Patent describes way to announce your latest domain name registration.
Last year I wrote about Go Daddy’s patent applications related to announcing a domain name registration on a social network.
Today the United States Patent and Trademark office granted the domain name registrar a patent for “announcing a domain name registration on a social website”.
U.S. patent number 8,276,057 (pdf) describes a way in which a domain name registrar account could be connected to a social network such as Facebook. After a user registered domain name, the user could set a delay period before which an announcement about the registration would be made on the social network. The system could also track traffic driven by the social network posting.
The patent says the purpose of this announcement could be to drive traffic to a newly created web site or even a parked page. (Of course, driving traffic by this way to a parked page would be frowned upon by domain parking companies.)
Do the people granting these patents have ANY idea of the real world?
Or does it all come down to someone objecting to these far-reaching patents.
So, if someone registers a domain at some other registrar and then posts it on twitter / fb Godaddy can sue them or charge them? Wtf?
These patents are getting ridiculous. Uneducated approval of a patent will quickly hinder the technology market. The mobile development world is already seeing the impact of this…
I agree with Jeff and Samit, it’s out of control. The people reviewing these don’t have a clue. I think I’ll patent the way a person clicks their tv remote control to get from from stream of visual entertainment to another and also the process of a person blinking their eyes while viewing a monitor device, 1/100 of a penny for each blink. I should be able to retire in a few days.
Let’s not forget that Apple was granted a patent for a “Rectangular shape cell phone” and it was one of the claims they made against Samsung in their lawsuit against them.
Godaddy having many patents one is especially spectacular Certificate of paying only $19 and afther purcharsing power without the owner of the domain name TDLs know what is salling for $25,000 with or without this taxes. Discover that Network Solutions the pionner of the domain name registrar in United States, this company do the same with a domain name TDLs and not begin able to report that everything is to be bought without looking strong power and money in campaigns of a worldwide market and industry.
I love it. Each and every day, it gets easier and easier to get sued. We need to kick out those 70+ year old patent approvers and get some educated people in there!
This just reminds me of this, from thedailywtf
——–
We Don’t Need People Like You (also from Dan M)
Many years back, when I was fresh out of school, I decided to apply for a job at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The USPTO had started to grant patents on computer programs and, as such, was looking for Computer Science Patent Examiners.
After filling out the requisite stack of application paperwork, I was granted an interview. When I arrived for the interview, there was a small waiting room for candidates for the position. Half an hour later, my name was called and I entered the interviewer’s office.
I sat there in silence for roughly 8 seconds until he turned the résumé around and pointed to the second line, “what is this?” he demanded, jabbing roughly at the education section.
“Uhh,” I paused, wondering if I had misspelled my degree. “Umm…. Bachelor of Computer Science… Carnegie Mellon… School of Computer Sci—”
“That’s what I thought” he said scornfully.
I blankly started. After a few moments I responded, “I’m sorry?”
“Do you have any idea what we do here, Dan?”
“Yes, I do”, I stuttered, “you examine patent applications on a variety of systems and…whatnot. Right?”
“Exactly! We don’t need people like you here,” he said, tossing my résumé back at me. “We only accept Math and Engineering majors here!”
Obviously, my career aspirations at the USPTO died shortly after that. Though, after the experience, I tend not to be as surprised as others when we hear the latest story about somebody being granted a patent for “inventing” the scrollbar or something.
It’s all about money …
Oh good, now a bunch more idiots will complain about how the patent office didn’t do what it isn’t the patent office’s job to do: judge the validity of a patent concept.
It is the point of the patent system, and always has been, to defer these decisions to a jury of peers. Instead, people are complaining that they’d rather have it decided by an unquestionned bureaucrat in a dark room?
Please, pull the other leg.
@John: It *is* the USPTO’s job to reject patent applications that fail to show either originality or non-obviousness. They were never intended to be a big rubber stamp.
@Sean – let me fix this for you
@John: It *was* the USPTO’s job to reject patent applications that fail to show either originality or non-obviousness. They were never intended to be a big rubber stamp, but now, patent examiners are measured not by quality, but by quantity. The more patents they approve, the better they look when their year end review comes along.
Papa Johns Pizza lets you Share (Announce) a Pizza Order on Facebook…
Lets Patent that and license it to them, pizza hut… obviously if GoDaddy was approved, we might for Pizza too 🙂
How is this patent anything more than a “concept”. There’s certainly nothing tangible about it.
Sounds like it’s time for the USPTO to go, or at least fire all the idiots working there.
~sigh~ The USPTO gets it wrong again.
Haven’t people been freakin’ posting notices of all types – birth announcements, death announcements, legal decrees, business creations, etc. for CENTURIES in newspapers, stone tablets, papyrus, etc.
Just becuase we’ve done something on the internet or on a computer does not make it new or change it from being non-obvious.
You Gotta Be Fricken Kidding Me
(YGBFKM)
This must be a lawyer trick again.