If they AOL were to try to sue anyone over this they'd learn quickly enough this is utterly unenforcable, just like Amazon's "One-Click" patent. There are about a hundred cases of "prior art" that should easily overturn the case.
This is another case not of "corporate greed" or "people overreacting" but instead "all of the above." Articles about amazingly broad and "potentially threatening" patents that have been granted are posted almost twice a day to Slashdot. Each time there's a huge fervor over it, with shouts of gloom and doom about what this will mean for [favorite open-source/freeware/what-have-you application]. Each time it's completely overblown and logic wins out in the end (Remember when somebody patented using a laser as a cat toy?). I mean, come on... somebody tried to patent hyperlinks, and the entire community cried out that this would be the end of the Internet because royalties would have to be paid on URLs, oh me oh my. Yet it was overturned, and here we are, merrily including A HREF tags in web content.
*yawn*
If they AOL were to try to sue anyone over this they'd learn quickly enough this is utterly unenforcable, just like Amazon's "One-Click" patent. There are about a hundred cases of "prior art" that should easily overturn the case.
This is another case not of "corporate greed" or "people overreacting" but instead "all of the above." Articles about amazingly broad and "potentially threatening" patents that have been granted are posted almost twice a day to Slashdot. Each time there's a huge fervor over it, with shouts of gloom and doom about what this will mean for [favorite open-source/freeware/what-have-you application]. Each time it's completely overblown and logic wins out in the end (Remember when somebody patented using a laser as a cat toy?). I mean, come on... somebody tried to patent hyperlinks, and the entire community cried out that this would be the end of the Internet because royalties would have to be paid on URLs, oh me oh my. Yet it was overturned, and here we are, merrily including A HREF tags in web content.
-Feren
"We use them for divine retribution."