Daily Archive for August 12th, 2005


12
Aug
2005

Amazon successfully blackmailed out of $40M

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , , , .
original article

Soverain Software of Chicago, IL successfully blackmailed Amazon out of $40M using patents originally owned by OpenMarket, one of the many companies ruined by divine (*spit*). Soverain Software bought the patents from divine in a bankruptcy sale.

Soverain Software is run by a former divine Sr VP Katharine Wolanyk. I’m sure she learned the “ethics” of eCommerce at divine and is continuing the “good” work at Soverain Software.

OpenMarket owned several eCommerce patents most of which fall into the “so obvious I could design and code it, bug-free, in 2 hours”-category.

-TPP


12
Aug
2005

Microsoft patents breathing

Published in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: , , .
original article

The USPTO has published a patent filing originally filed by Microsoft in 2004. The filing is an attempt to patent a way to visually emphasize numbers in an eletronic document by surrounding the number in a rectangle frame. Wow! The groundbreaking research at M$ really does come up with some really great ideas!

Here’s an example of what’s getting patented:

In case any M$ lawyers are reading, you can send your cease-and-desist letters to me.

-TPP