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How could the USPTO be lame enough to grant a patent like this?

Those who think that LawPundit is exaggerating in the previous posting in citing to the dangers of affirming the Eolas patent and what awaits us if this kind of nonsense is not stopped quite soon by lawmakers and judges, should take a look at this CNET article by Marguerite Reardon at Domain registrars sued over new URL patent, in a suit involving a patent just issued, December 30, 2003. The patent holders are Frank Michael Weyer, a patent attorney, Beverly Hills, California and Troy Kurosh Jahaver.

The patent covers

“a method and system of assigning identical URL and E-Mail addresses to members of a group. For example, if Jane is a member of a group called “Group,” the patent covers assigning Jane the URL http://www.jane.group.com and the E-mail address jane@group.com.” [emphasis added by LawPundit]

As written by Reardon:

“The suit accuses Network Solutions and Register.com of selling rights to Web URLs and e-mail addresses that infringe on a patent that was granted to Javaher and Weyer on Dec. 30, 2003. The patent covers the method of assigning URLs and e-mail addresses of members of a group such that the “@” sign is the dot in the URL. For example, if a group used a so-called third-level URL, http://www.john.smith.com, the e-mail address would be john@smith.com.

In the complaint, Nizza Group specifically indicates that Network Solutions and Register.com are infringing the patent by selling rights to URLs and e-mail addresses under the .name domain.”

As written about the CNET story at Domain Name Rights Coalition

“Take a look at THIS story. How could the USPTO be lame enough to grant a patent like this? What’s next?”

You can be sure, that without legislative and judicial intervention, this is just the beginning of the coming chaos.

The legislative and the judiciary should ponder that if THEY do not get a handle on these problems, which are inevitable due to the stupid and erroneous extension – by the legislature and the judiciary – of the patent laws to both software as well as to the methods involved in running the internet, then one day the executive WILL get a handle on these problems, and probably have no choice but to do so.

Many seemingly unsoluble problems can be solved instantly by executive order. Indeed, one of the reasons that executive powers increase in any government system – is because the legislative and the judiciary are NOT doing their jobs adequately and are creating the need for executive intervention. We see this development in the battle against terrorism, where the law has developed too far in past years in favor of the rights of criminals and too little in the direction of the rights of the protected citizen. When that happens, someone has to restore the balance.

A legal system in which patents can be filed for every little item of technology related to the internet is absurd and will continue to lead to absurd results, such as the above legal action.

Here is the abstract of the patent involved, Patent Nr. 6,671,714:

“Method, apparatus and business system for online communications with online and offline recipients

Abstract

The present invention comprises a method, apparatus and business system for allowing on-line communications with members of a group of recipients for whom the invention has been implemented. A group may, for example, comprise members of a particular business or profession. For example, a group may consist of doctors admitted to practice medicine in the United States. Individual members of the group may or may not have existing internet presences. The invention allows online users to communicate with each member of a given group regardless of whether or not the member has an existing internet presence. In one or more embodiments, the invention does so by setting up a database of contact information for members of the group, creating an internet presence for each member of such group, creating an on-line user interface allowing a user to access the member’s created internet presence, and providing means of communications between the created internet presence and the member recipient. “