Amazon.com holds patent on threaded discussion process...

[Jimbrown]

Hello folks

And the patent insanity continues unabated. If you own or run any type of "threaded discussion process" including a message board, you'll want to read this. Although, it should be covered by "prior art", apparently it was not. Read the article about the patent that could hold very broad implications for forum programmers and owners below and remember, I'm just the messenger so please don't flame me because I own a forum too and this will affect me just as much as anyone else

http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/1635681

Like I said, pretty insane and it only gets worse.

[keith]

nothing to worry about.

[Jimbrown]

Originally posted by keith
nothing to worry about.

Really?. Why do you say that?. I hope your right:rolleyes:

[Daniel]

Remember when BBC wanted to charge everyone a licensing fee for using a HTTP link? Or Compuserve and their GIF filetype image?

It's not gonna happen.

[CareBear]

Most of those patents are filed just because they can. Unless you happen to be a multi-million competitor of Amazon and they don't like you they're not going to try and enforce the patent.
I find it more amusing then anything else.. "threaded discussion process" basically describes usenet as well and that's been around about as long as the internet exists and is so well established they couldn't claim to have had an 'original' idea.
There's a company that holds the patent to "provide links in the form of text that will take you from one preformatted page to another" aka... hyperlinks. You don't see them trying to shut down every other website as well.

[CareBear]

Originally posted by Daniel
Or Compuserve and their GIF filetype image?LZW compression is patented and you have to pay a licensing fee to use the compression algorithm in any program. The decompression algorithm is free to be used by anyone. That's the whole reason why PNG was 'invented' as a replacement.

[notnamed]

More proof that the people who work in the patent office are incompetent people who have no inkling on how the internet works, and probably have never visited a website in their life :rolleyes:
Some of the patents applied for recently are just downright stupid.

[CareBear]

*wonders if anyone has patented "the use of certain sequences of characters to represent facial expressions" yet* :D

[notnamed]

I think so. I know there was a parody of it somewhere, link is on this forum I think...

[jurupa]

Heck Bill Gates might as well buy the internet servers and run the interent on his terms. Bye bye open licenses. Internet business is worse than regular business.

[}:8) Supermoo]

Originally posted by notnamed
I think so. I know there was a parody of it somewhere, link is on this forum I think...

http://www.despair.com/demotivators/frownonthis.html

I wonder when someone will sue the US Patent office for issuing such useless patents...

[CareBear]

Originally posted by }:8) Supermoo
http://www.despair.com/demotivators/frownonthis.html

I wonder when someone will sue the US Patent office for issuing such useless patents... I think I'll just go file a patent for "filing useless patents". I'll be rich in no time :D

Thanks for the link btw :)

[}:8) Supermoo]

lol :biggrin2:

BTW, No problem. :)

[stabme]

Remember when BBC wanted to charge everyone a licensing fee for using a HTTP link? Or Compuserve and their GIF filetype image?

But, uhm.. UniSys DOES charge a liscensing fee for using GIFs. Webmasters and users surfing aren't penalized... the companies that make the programs are. Companies, such as Microsoft, JASC, Adobe, etc., according to FSF, pay a fee for they can use the LZ (?) algorithm to compress their images into GIF, and as well as some zipping programs for they can use the same algorithm to make zip files.

That explains why freesource software, such as GIMP and libraries as GD, doesn't support making GIFs anymore, because of the liscense fee....

Also explains how/why PNG images were made and gzip.

[Archbob]

They should make patent qualifications stricter.