Another dumb patent

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© September 2003 Tony Lawrence

Tue Sep 9 23:23:08 GMT 2003 Another dumb patent

I can't believe this one: Websense Secures Web Filtering Patent

I suppose I'd need to actually read the patent, but this article makes it sound rather exactly like Squid - a product that's been around quite a while, though perhaps the Patent Office has no idea of that.

As I've said before, the only good thing about all these idiotic patents is that once they expire, it's going to be harder for the next joker to be so ridiculous. Suppose, you could get a patent so broad that it covered all programming algorithms. Awful: nobody could write anything until the patent expired. Ah, but then? Nobody could patent any programming algorithm at all. These "stupid" patents may turn out to be enablers of freedom eventually.

I wonder if 100 years from now we'll be able to look back on this and actually see it as the beginning of the end for unbelievable patents?

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