More Small Businesses Fall Victim To Patent Gouger

[leec]

Ok i was over at the oscommerce forums lookin for a contribution specific to my needs and seen a forum about this site here. I think you should check into it cause it is scary to think that whats in this site can happen to you. Now I don't know how much is truth and how much is not but I put my 2 cents on theyre forums.

http://www.youmaybenext.com

[Chicken]

I'm not sure exactly what this pertains to, however the point of a company demanding small businesses pay a relatively small amount of money ($5,000 in this case), or fight it happened here in California as well. It was a law firm suing on behalf of the people (somethign like a citizen's arrest of sorts, but I forget the exact details). They bascially did the same thing, businesses had to pay a small-ish amount or go to court to finght it (more costly). Last I saw, the firm was surrounded by business owners who had been sued, and I think the went a bit nuts on the place.

Greed... so lovely.

[leec]

It means that PanIP holds the patent to your website. Yes I said holds a patent. At first I didnt think it was possible but it is. I researched this more after I posted. Go the USpatent office " http://www.uspto.gov/ " and do a search for patent #5,576,951

[interactive]

Originally posted by Chicken:

I'm not sure exactly what this pertains to, however the point of a company demanding small businesses pay a relatively small amount of money ($5,000 in this case), or fight it happened here in California as well. It was a law firm suing on behalf of the people (somethign like a citizen's arrest of sorts, but I forget the exact details). They bascially did the same thing, businesses had to pay a small-ish amount or go to court to finght it (more costly). Last I saw, the firm was surrounded by business owners who had been sued, and I think the went a bit nuts on the place.

Greed... so lovely.

Welcome to America. I'd fight them till I ran out of money. I wonder how in the heck they got that patent to begin with!?

[beley]

As an owner of a medium sized e-commerce site, I've been worried about this for a while and following the case and site. There are a lot of very general patents that were granted in the Internet's early times, before the govt. understood what they were granting patents for. You may know this but Microsoft actually has a patent for Cascaded Style Sheets. It seems now companies are being sold and after review of assets they realize they might actually have something. It's the same thing as the SCO / Linux lawsuit going on...

[interactive]

Originally posted by CDHost:

As an owner of a medium sized e-commerce site, I've been worried about this for a while and following the case and site. There are a lot of very general patents that were granted in the Internet's early times, before the govt. understood what they were granting patents for. You may know this but Microsoft actually has a patent for Cascaded Style Sheets. It seems now companies are being sold and after review of assets they realize they might actually have something. It's the same thing as the SCO / Linux lawsuit going on...

Good point. Anyone ever remember that guy back east (for us west coasterners') who developed this tool that like some how doubled electrical current. Would save Americans billions every year, well course the patent office rejected it. Shows how corrupt the government is.