On February 14th of this year, the US patent office has granted the patent no. 7,000,180, which enables the Balthaser company to raise royalties for nearly any kind of so-called “rich media” content. This encloses both Flash and AJAX technology as well as JAVA.
As company boss Neil Balthaser proclaims, this patent covers practically each and every rich media technology – and this may evoke a new wave of patent lawsuits, as these technologies are well used all over the net, especially in the process of the web 2.0 evolution.
So this is another example of a ridiculously laughable software patent clearance, which is already doomed to failure, as it is just a matter of time until someone claims prior art. But at least up to then there is the clearly visible danger of getting sued for the mere usage of Flash, JAVA or AJAX on a website.
Thank god we don’t have software patents in Europe yet (and hopefully they’ll never come).
That laughable Balthaser patent has been filed on February 9th 2001 – let’s see how long it’ll last until it’s history again.
Source: Heise Online (German)
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monitor.coderights.org sagt:
24.02.2006 von 07:18 (UTC 0 )
[...] Carsten Albrecht on 4null4: Patent on “Rich Media” granted – AJAX and JAVA in danger [...]
monitor.coderights.org » Blog Archive » Balthaser and his evil cat take over the world sagt:
24.02.2006 von 07:20 (UTC 0 )
[...] Carsten Albrecht on 4null4: Patent on “Rich Media” granted – AJAX and JAVA in danger [...]