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Patent Issued On Web Filtering
from the non-innovation-at-its-best dept
The latest in a long line of silly patents has been issued to Websense. They now own the patent for "controlling access to internet sites". How is this possible patentable? It's a filter. It's not unique. It's not innovative. It's so damn obvious that it's amazing anyone bothered to patent it. No, actually, it's not amazing - because of the way our patent system is set up, where you simply patent anything and everything - knowing that it will get by the patent examiners and then you're granted a perpetual monopoly on a blatantly obvious idea. In the meantime, Websense uses this announcement to again promote their misleading statistics about "lost productivity". Maybe it's time I patent the process of "trusting your employees." Of course, I wouldn't be able to enforce it because it seems like everyone is, instead, using web filters to make their employees feel like little kids who constantly need to be looked after.
Reader Comments
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No Subject Given
Cool. We need the censor-nuts to censor each other, not the rest of us. Let them fight over patented methods which have been in use for thousands of years (except "on the Internet").
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No Subject Given
Its the law.
Follow the law and accept and obey what you are told.
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No Subject Given
Im going to go file a patent for "encoding alphanumberic text and symbols into a machine readable format" Then sue everyone that uses ASCII, ANSI, and all the other character sets. That will make me a ton of cash. Everyone that owns a computer will have to pay me royalties so they can use a keyboard.
*Insert evil laugh here*
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