CueCat Patent Granted, Finally 184
RobertB-DC writes "Who could forget the :CueCat, the amazing device that would bring 'convergence' between the real world and the online marketing Utopia of the late '90s? Belo, the Dallas-based newspaper and TV conglomerate, spent millions of dollars on the project, only to be ridiculed from the start and eventually becoming a sort of poster kitty for the Dot-Com Bust. Well, the device's inventor and chief cheerleader, J. Jovan Philyaw, didn't forget. His patent application, in progress since 1998, has finally been granted. The story comes from a Dallas alternative weekly, since the local Belo paper is still smarting from its $40-million-dollar black eye."
Crap patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly, this one got approved via the Patent Office's rule that "If you can't decipher the run-on sentence, approve the patent".
Yeah, I know the patent rules pretty much require run on sentences, but Claim 1 here is ridiculous even given that.
Best I can tell, Claim 1 covers doing a lookup of a code at a remote site and receiving something like a URL back, then following that URL. The code has to have been received before the user connected to the network.
That is, if I set up a server which returns a redirect for "8972" of http://www.cat.example.com/ [example.com] and "1513" to http://www.dog.example.com/ [example.com] and I send you (via US mail) "8972", which you then enter at my site and get redirected to the cat site, the patented method has been used.
Re:Brilliant!! (Score:1, Insightful)
I think it was before its time. Back then cell phones were not as ubiquitous as now, and they didn't do anything other than call people. Nothing like the wireless infrastructure of today. Imagine a small barcode scanner that could do the same task today. You could instantly do this with your iphone today and it would make a lot more sense. I still think this is a good idea with poor implementation. Too much though has to go into actually getting the data you want.
Re:I already used this... (Score:3, Insightful)
A method for interconnecting a user's location to a destination location on a network. The unique information is received at the user's location, which unique information has no associated routing information embedded therein. Network routing information is associated with the received unique information in response to receipt thereof. The user's location is then interconnected to the destination location across the network in accordance with the routing associated therewith in the step of associating.
I smell a patent troll brewing...what better place than in Texas?