Singapore Firm Claims Patent Breach By Virtually All Websites

An anonymous reader writes "A Singapore firm, VueStar has threatened to sue websites that use pictures or graphics to link to another page, claiming it owns the patent for a technology used by millions around the world. The company is also planning to take on giants like Microsoft and Google. It is a battle that could, at least in theory, upend the Internet. The firm has been sending out invoices to Singapore companies since last week asking them to pay up."

what the fuck

Wow.... This remind me of that comic with the ambiguous superhero... 'I think my common sense is tingling!'. Then below it... Common sense... so rare it's a fucking super power.

Seriously, patents are fucking stupid. So is IP(intellectual property). Get rid of these, and world peace would happen over night.

Sure it is!

"I think I own this land."

"Really? Well, I think I own this land."

It's all IP.

Another Idiotic Patent

How do you patent something that is written in the HTML spec, that is a logical combination of two tags? This is why software patents need to be permanently banned. In our world today, it does not make the same economic sense to grant patents (or copyright).

Re:Another Idiotic Patent

The problem is that you can't patent a mathematical algorithm. Any algorithm that you could come up with for a computer program that would be valid for a patent by virtue of being novel, and non-obvious, would automatically be disqualified on the grounds that it is just a mathematical algorithm.

wrong

i remember that in some of my engineering courses, we studied numerical methods and algorithms to solve what would normally be reserved for humans to solve analytically. These courses were hard because it required that someone figure out a way or technique for a computer to solve something abstract quickly. Things like this should be fully patentable, because someone had put in the work to solve something.

There are likely many ways to do the things your novel algorithm is trying to solve. Blocking everyone else from solving the same problem using their own algorithm is ridiculous and counter productive to creating an open market. If you come up with an algorithm to search for widgets on the internet faster than anyone else, then good for you, you will make money at it if people deem it is worth the cost you charge. It should in no way allow you to prevent others to come up with their own fast widget searching algorithm. This is the problem with business/software patents.

The firm was established in 2004

and microsoft and google (and me) existed before that and *used* their technology.

Re:The firm was established in 2004

I was using this technique in 1999. As was just about every other web page. I was in highschool. I remember that a few of my classmates were amazed by my techniques of putting an "img" tag enclosed by the "a" tag. It's such a basic technique used. It's probably been in use as long as both the "a" and "img" tags have existed.

Re:The firm was established in 2004

It was pretty commonly used back well into the 80's for some of the various graphical front-ends and extensions to BBS packages.

Re:The firm was established in 2004

If you read their patent claims on their website they aren't quite making that broad of a claim. They believe they have a patent on submitting a search and showing image (of the respective website) links as a result of that search. I agree that was done long before, and they actually state on the website that it was not in "wide use" for "enterprise websites" prior to 2000. So apparently the think they can patent ideas that have prior art, just as long as they aren't being used by the majority of large companies.

If you actually subscribe to their insane claims, or are extremely paranoid, you could get around it very easily by not having the image use a href. Their patent claim specifically mentions hrefs.

How to make money on the Internet

1. Porn
2. Have an idea and get bought out before you lose too much cash.
3. Porn
4. Make a nuisance of yourself and get bought out before you lose too much cash.

That may be it. Then again, if they piss people off SCO style, they could be in for a rough time.

Alright...

... I've waited long enough. Now, after years of silence, it's time to reveal that I own the patent:

"Use something to do something"

I think a trivial $.01/use is an acceptable royalty. Start paying up. :)

outsourcing

I'm glad to see that we've even managed to outsource patent trolls.

Shirts!

Quick... someone start making shirts that say:

<a href="link"><img src="picture"></a>

... its about time those DeCSS shirts got replaced.

Re:Shirts!

If I sold a t-shirt for every stupid patent being claimed...
Now wait a minute ! I have a business model to patent !

Mail fraud

I don't know about the law in Singapore, but this seems so obviously silly that if I were a lawyer for one of the companies receiving the invoice, I'd ask the attorney general to prosecute for mail fraud (a federal offense which includes knowingly sending someone a bill for goods or services not rendered in hopes of receiving erroneous payment).

Slightly Misleading

I tracked down what I think is the patent in question [uspto.gov] and indeed it was originally accepted by the Australian Patent Office.

Here's the abstract:

The present invention provides a web-page (or web-site) search results list which includes images from the actual web-pages or web-sites identified in a user's search, or images associated with the actual organization operating a web-site. This assists a user to locate web-pages of interest or relevance to the user by providing images to assess the relevance of web-pages identified in a search, prior to the user having to hyperlink to the actual web-page itself. The invention also provides a method of assisting a user to be placed in contact with an organization, including the steps of: the user submitting a search request from a terminal, via a computer network, to a database server, the database server containing a database and a server-side application used as database searching software; the database searching software searching the database in accordance with the search request; identified database entries being transmitted to the terminal as a search results list, each entry of the search results list containing contact information for the organization; at least one entry of the search results list additionally containing visual content and/or audio content which relates to the organization.

After reading the claims, this patent seems to be more targeting sites that use search engines to return images that relate to a user's query. Although this is a prime example of how the international patent system is broken, it's unlikely they could target "virtually all" web sites with this patent.

They created it prior to 1993?

Being that the email record of the development of these features is pretty widely distributed, they'd have a tough time defending that patent if anyone makes them try. Here's the original proposal by Marc Andressen:

http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.html [webhistory.org]

In proposing the IMG tag, he explicitly says that it can be embedded in an anchor, and he describes its action. I have my doubts that these guys have prior art on web pages dating back to before 1993.

Easy to Prove

Filing date: Oct 3, 2001
Issue date: Jun 20, 2006

Wayback machine: http://www.archive.org/ [archive.org]

http://web.archive.org/web/19961017235908/http://www2.yahoo.com/ [archive.org]

What's that? An image? Linked?!?! That is what one might call prior art.

U.S. Patent 7,065,520

U.S. Patent 7,065,520 (issued in June 2006) would seem to be the US equivalent.

When you look at the claims, all the independent claims contain some key limitations:

receiving a search request from a user,

searching a database,

(other stuff, ending with)

"wherein the visual content comprises a plurality of mini-images in the form of a conveyor belt slide show."

A conveyor belt slide show? WTF? Gee, that seems fairly narrow to me!

Read the claims -- they define what the patent seeks to protect.

Re:Sweet

What would be really sweet is if it went to court and the judge finds it technically valid but too onerous. Following the logic, it would be an open door to judicial review of the entire patent system.

But in all reality, the judge will probably just rule this particular patent invalid (for whatever reason) and refuse to tackle the larger issue.

Re:Sweet

The absolute shamelessness of these people is what amazes me. They don't care how badly they are hated.

Don't they have friends and family they have to face? Or do they only associate with other criminals like themselves?

Re:Sweet

You know what else would be sweet? If a judge decided that supermodels refusing to have sex with me was technically valid, but too onerous. Following that logic, it would be an open door for judicial review of the whole "super models not having sex with nerds" system. That would be super sweet for all of us.

Depends

Technically? Depends on how much of the intellectual property is recognized by American courts. WIPO is supposed to be the global venue for patents.

Practically? No chance in hell. Even if they aren't laughed out of court, a little retroactive immunity legislation will fix that.

FYI, the American banking industry kneecaps patent holders that make it through the courts with retroactive immunity clauses with startling frequency. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021303731_pf.html [washingtonpost.com]

If only americans took an interest in their government. Most of it is too good/bad to be true.

Re:patent system reform

Whose patent reform?

Not a US company, not a US patent.

There's an unsubstantiated claim in the article that it appears a US patent was granted, but no evidence of that and no suggestion that the US patent office won't do the right thing when presented with it.

Yes, patents are broken, but don't assume this will impact the US patent process.

Re:Patented A href?

I have patented the carriage return linefeed combination.

That's obviously invalid. One important requirement for patentability is that an invention must be useful.