Patent troll sues Oprah, Sony over online book viewing

All your base are belong to us.

Which stupid git at the USPO granted that one?

They're smart though. Oprah will probably settle to avoid sullying her all important pristine reputation for distributing mindless pap to Americans who'd rather not have think for themselves.

Patent date : 2000

Wouldn't that mean there was prior art in the area?

I mean, call me cynical but I was viewing information about books online waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy before 2000 :)

Takin care o bidness

Makes sense to get as many of the family that can read into the friendly chairs in the courthouses of the world's most leading nation.

Any prior art around?

Like, say, allowing customers to browse the stock in a real, bricks 'n mortar bookshop, but not letting them take the whole book away without paying?

I wonder who the unsung genius was who "invented" that one.......

Hope he wins....

...then Phil K can sue for double the money for unauthorised use of his works for profit (i.e using the title of his works to gain said money from lawsuit).

This should be fun to watch!

Much as I wouldn't mind seeing anything to do with Oprah (all-time most annoying woman on TV) taking a kicking, I can't see heavyweights like Amazon sitting quietly in the corner and letting this parasite build a possible precedence case to come at them with later. I suspect Amazon would be quite happy to provide extensive evidence of prior art.

Eh?

I thought for a patent the subject couldn't be 'obvious' and there had to be no prior-art?

Oh, this would be America, right?

Mine's the one with 'Patent For Computing Device' in the pocket.

More proof (if it were needed)...

...that lawyers are just a cancer on society. They create nothing and they destroy everything.

I wonder how long it'll be..

...before the rest of the world tells the US to roll its half-arsed patent system up, coat it in Vaseline and put it in the appropriate storage? Seems to me that any company or individual wanting to launch something even vaguely innovative would do well to avoid The Land Of The Free (TM) as grasping chancers like this guy who would push ROI through the floor in a couple of months.

Paris because... well, Vaseline...

To quote from the patent..

"A system for enabling touch and feel over the internet provides a three-dimensional representation of a good being sold, that three-dimensional representation being viewable from a number of different directions."

I can't see how this is interesting when dealing with books, but it's simple enough to set up a service as discussed in the article without going fancy 3D. Why the hell would you? Also, wtf do they even mean by "touch and feel"? I'm pretty sure I don't get a haptic interface when reading through Kindle.

Patent pending?

I seem to remember someone had patented patent trolling *searches* [url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/10/halliburton_patent/]haha![/url] And if you read [url=http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20080270152&OS=20080270152&RS=20080270152]this[/url] it's clear that suing Oprah and Sony is a violation of Halliburtons intellectual property. Should we warn them??

I feel I'm in the wrong universe sometimes. Does any of this actually make sense to the natives?

Paris, as a counter weight to this madness...

who's that crossing my IP bridge

has anyone yet patented the act of filing for patents? surely a money spinner to fill the coffers of all patent trolls out there. Seriously though, how do these patents get through? Don't you have to have an actual product you have made anymore? just the vaguest of ideas? Is this the basis for the term 'patently absurd'?

Lawyers...

No comments about them.

But laws should be changed to avoid the possibility of patent trolling, methinks. These scums who buy patents just to sue are parasites, and as such must be "exterminated". Aren't patents supposed to give incentive to innovation and all that? So, if you hold a patent but do not produce or demonstrate research on anything based on the patent (let's say, after a certain amount of time), then you should either not be able to sue to enforce it (because that's stifling innovation and production, just the opposite of the "spirit of the law"). Or, preferably, lose it.

Stupid move

I hope they get destroyed; (*&$ing trolls!

They've chosen to sue somebody who is rich, popular, and articulate... who also likes taking up causes. If Oprah decides to fight this watch out.

Can you imaging Oprah in front of a jury? She'd have them crying in their seats.

It's time they were referred to the case of...

Arkell versus Pressdram

@jake

> Or (hopefully) they will win, and there will be no more ads on TV or radio ..

ROTFL

That would be the BBC then? (Apart from ukTV though, mostly BBC but looong adverts.)