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Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet

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Re: Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet

#51
If these weren't depressing they'd be funny. For those who don't know the patent & trademark office (PTO) defines "obvious" as described in a prior patent or, sometimes, an academic paper. Even if everybody in the field has been doing the same thing for years it isn't "non obvious" unless somebody wrote to the PTO about it. But since it's obvious in reality those nobody except crooks bother to.

The whole system is rigged in favor of "people" who write up patentable junk -- those who have the time to write it into patents -- whereas people who actually build things are busy perfecting the trade skills the patent system was made to protect.

OK - tirade over. Back to my new app. My wife dreamed it up and we're writing it together. When finished and released, if it does well, some fat slob -- who never wrote or programmed anything useful in his life -- will show up to shake us down.

Re: Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet

#54
Interesting how much of the commentary here is on the patent being silly, rather than the implications of the monetization technique that the patent describes. We are allowing people to pay a fee to have their expression privileged over others. We are monetizing the salience of information, a betrayal of the very spirit of the Internet (or, at the least, the techno-utopian ideal of the Internet).

So yeah, patents are silly. But perhaps what's in the patent is equally troubling.

Re: Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet

#55

Question: If I build a start up here in Bolivia, it gets big among Latinamerican users - can I take a huge giant shit on the US patent system? Or does the patent system apply if my website application code is hosted on US servers?

Good question.

And if I'm running a small startup in the US that gets sued by a troll, can I disband my corporation and set up shop under a foreign corporation outside the US (if that's feasible in my personal circumstances)?

Re: Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disregard, then fight it later if you grow big enough to matter. That said, it can seriously screw you over if you get unlucky: http://www.k9ventures.com/blog/2011/04/27/modista/

> Apparently a corporation can only be represented by an attorney in a litigation and cannot be represented by the founders or officers Stuff like that is enraging. Free country, huh? You're not even allowed to represent yourself.

No, you're not allowed to represent the corporation, which is a separate and legally distinct entity from yourself. Since the corporation is a legal person, but cannot represent itself (not being an natural person, it cannot operate pro se), it must be represented by an attorney. That, then, brings in regulations on who may act as attorney (which is not always synonymous with lawyer or barrister) in litigation in a given jurisdiction. If you wish to represent yourself, then you need to be personally party to the litigation, which is what the legal personhood of the corporation protects you from (to a degree).

Re: Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet

#57

This is another example of a patent with a specific scope being given an incredibly broad title. This patent is actually on selling web site commenters the ability to have their comment appear in some kind of distinctive format, which might be a different font, or it might be appearing before the other comments.

Ok. I'll grant you the patent is slightly less hilariously stupid then the title suggested.

Re: Patent US8296192 – Method for making money on the internet

#60
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to imply that claim 1 has anything, and I mean anything , inventive? BTW this was filed in 2011, not in 1996...

I'm not aware of any existing examples of websites that let you pay for comment bling on individual comments, letting you preview your bling to get the style you prefer as described in section (b) of claim 1. So yes, it does seem novel (which is different to "inventive" but is the criteria required for patents). There are plenty of comment engines that offer avatars or paid subscriber adornments but few of these are…

Tumblr has "promoted posts", which do essentially this, but which were only introduced in 2012, after this patent was filed.
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