? Drippingpizzanica? Beercannia?
Oh. C'mon! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh. C'mon! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh. C'mon! (Score:2)
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpate
They're too late! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah, and CmdrTaco owes me $0.10 every time he says "CmdrTaco". And $0.50 every time the name "slashdot" appears.
What the.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What the.... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
SCO (Score:2, Funny)
SCO (Score:3, Funny)
Darl would be proud!
Fight on, brave righteous patent warriors!
'Bout bloody time! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:'Bout bloody time! (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot to include the phrases "a system for implementing" and "on a computer."
a system for implementing the symbolic representation of language as phonetically derived characters on a computer
See, much better! Now watch the royalties roll in. BTW, I own the patent on this method, so you should just endorse those royalty checks over to me....
Cheers,
IT
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Suing is evidently a business model (Score:3, Funny)
You must be European. In the US the doctrine (for the right, at least) is "personal responsibility", which basically means the victim is always at fault.
Re:Suing is evidently a business model (Score:5, Interesting)
The words "socially acceptable business practice" no longer have any meaning in the United States. The general thinking is that if it makes money, it must be OK, and ethics be damned. It doesn't help that our current political leadership shares this view.
Newsflash (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Newsflash (Score:3, Insightful)
Alphabet (Score:2)
I'd better hurry, before someone else grabs it up from under my nose.
Re:Alphabet (Score:3, Funny)
'alphanumeric symbols combined to create grammatical constructs on the internet'
will probably be OK.
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?
Re:Prior Art Anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, and this whole Slashdot thing starting on Nov 24th. We're hosed!!
End Sarcasm.
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: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:WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
The first one is ridiculous enough, and obviously the one that they're getting uptight about, but the second one shows a far scarier thing.
"Exactly the same as 1, but different when doctors use it"
The proffession of the members of the group should have no bearing on the technical implementation of something like this, so why the hell is it in the list of claims?
No longer will I blame Lawyers. (Score:2, Insightful)
Only the money ladden will survive.
Good, now we can change it! (Score:2)
India patents zero and binary (Score:4, Funny)
Unless all computers in the world switch to Roman numerals soon, India will become the world's wealthiest nation soon!
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*.
Already patented... (Score:3, Funny)
Tm
I NIHIL I I NIHIL I NIHIL (Score:3, Funny)
DEFECTVS SEGMENTATIONIS
Svre, i can manage that. Lvcky that I, as one, live in Italy
Once we've settled the prior art dispvte vvith the Greeks (damn their alphas and betas, by Jove, vve'll have to invade them again), ovr nation shall rise again!
All your ascii are belong to vs.
It's the end of the world as we know it... (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, old fat women that go to Wal-Mart and fall on the wet floor have made their way to IT.
Just they are now heads of companies, heads that somehow rocketed up the company's ass so far that they cannot see reality.
*sigh*
STEEEEMPY, YOU EEEDIOT
Patent System Gone too far (Score:3, Insightful)
Basicly... (Score:2)
Under this patent I can't set up a hosting site (lets say professions.com or something) and then give out subdomains with maching emails. For example I couldn't set up a website for a doctor at http://tomsmith.doctors.professions.com and give him the matching email address tomsmith@doctors.professions.com without having to worry about infringing on this patent.
I can't believe the US Patent and Trademark office let this kind of stuff through. Its just like the ActiveBuddy patent. Stuff like this makes me s
whoops.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This will be a fun one to watch.
G 'n R (Score:5, Funny)
G'nR ?? I thought they broke up when Slash went solo.
Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Excellent!!! (Score:2)
But I don't really care about the money... I'm a blood thirsty Luddite looking to cure you all of your dependency on technology... getting rich will be just a happy side effect.
You may hate me now, but you'll be thanking me later.
Worst... Patent... Ever.... Granted.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I knew the USPTO was full of 'tards, but this just takes the fucking cake.. Only a freaking chimpanzee could think this patent deserved to be granted... no, wait, I take that back... a moderately intelligent chimp could see through this...
AAaaagggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These fools are gonna cause me to pull every last hair I have out of my head....
Re:Worst... Patent... Ever.... Granted.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Learn how the Patent system works, direct that energy into trying to fix it.
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.
Re:Prior art, DNS zone files (Score:5, Insightful)
It explicitly covers email addresses for subdomains, and even how some older software (pre-87) will break with it. (Thus the Request For Comment, to set a standard).
There needs to be some kind of punitive damage for people who attempt to patent things that are not only covered by prior art, but are in the Public Domain, for over 20 years before the application.
Re:Prior art, DNS zone files (Score:4, Interesting)
No. There needs to be some kind of punitive damage for the people who approve a patent application that is not only covered by prior art, but are in the Public Domain, for over 20 years before the application!
I say we need to start holding the U.S. Patent Office accountable for the actions of their "lazy, incompetent, government" employees.
BTW, I am a government employee. And if I did my job as poorly as they do, I'd expect to get my ass booted out into the cold, pronto!
HAH, that's not a URL ! (Score:5, Interesting)
URLs start with the "http://" prefix, or probably more correctly "|protocol|://" prefix.
They have a domain name there, that is all, not a URL.
If they get the terminology wrong in a patent, does that mean it is invalid, because the "inventor" doesn't understand the topic well enough to be explicitly correct ? I would have thought patents have to be explicitly correct, as the government is granting the patent holder a monopoly, and therefore, the patent must be very clear and correct.
Please, read the patent... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there ought to be penalties for the use of these nuisance patents. A judge then could not only strike down the patent's validity (which will obviously happen here), but could also impose a heavy fine to deter this kind of litigious crap from happening.
Re:Please, read the patent... (Score:5, Interesting)
How 'bout requiring a bond which is given to the first person to invalidate the patent.
-- this is not a
Re:Please, read the patent... (Score:5, Insightful)
LS
Bah - Prior Art is a no-brainer (Score:5, Informative)
Future entrepreneurs, this may come in handy: (Score:4, Funny)
The Prior-Art-O-Matic [thesurrealist.co.uk]
It's a joke, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is this is someone trying to prove how idiotic the USPTO is.
Two biggest blunders in America's Judicial system (Score:3, Interesting)
The second was in the 1980's when they relaxed the patent process for software. Up till that time, software was considered to be nothing more than mathematical formulas which could not be patented.
How I long for the glory days!
this is a GOOD thing (Score:3, Insightful)
USPTO reforms will occur... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like the Iraq WMD situation... except this time they're waiting for someone to drop the Big One before doing something about it.
Of course if I'm the one with the patent, then everything will be OK.
Bad Patent Penalties (Score:3, Funny)
The only thing(s) the patent examiner may use as a shield are the materials he gathered together that he can demonstrate are in support the patent, or the bodies of the person or persons who submitted the patent in the first place. The attendence of those persons is mandatory.
The galery has one half of one hour to act as they see fit... stones varing in size from golf-ball to basketball will be amply provided by the FTC.
Prior Art - The DNS SOA field "RNAME" (Score:3, Insightful)
At least one specific recommendation by a governing body for using hostmaster.example.com. as a DNS label to represent "hostmaster@example.com" can be found here [ripe.net], published well before this patent was filed.
This can also be seen in RFC 1912 [ietf.org] (section 2.2), published in 1996.
These muppets have patented something published in one of the very standards they should be familiar with.
- J
I hope they win (Score:5, Interesting)
Also be a great example to the EU of what not to allow.
Right... (Score:4, Funny)
You: Hussein wouldn't have any affiliation with Microsoft would it???
Someone: Hitler was one of the most evil men alive.
You: Hmm. Hitler wouldn't have any affiliation with Microsoft would it???
So I guess what I'm saying here is that you are truly a nerd, my man. A bit of a kook in that you seem to think MS is out to get you, but nerdly none the less. I salute you.