Hey!
We were looking for something we came up with that we could patent, right? And we were specifically looking for something that would make fun of the idea of patenting itself.
Here's an idea.
For those who don't yet know, a company called Ideaflood has patented the idea of allocating sub-domains to particular users (or user accounts) of a website. So, for example, LiveJournal is now being asked for licensing fees because if you purchase an account at LiveJournal, you get a sub-domain "yourusername.livejournal.com".
How about we patent the idea of using language codes as sub-domains?
Ideaflood's patent claim is pretty weak because there is "prior art" (i.e. people have done this before the patent was filed), but I'm not sure I have ever seen a website that uses language codes as subdomains before Wikipedia did. They all seem to prefer something like www.domain.tld/en/index.html or www.domain.tld/index.en.html (with "en" being the language code) rather than en.domain.tld.
Just an idea, Timwi
Mathias Schindler wrote:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen schrieb:
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Timwi wrote:
^^^^^this was the part when I stopped taking the Idea seriously :)
It wasn't actually meant as an April Fool's joke. I've had enough of those for today. :)
It was a well-meant response to someone's (Jimbo's? Brion's?) question that was asked here about a month ago or so, seeking something Wikimedia have invented that they could patent (but then still allow people to use freely, of course) for the sole purpose of making fun of the patenting system.
Timwi
Timwi wrote:
Mathias Schindler wrote:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen schrieb:
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Timwi wrote:
^^^^^this was the part when I stopped taking the Idea seriously :)
It wasn't actually meant as an April Fool's joke. I've had enough of those for today. :)
There are always riskes connected with promoting new ideas on April 1. :-)
Ec
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Timwi wrote:
We were looking for something we came up with that we could patent, right?
Are we? I think it's an awful idea to have the Wikimedia Foundation patent something.
Notice that patenting something doesn't mean asking for royalties.
On Thursday, April 1, 2004, at 05:34 PM, Timwi wrote:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Timwi wrote:
We were looking for something we came up with that we could patent, right?
Are we? I think it's an awful idea to have the Wikimedia Foundation patent something.
Notice that patenting something doesn't mean asking for royalties.
True. However, the historical stated purpose of patents is to allow an inventor to profit from his or her invention for a period of time before everyone else starts profiting from the invention, and thereby provide incentive for further innovation. What other benefit would there be to patenting something? There needs to be some benefit to justify the expense involved.
Wesley Sheldahl wrote:
On Thursday, April 1, 2004, at 05:34 PM, Timwi wrote:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Timwi wrote:
We were looking for something we came up with that we could patent, right?
Are we? I think it's an awful idea to have the Wikimedia Foundation patent something.
Notice that patenting something doesn't mean asking for royalties.
True. However, the historical stated purpose of patents is to allow an inventor to profit from his or her invention for a period of time before everyone else starts profiting from the invention, and thereby provide incentive for further innovation. What other benefit would there be to patenting something? There needs to be some benefit to justify the expense involved.
For some the bragging rights are the only benefit that they need. :-)
Ec
Wesley Sheldahl wrote:
On Thursday, April 1, 2004, at 05:34 PM, Timwi wrote:
Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen wrote:
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Timwi wrote:
We were looking for something we came up with that we could patent, right?
Are we? I think it's an awful idea to have the Wikimedia Foundation patent something.
Notice that patenting something doesn't mean asking for royalties.
True. However, the historical stated purpose of patents is [...] There needs to be some benefit to justify the expense involved.
Sometimes I don't understand why the people who originally posted an idea (Jimbo in this case: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-March/009034.html) remain entirely silent when it is brought up again.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . till we *) . . .
On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Timwi wrote:
We were looking for something we came up with that we could patent, right?
Are we? I think it's an awful idea to have the Wikimedia Foundation patent something.
Even if it's April1: indymedia.org has the same language-code scheme, e.g. de.indymedia.org. __ . / / / / ... Till Westermayer - till we *) . . . mailto:till@tillwe.de . www.westermayer.de/till/ . icq 320393072 . Habsburgerstr. 82 . 79104 Freiburg . 0761 55697152 . 0160 96619179 . . . . .
Till Westermayer wrote:
Even if it's April1: indymedia.org has the same language-code scheme, e.g. de.indymedia.org.
'de' is the only one I could find that works. Its canonical URL, however, appears to be http://germany.indymedia.org/. Similarly, there is http://france.indymedia.org/ for France. The English version is at http://indymedia.org/en/index.shtml.
On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 00:15:14 +0100, Timwi wrote:
Till Westermayer wrote:
Even if it's April1: indymedia.org has the same language-code scheme, e.g. de.indymedia.org.
'de' is the only one I could find that works. Its canonical URL, however, appears to be http://germany.indymedia.org/. Similarly, there is http://france.indymedia.org/ for France. The English version is at http://indymedia.org/en/index.shtml.
http://de.yahoo.com/, iirc ibm also used/uses de.ibm.com for mail addresses, i'm sure there are more.
On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 02:44:01PM +0100, Timwi wrote:
Hey!
We were looking for something we came up with that we could patent, right? And we were specifically looking for something that would make fun of the idea of patenting itself.
Here's an idea.
For those who don't yet know, a company called Ideaflood has patented the idea of allocating sub-domains to particular users (or user accounts) of a website. So, for example, LiveJournal is now being asked for licensing fees because if you purchase an account at LiveJournal, you get a sub-domain "yourusername.livejournal.com".
How about we patent the idea of using language codes as sub-domains?
Sounds fun to me.
Next up: the idea of using the title of an article to construct its URL!
After all, no other encylopedia has been doing this :) (had a quick look at britannica.com and encarta.com)
More suggestions: simulating nested comments using wiki editing.
Hell, every source file in MediaWiki can get a patent for whatever it implements.
Arvind
Ideaflood's patent claim is pretty weak because there is "prior art" (i.e. people have done this before the patent was filed), but I'm not sure I have ever seen a website that uses language codes as subdomains before Wikipedia did. They all seem to prefer something like www.domain.tld/en/index.html or www.domain.tld/index.en.html (with "en" being the language code) rather than en.domain.tld.
Just an idea, Timwi
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org