EarthLink Slapped With AntiSpamming Patent Suit

from the that-was-fast... dept

It did not take long at all for an impressively litigious Mailblocks to respond to the news that Earthlink was offering a free challenge-response system to its users to help them get out from under spam. Barely a few hours after the announcement, Mailblocks, which claims to own the patent on any "challenge-response" system filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Earthlink. In the original article we posted, before the suit was even filed, Earthlink claimed that Mailblocks' patents were "not relevant" to their offering. Obviously, Mailblocks (and its lawyers) felt otherwise. Not that I'm a fan of challenge-response systems at all, but I'm even less of a fan of overly-litigious companies waving around silly patents. Certainly makes you wonder a bit about Mailblocks' real intentions. They only want to see spam stopped if they're getting paid for it?

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