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.

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