Your Webshop is patented!

[Jason Chong]

Bummer..


http://webshop.ffii.org/

[cliffski]

can we just maroon all the worlds lawyers on some remote island NOW please?

[svero]

We tried but the map to the island was copyright and the navigation instruments required to get us there were patented. The whole thing's still in court.

[EpicBoy]

I didn't think it was possible to patent something already in use. There is TONS of prior art for all of those things...

[cliffski]

lawyers dont care about such details. from what i understand, in america the legal system is such that you can sue anyone for anything, and unless they have th money to defend the court case, you win. In other words, the small guy is always screwed by the rich guy.
OTOH, If some idiot sent me a letter saying I can't use a gif file or a buy button on my webpage, I'd just laugh and tell them where to stuff their lawyers. Most of this legal crap is just people 'fishing' hoping weak individuals will roll over and hand them the cash. There is no way I'd pay an out-of court settlement. If you are in the right, fight it in court.
anyway... bit of an off-topic rant there lol!

[Obscure]

I didn't think it was possible to patent something already in use. There is TONS of prior art for all of those things... Problem is someone actually has to lodge a complaint (and be willing to pay the large legal fees involved) in order to get this stuff overturned.

[cliffski]

I dont understand this US system. why do you have to pay legal fees? why cant you challeneg something yourself.
I dont see how there are large fees involved in anything legal. it makes no sense. (unless you are a lawyer obviously).
I am 100% of the belief that putting all the worlds lawyers on an island and nuking it would make for a better world.

[Dom]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/patent/wanted/) has a list of the top 10 'most wanted' software patents for threatening public domain software development.

[Greg Squire]

I really think software patents are a bad idea and should be done away with. They don't seem to really protect companies as they were intended. Instead it appears that it has just the opposite effect. Too often, somebody gets a patent (because of some idiot at the patent office), and then they use that patent to go sue another company. I don't have much faith in the people at the patent office either, as I see way too many patents issued, where there was clearly "prior art" and it was ignored, or that the patent was just way too broad. (I think I'm going to patent "the internet" and "software", and then sue the world, yeah, yeah that's it ... :D )

I know I'm not alone in thinking that software patents are just EVIL! (a lot of people feel this way; see the links below) Unfortunately, I'm not sure these are ever going away. I wish they would, but I don't know that it will ever be so. There's not much us little guys can do, except voice our opinions, and hope somebody doesn't sue us using a ridiculous software patent.

http://www.binarybits.org/bitbucket/2004/07/software_patent.html
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,2107481,00.htm