Edited by author 01-20-2003 11:23 AM
Hey, they were cool enough to offfer a "Preferred Rate license" ! That makes up for it, right?

Given that structured documents have been a part of the web for many years now, aren't they a little late in defending their patent? I also haven't paid a dime for gif either.

This won't stand...

IANAL, but I recall Lotus v. Borland, where Lotus sued Borland for copying the 1-2-3 menu trees and macro language. The Supreme Court threw that out lock stock and barrel:

http://www.panix.com/~jesse/lotus.html

Wow, these guys must've invented the TARGET="" thingie for the A HREF tag!

BTW, and I know this isn't the right board for it, I just realized that the buttons in that new GIF animation bring whole new meaning to "boingboing"...

...yeah, "preferred rate" is kinda tempting. Maybe if they threw in some air miles...

IAAL and I cannot believe that there is not some kind of "prior art", a documented instance of this kind of HTML document structure, extant before 1996. Some early Web design book? That's all it would take to shut this little protection racket down.

I'm sure there is invalidating prior art. For example, persistent nav was a major element of the HyperCard UI guidelines in the late 80s; what's more, Ted Nelson discussed this in his Xanadu hypertext work decades before.

Which doesn't mean they won't threaten and that companies that can't afford a suit won't pay up. Nor that companies that CAN afford a suit won't toss millions into the court-system blackhole on the way to proving this point. This is a protection racket, pure and simple. It disgusts me. We need to clean up the USPTO and fast.

Edited by author 01-20-2003 10:54 AM
I love how "bribing harassers to go away" has become "respecting the intellectual property rights of others".

More than prior art though, does this patent violate the First Amendment? It's one thing to patent inventions, it's another to patent certain forms of speech. What's next? A patent on logos with swooshes in them?