USPTO Grants Patent to WWW Naming Scheme (DNS)

(Forwarded from Interesting People list)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [IP] USPTO grants Calif. lawyer patent overentire WWW (DNS) naming
scheme
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:23:16 -0500
From: Dave Farber <[email protected]>
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To: [email protected]


Delivered-To: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 11:56:15 -0800
From: Einar Stefferud <[email protected]>
Subject: USPTO grants Calif. lawyer patent over entire WWW (DNS) naming
scheme
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To: Dave Farber <[email protected]>

Geek News - Tue Jan 20 2004

USPTO grants Calif. lawyer patent over entire WWW naming scheme

      How could Albert Einstein have ever been one of these cretins?


Do you know about United States Patent No. 6,671,714?  You should.  The
patent, recently granted to one Frank Weyer of Beverly Hills, California,
grants the patent holder full rights to: (set italic) A method for assigning
URL's and e-mail addresses to members of a group comprising the steps of:
assigning each member of said group a URL of the form
"name.subdomain.domain"; and assigning each member of said group an e-mail
address of the form "[email protected];" (end italic) Sound familiar?
Well, it should, because the patent describes what is essentially one of the
most basic, most crucial underlying structures of the World Wide Web, namely
the domain naming system.

The concept of domains and subdomains, as well as the e-mail addresses
associated with them, has been around for a long time but apparently has
escaped being patented prior to now.  Meyer, a lawyer by trade, has
capitalized on that oversight, and as of December 30, 2003, Meyer owns it.
And now he's using it where it'll do the most good -- in court. . . . <snip>


http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2004Jan/gee20040120023507.htm 

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