PATENTS
SITES
ARTICLES
The Amazon of All Boycotts
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, has called for a boycott of Amazon.com, due to the bookseller's decision to enforce its One-Click patent and sue rival Barnes and Noble. (12/18/1999 at Wired News)
Amazon Patents Affiliate Programs Technology
Ecommerce giant Amazon.com has received a patent for affiliate programs, a basic technology that is currently being used by numerous websites. (2/25/2000 at News.com)
Amazon's Grasp on One-Click Patent May Be Slipping
Noone has fully met Tim O'Reilly's posting of a challenge on BountyQuest.com, looking for prior art to invalidate Amazon's once-click shopping patent; still, the bookseller's patent may be invalidated in court. (3/14/2001 at InternetNews.com)
Amazon's Patent Reform Proposal
Tim O'Reilly gives his reaction to Jeff Bezos' reaction to Tim's original article criticizing Amazon.com's patents, and calls for Congressional hearings. (3/9/2000 at O'Reilly and Associates)
Berners Lee: WWW Royalties Considered Harmful
Tim Berners-Lee appears to agree with independent developers that allowing fee-collection for patents on web standards, as proposed by the W3C's Patent Policy Working Group (PPWG), is a bad idea. (10/31/2001 at The Register)
A Bid to Overcome Patent Backlogs
James E. Rogan, commissioner for patents and trademarks, has proposed overhauling the patent office through hiring more examiners, charging applicants more for complex applications, and other means.
(9/23/2002 at The New York Times)
British Telecom Taking Prodigy To Court Over Hyperlinks
British Telecom is suing Prodigy Communications (and other companies) for using hyperlinking technology, which BT obtained a US patent on in 1986; but a 1968 film shows Doug Engelbart using such technology over 30 years ago. (12/15/2000 at NewsBytes)
Close Is Good Enough for Amazon Bounty
Though no contestants met all the conditions of Tim O'Reilly's "bounty" on Amazon.com's 1-click shopping patent, he is splitting the $10,000 between the three who came closest. (3/15/2001 at The Industry Standard)
Court Skeptical of Amazon's Claim
The federal appeals court which is considering Barnes & Noble's request to let the bookstore use a system similar to Amazon's 1-Click Shopping did not seem impressed with Amazon's claim on the technology. (10/3/2000 at Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
David Wetherell
CMGI Chairman David Wetherell talks about the holding company's plans for the future; plans to enforce Altavista's patents on basic Internet searching technology; and lessons learned from the market in 2000. (1/15/2001 at Internet World)
Dot-coms Scramble for Patent Protection in Record Numbers
2,517 Internet-related patents were granted in the U.S. in the first half of 2000; patent and licensing revenue reached $110 billion in 1999. (9/11/2000 at American City Business Journals)
eMedicine, Inc. Receives Patent for Internet Publishing Software
eMedicine, Inc. has received a patent for its Group Publishing System (GPS) software. They say it is unique in that it "allows all production to take place on the Internet." (10/2/2000 at Information Today)
FTC, DOJ to Hold Hearings on Patent Proliferation
The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice will hold hearings on how the current patent system affects antitrust issues; members of Congress have introduced legislation to make challenging patents easier, and limit Internet-oriented patents. (11/15/2001 at NewsBytes)
Immersion Awarded Patent For Tactile Web Tech
Immersion Corp., which sells a computer mouse that can provide tactile sensations - "resistance, springs, liquids, textures and vibrations" - to a user's hand, has received a patent for its technology. (12/26/2000 at NewsBytes)
Judge Dubious About Link Patent
Judge Colleen McMahon, reviewing British Telecom's patent infringement lawsuit against Prodigy Communications, expressed doubt that BT's patent on hyperlinks, filed in 1976, was valid. (2/11/2002 at Wired News)
Losing the War on Patents
BountyQuest's market-based approach to stopping bad patents appears to have failed; the site's users have found few examples of prior art, and even when they have, those who might be helped by their discoveries sometimes settle with patent-holders anyway. (2/15/2002 at Salon.com)
Macromedia Claims Patent on Popular Adobe Photoshop
Macromedia Inc. is suing Adobe Systems Inc., saying Adobe's Photoshop and GoLive programs infringe on Macromedia patents from 1998. (10/19/2001 at SF Gate)
McAfee.com Heralds Patent for Web Services
McAfee.com has patented their model of ASP (Application Service Provider) services. (8/7/2001 at The Industry Standard)
Move in Congress to Limit Protection of Business Methods
Represenatives Berman and Boucher have introduced a bill that could reduce the number of business method patents issued; Boucher says he is not against business patents, but thinks they deserve greater scrutiny. (10/9/2000 at The New York Times)
NCR Sues Palm, Handspring Over Patent Infringement
NCR Corporation is suing Palm Inc. and Handspring Inc., saying the two companies' products infringe on patents covering "portable personal terminal[s]." (3/15/2001 at InfoWorld)
Net Patent Bill Introduced
Democrats Rick Boucher (VA) and Howard Berman (CA) have introduced the Business Method Patent Improvement Act of 2000, which would declare digital implementations of real-world processes unpatentable, in Congress. (10/3/2000 at Wired News)
Online-Coupon Companies Battle Over Patents
Companies that specialize in providing coupons and discounts online - including CoolSavings, Catalina Marketing, and BrightStreet - are waging important patent battles. (3/30/2000 at The Industry Standard)
Patent Application Could Evolve Into Trouble for E-commerce
The U.S. patent office will most likely grant a patent on computer-to-computer international trade to Ed Pool; if they do, he plans to collect 0.3% of all international Internet-based monetary transations. (8/28/2000 at MSNBC)
Patent Battle Takes TV Turn
OpenTV has a patent which covers one-click shopping via Interactive TV services (filed 1994); it believes the patent should be extended to cover one-click shopping online, which Amazon has patented (filed 1996). (10/6/2000 at Wired News)
Patent Office Director: My Hands Are Tied
At a debate between Vint Cerf (TCP/IP co-inventor), Lawrence Lessig (Stanford law professor), Q. Todd Dickinson (USPTO), and others, the pro- and anti-business-method-patents speakers came to no agreement. (10/4/2000 at NewsForge)
Patent Office Gets Workforce Boost in Bush Budget
Under the White House's proposed budget, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would get a 30% increase in personnel and 21% increase in funding. (2/5/2002 at Computer World)
Patent Office Takes A Fresh Look At The Net
The Information Technology Association of American (ITAA) wants to work with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to ensure that patents on Internet technology are truly innovative and unique. (5/12/2000 at Internet Week)
Patent Problems
Lawrence Lessig argues that Congress should pass laws about business process patents, rather than letting lawyers and courts determine how they are used. (1/21/2000 at The Industry Standard)
Royalty-Free Patent Policy
The W3C has released new draft of its patent policy; this one emphasizes getting W3C members to comply with the policy, and states a strong preference for royalty-free technical recommendations. (2/26/2002 at xmlhack)
Should Patents be Granted for Computer Software or Ways of Doing Business?
The UK Patent Office is soliciting comments from software developers and users on whether patents should be granted for software or for business methods. (11/1/2000 at The UK Patent Office)
Surviving the Internet Patent Wars
In the past 4 years, Internet patent issuances have increased 1000%; and they should skyrocket even faster by 2003. In today's ecommerce world, they can be a powerful tool in keeping the competition from infringing on your market. (12/6/1999 at The Industry Standard)
U.S. Patent Law Puts the Web Economy at Risk
The author warns that the current U.S. patent system stifles innovation, rather than encouraging it. (11/8/1999 at Computer World)
UK: Software And Business Methods Not Patentable
Slashdot discussion on the UK's decision that business methods should not be patentable, and only certain kinds of software should be. (3/13/2001 at Slashdot.org)
W3C Extends Comment Period on Patent Policy
The W3C has extended the comment period on its proposed RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) patent licensing proposal until October 11th, after complaints that the proposal did not receive enough publicity or debate. (10/2/2001 at InternetNews.com)
W3C Patent Plan Draws Protests
The W3C's plan to become more accomodating when it comes to including patented methods in their web standards recommendations has drawn a firestorm of controversy after some last-minute publicity. (10/1/2001 at News.com)
W3C Patent Policy Framework
The World-Wide Web Consortium's proposed policy on dealing with members' patents when those patents overlap W3C standards would allow corporations to charge for use of W3C standards. (8/16/2001 at The World Wide Web Consortium)
W3C Rejects Patents on Net Tech
The W3C's Patent Policy Working Group has voted, 12-7, to adopt a royalty-free patent system for the standards it works on; it won't declare standards based on technologies that patent-holders might charge for. (11/15/2002 at Wired News)
Who Ya Gonna Call? Patent Busters!
Charles Cella's company BountyQuest connects companies that want to find prior art to invalidate patents with researchers who can find that information; Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly are two investors in the company. (10/23/2000 at Salon.com)
Wireless Patent Wars Heat up
Geoworks Corporation has counter-sued Phone.com, which earlier challenged Geoworks' patent on "flexible user interface technology," which deals with formatting content for handheld devices. (9/11/2000 at Wired News)
World Wide Web Consortium Clears Patent Hurdle for Web Privacy
The W3C has issues a press release stating that its P3P technology does not infringe on Intermind Corporation's patent on privacy technology. (10/28/1999 at The World Wide Web Consortium)
XPointer and the Patent
Analysis of XML community reaction to a patent held by Jakob Nielsen and Sun Microsystems that Sun claims has bearing on the XPointer specification. (1/17/2001 at XML.com)
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