“Dodgy Patents Rile Tech Industry”

Many techies are nervous if not aghast about the issuance of a number of patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in recent months, including one “awarded to security firm Network Associates that gives the company rights to technology that deletes ‘undesired data’ from a computer”, and “another that gives Amazon.com the right to […]

Many techies are nervous if not aghast about the issuance of a number of patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in recent months, including one “awarded to security firm Network Associates that gives the company rights to technology that deletes ‘undesired data’ from a computer”, and “another that gives Amazon.com the right to charge other website operators for using browser cookies that store data structures”. (Amit Asaravala, Wired News, Apr. 5). Another controversial one: Frank Weyer and Troy Javaher of Beverly Hills were recently issued a patent for an Internet naming system. Earlier this year, they sued leading domain registrars Network Solutions and Register.com for alleged infringement of their patent. “The patent covers the method of assigning URLs and e-mail addresses of members of a group such that the “@” sign is the dot in the URL. For example, if a group used a so-called third-level URL, www.john.smith.com, the e-mail address would be john@smith.com.” (Marguerite Reardon, “Domain registrars sued over URL patent”, CNETNews.com, Jan. 15; “Nizza Group Sues Network Solutions and Register.com for Patent Infringement”, news.webhosting.info, Jan. 11). Weyer and Janaver’s Nizza Group issued a press release Jan. 8 about its success; its lawsuits have drawn much criticism in such places as The Register (Kieren McCarthy, “Patent lawyer puts claim to entire Internet”, Jan. 17; Geek.com (Jan. 20); Slashdot).

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