Crazy patent shit yet again :)
 

pulled off another site.....

"Looks like you can now be sued http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021020S0002/1 for using graphical and textural content on your e-commerce site. As everyone who has an e-commerce site does. A company http://www.panip.com/ in San Diego was granted one patent http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...1&f=G&l=50&s1='5,576,951'.WKU.&OS=PN/5,576,951&RS=PN/5,576,951 for using graphics and text to sell things on the web and another http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...1&f=G&l=50&s1='6,289,319'.WKU.&OS=PN/6,289,319&RS=PN/6,289,319 for accepting information to conduct automatic financial transactions via a telephone line & video screen. They have started their crusade with smaller companies that do not have the financial resources to fight back so as to build a "war chest" to take on larger companies like Ebay and Amazon. One site http://www.youmaybenext.com/ has taken the offense after becoming one of the first defendants of 50 companies http://www.youmaybenext.com/ so far. Curiously it appears the company was formed in March of 2002, less than a month before filing for the first lawsuit http://www.youmaybenext.com/why.html."


hahahaha. Craziness.

I worked with a dude who patented (methods patent) a process that entails sending digitally compressed / encoded audio and video signals via microwave (satellite). He and his patent attorney friends sued Hughes and were awarded in excess of 20M plus royalties for the duration of the patent.

The fundamental problem here is that I suspect he patented an idea he gained while doing research work at Motorola.