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Verio Trademarking 'Whois'? 140

Posted by jamie from the you-are-reading-this-over-HTTP(tm) dept.
thaJungle was the first to pass along the buzz. "Looks like owning all the bandwidth in America isn't good enough for Verio; they apparently want to own WHOIS as well. In fact, they trademarked it..." Well, not exactly. I talked to Verio PR and legal. They own "whois.net," and when they filed to trademark that, they filed for the standalone name too as a matter of course. Since there's just a bit of prior use, the registration was rejected; aware now of its history, they're dropping the application. Update: 02/05 by J : Brian McWilliams has a more informative and skeptical story at internetnews.com.
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Verio Trademarking 'Whois'? More

Verio Trademarking 'Whois'?

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  • My question is this: shouldn't they have known this before doing anything? After all... "whois" isn't exactly... obscure...

    That's just dumb.


    If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • No penalty for attempting to scam the USPO (Score:4)

    by kevin805 ( 84623 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @11:32AM (#1304385) Homepage
    One of the problems with the patent office is that there is no penalty for trying to trademark or patent something that isn't eligible. There should at least be some really hefty fine, like 10% of the revenues you would have gained from having a US government monopoly on someone else's idea.

    --Kevin
  • yup, and since it has already been shot down (quite rightfully so), this doesn't seem to be all that newsworthy...
    In other news, Commander Taco applied for a Trademark on "Taco"... after he was laughed out of the room, he then looked it up and realized that it had been in use for years.

    I just hope we don't see every rejected tech patent/trademark. This *was* exceptional stupidity, but it was thwarted quite quickly.

    Snooze 8^) (I'm in a pretty lousy mood for a Friday, huh?)
  • This story sounds like something out of the onion... I mean, it's just that ludicrous...

    "We're upping our standards, so up yours..." -Pat Paulsen

  • Registering Domain Names (Score:4)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <`imipak' `at' `yahoo.com'> on Friday February 04, 2000 @11:36AM (#1304388) Homepage Journal
    This should require a licence. Qualifications to obtain a licence would include:

    • A positive IQ of more than 1 digit
    • The ability to read
    • Understanding the acronym FAQ
    • Understanding the acronym RFC
    • Understanding why said acronyms are relevent
    • Knowing at least one place to get them
    • A working knowledge of how the domain name system works
    OR
    • Being able to recite The Parrot Sketch, and
    • Being able to recite The Penguin Sketch
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Fsck'ing Whois Leeches (Score:4)

    by pb ( 1020 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @11:37AM (#1304390)
    The Data in Peter Baylies' Slashdot Posts are provided by Peter
    Baylies for information purposes, and to assist persons in obtaining
    information about or related to a slashdot story or related anecdote.
    Peter Baylies does not guarantee its accuracy. By reading this
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    unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via e-mail
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    A trademark is pending for the terms "Slashdot Posts" and "Slashdot".
    Purely as a formality, I assure you.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Thank you for fact-checking (Score:5)

    by HMV ( 44906 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @11:39AM (#1304391)
    This bit of news could have quickly turned into the latest knee-jerk "they patented WHAT?!?!?" story. Instead, with a bit of checking, you were able to hopefully circumvent at least the most ridiculous part of the submission and let readers know what the real issue of the story is. Hope to see a good bit more of that.
  • For the past three weeks this salesdrone from Verio has been calling me - every time he does he ruins my thought process on whatever bit of code I am working on. Yeah, I have told him to take me off his list, but the next time I am really gonna let him know what I think of Verio...

    Thanks Slashdot! You just brought some joy into my life!
  • Sad thing is, it's less trouble to actually try and patent something obvious then to try and research if it's obvious. It's also much safer legally to not know what other companies and people have done and patented.

  • Re:WTF?? (Score:3)

    by jamiemccarthy ( 4847 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @11:44AM (#1304394) Homepage Journal
    I don't think it was an attempted scam. Lawyers are busy people, and when the paperwork for "whois.net" dropped on their desk, they probably didn't realize that the generic term was already in use. A case of miscommunication, unless I miss my guess.

    Jamie McCarthy

  • Alright, I'll give you that... they haven't been a factor in my area, and I wasn't looking at it in that light. Still, unless it was some really evil plot (it just looks like they were dumb), I don't see a need...
  • This story was actually checked before posting.
    Even though it isn't as bad as the original poster thought, I'm glad to see it posted anyway.

    Perhaps this is the beginning of a whole new age of /. journalism.
  • Verio seems to be subscribing to the market standard of Shotgun Copyrighting. "We must copyright EVERYTHING WE DO!"
    I'm suprised that they didn't try for W, H, O, I and S as well.
    No wonder the Copyright officials have problems- companies are playing "those with the most patents win." Perhaps some sort of limitation to the number of patents per entity per year would be one possible solution, albeit a very poor one.

  • Thanks Verio! (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @11:58AM (#1304399)
    Thanks verio! Rather than doing something stupid legally, you guys did the Right Thing and withdrew the request. Thanks!
  • I'm suprised that they didn't try for W, H, O, I and S as well.
    AOL/Time Warner/EMI already owns 'O' and 'I'. ;)
  • Dammit. I remember the Parrot Sketch, but the Penguin Sketch doesn't ring a bell. Guess I'm not good enough for a license! :P

    (I would have moderated you up if I could.)
  • Rancid has prior art on "oi oi oi".

  • /.'d (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @12:06PM (#1304403)
    verio got slashdotted. "Oh my god, you killed Apache, you bastards!"

    http://home.verio.com/ [verio.com]

  • Re:WTF?? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    shouldn't they have known this before doing anything

    Well, speaking as a Verio employee, and as someone who is involved with the whois.net system, I think I have a little insight into the whole situation. Verio knew of the prior use issues well before attempting to trademark the term "whois". They aren't stupud. But like lawyers and marketers everywhere, the upper management decided to go ahead and try to trademark it regardless. They figured it was worth the attempt, even though it probably wouldn't succeed, just because of the tremendous benefits should it actually slip through. That's the way managers, lawyers, and marketers think. They don't particularly care about what's right, only what they can get away with. Put more simply, when attempting to understand the actions of managerial types, don't think in terms of "dumb" but rather in terms of "sneaky".

    And also be glad that this time, the marketers didn't get away with it.

  • Verio bought my local ISP (ClarkNet) and then proceeded to gut them like a fish. Very bad service, dropping shell accounts, etc. I remember distinctly Jamie Clark (the ClarkNet founder) announcing the acquisition, saying what a great thing it would be for everybody.

    Kinda reminds me of what CmdrTaco said about being bought out...

    --
    Howard Roark, Architect
  • Trademarks can be anything, as long as:

    1) There isn't already another trademark with
    the same name registered.

    2) It isn't simply descriptive. This is why open source didn't get it. The defined the term before registering it.

    Otherwise things like Bob, and Java certainly wouldn't have been trademarked.

  • (r) (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 04, 2000 @12:09PM (#1304407)
    I(tm) Really(r) Don't(c) Enjoy(p) All(tm) Those(tm)(r) Patent(r) Stuff(tm). At(tm) "What Point"(tm) In(r) Time(c) Did(r) Trademarks(p) A(c)+(p) Product(tm) Become(c) More(r) Important(r) Then(r) The(p) Product(r) Itself(c)?

    "What a world... What a world.."
    Sig (c)+(p)+(tm)+(r)+(whatever) by "The wizard of oz"

  • <i>aware now of its history, they're dropping the application.</i>

    You cannot tell me that they had no clue what whois was and it's history. That is the biggest crock of monkey shit. I may be glad that they didn't attempt to trademark something like whois but this is just the worst damn excuse ever. If an internet company doesn't know what whois IS they have no damn business trying to be an internet company. Jesus H christ, what is the actual intelligence level of companies these days?

    Sorry for the rant. I've had a hectic day and this just struck a nerve.

  • ahhh shit i guess slashdot has html formatting turned off with the CERT advisory. You get the point though.

  • Yup...STUPID I think I will go register www.whatis.org ...that sound cool? eh eh eh?

  • Use checkdomain instead (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    checkdomain.com [checkdomain.com] lets you check domain names in many more TLDs than whois.net. Plus they aren't trying to sell you anything.
  • Actually the fact that they are that dumb shows that they have no business being in the type of business they are. At least if, like you said, they are that dumb.

  • verio (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    theJungle's comment about Verio "owning all the bandwidth in America" certainly rings hollow for those of us who have had the misfortune to rely upon Verio's overcongested, underprovisioned backbone. In the local vernacular, they are known as "VerySlow"
  • Anytime someones ping something he'll have to pay me a royalty ! Muhaha, World Domination (tm) is mine ! I'll soon be able to take over the world, all you leet haxors better start to fear my genius.
  • Well, pardon me for saying so, but I think it was extremely "stupud" of Verio. That was a completely moronic thing to do and was not at all sneaky in any way. Hell, hitting consumers over the head with a blunt object unitl the bowed to the almighty Verio would be more sneaky than this fodder.

  • Define collatteral estoppel. (And you are not allowed to look it up.)

    We are geeks. We know computers. We don't know law.

    Lawyers know law. They don't know computers.

    Ask any lawyer the above question, and they can give you at least a thumb nail sketch of what collatteral estopple is. Ask any geek, they look at you like you just assigned your DHCP server's ip address within the DHCP pool. Dumb. Ask any lawyer what DHCP is, and they look at you like you don't know what CE is.

    Give them credit, at least they didn't try to sue everyone into submission.

    ---

    Communicate, damn it!

  • This is what I get from home.verio.com... "The most likely cause of this problem is that the server is not currently running. Verify that the server is running and restart it if necessary." Do they need help?
  • Word. If I weren't suffering from email address inertia--the very same thing that keeps people on AOL--I'd drop Clarknet like a rock; the drop in quality since Verio bought them is remarkable.
  • This is true. At least they aren't like Amazon.com and insist that it is theirs anyway. I will give them that much too. I wouldn't have any problem with them trademarking whois.net itself if they own it, but not whoise in general.

  • Albatross!

    Albatross!

    Albatross!

    ;)

  • I suspect that the little known person who actually wrote the original ping [arl.mil] might object... he tells an abbreviated version of how it came about [arl.mil] on his webpage [arl.mil].

    Of course hearing the story in person was even better...

    --

  • Yeah, this is certainly an accurate portrayal of verio's stupidity. We have a T1 through verio. Boy was that a mistake. Their network is constantly plagued with problems. In december, their peering point to UUNet in this area was so congested that about every day for a few hours our site would have a ping time of well over 2000ms to most of the world. I have no idea why our traffic wasn't diverted to another peering point on their so called "tier 1 backbone"... in my experience with them, its because they don't really have a backbone. Verio is made up of numerous smaller networks (which belonged to the ISP that verio bought) across the country which are either not connected to each other at all, or very poorly. Some of these smaller networks are only connected to the rest of the net only through a single peering point. For us, verio's "backbone" in this area appears to have only a single uplink to UUnet.

    Also, this past summer, they accidentally allocated half of our address block to another customer! Talk about incompetence. Most of our site was down while we waited for more than 24 hours while their idiot engineers changed routing tables back to send our traffic to our site.

    I also received a call from them a few months ago informing us that there was a problem with their DNS servers and that they lost all of our DNS records and needed a new copy of our zone files... luckily, that didn't affect us because we do our own DNS (and for some reason this fact was news to the rep who called us).

    About 2 weeks ago I had to call them about routing problems to a portion of our address block at a branch office connected via DSL. I was on hold about 7 or minutes when a tech support person asnwered the phone. He told me he was a dialup support tech and was only talking to me to gather information. After 5 minutes of Q & A with him, he transferred my call to dedicated support, which I waited on hold for for *35* minutes.

    And finnally, for the past few months whenever I've called their tech support regarding anything and they happened to be having one of their major problems (such as the first one I mentioned which would affect tons of their customers), I've received a message saying "we are aware of the problem and our engineers are working to fix it. If this is not the reason you've called, please stay on the line and we'll be right with you"... mind you, I've heard messages like this at least 3-4 times in the past month.

    We've had other problems with Verio too, but these are the biggest ones that I can think of at the moment. Needless to say, we are in the process of finding a more stable ISP....

  • I whole-heartedly agree with you. Most lawyers who do trademarks are not going to have the foggiest idea what "whois" is or its history. They know trademarks and so when sometihng like this comes across their desk, theyh are just going to treat it as if they would any other situation and try to trademark the domain name as well as the underlying mark itself. Really nothing more than that. Definitely nothing sinister. Oh, BTW I am an attorney and I do know what DHCP is (although I couldn't work with it, at least I understand what it does and what it means). Most attorney's who would know this are doing trademark work. Rob Jones robjones@robjob.com robjob@robjones.com
  • I meant most lawyers who do understand this are NOT doing trademark work. Sorry about the confusion.
  • If you try to trademark or patent something that isn't eligible, and you are turned down, aren't you already losing 100% of the revenues you would have gained from having a monopoly?

    How about if you had to make a sizable (I know, define sizable) deposit that would be forfeited if your application were turned down? That would tend to discourage the opportunists.

  • Interesting MOST Interesting (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The U.S. Patent office turned down a trademark? Does this mean that there is actually one person with half a brain cell working there, or was this just a fluke?
  • I'll be riding shotgun for LIFE!

    "you can't call shotgun, i hold that trademark"

    MWHOOHAHAHAA
  • "Yeah, I have told him to take me off his list"

    Then he can be fined for continuing to call you. I wish I knew where to look this stuff up, but this was a big deal when I was working for a company that wrote auto-dialers for call centers.

    Perhaps Verio needs to answer more tech support calls instead of making so many sales calls. The company I work for now recently dropped all of their Verio accounts because when things went wrong they couldn't get anyone on the phone... for hours. And things went wrong often.

    I hate to disparage a company like this, but they really ticked us off.

    Educational sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.

  • True story (Score:5)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @12:53PM (#1304434) Homepage Journal
    Back in the dinosaur ages, oh about 1988 or thereabouts, there was a company that created a really cool compression tool which created files with an "arc" extension. (This was on those icky old DOS systems, Unix guys.) Everybody loved this tool. Everybody used it for everything.

    Then came along another company. This second company released a knockoff that could also decompress "*.arc" files as a shareware program. The first company went ballistic. They sued. They got a judge to agree that they, and only they, had legal rights to the ".arc" extension.

    So what happened? Well, the second company was forced to modify their program to not decompress ".arc" files. Instead, it demanded that the file be named ".zip".

    The first company went out of business. The users were so pissed off by the intimidation tactics they employeed that almost overnight, it became "uncool" to use the ".arc" extension and sales plummetted.

    And that, boys and girls, is why we call archives "zip files".

    So remember, the law can control who gets to call their products certain things, but it can't control who you buy from.
  • Same thing there. The techs are absolutely clueless anymore.
  • If you try to trademark or patent something that isn't eligible, and you are turned down, aren't you already losing 100% of the revenues you would have gained from having a monopoly?

    Nope. You're not gaining it, but that's hardly the same as losing it. Same complaint I have with the people who bought VA Linux stock at $30 (or whatever that price was), and bitched about all the money they were losing as the stock dropped from $350 to $200...

    Less Profit is not the same as Loss.

    ------
  • They were my ISP briefly, having bought an ISP I'd been happy with. The service plummetted and I was forced to go elsewhere. Perhaps offtopic, but companies that are dumb in one area are often dumb in all the other ones as well.

    I usually take that into account when deciding who to give my business to. If I see idiocy, I avoid, even if the idiocy wouldn't necessarily effect what I'd purchase.

  • Re:Thank you for fact-checking (Score:3)

    by whoop ( 194 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @01:17PM (#1304443) Homepage
    To me, this more indicates how the Verio organization works. First, get a domain. Then file patent papers for anything that could possibly associated with it (most likely by the lawyer types). Is this good? Their priority is in getting exclusivity, no matter what.

    Sure we all know Whois has been around for ages, thanks to Algore. And (probably) the techie types that set up the page know it already exists. And there is ZERO communication between any of them. Ah, what a wonderous day we live in. If someone invents a time machine, I'll go back to the late 1800's and make sure they disolve the patent office. They were on to something. ;)
  • The problem with monetary penalties is they do not make a bit of difference to the truely evil companies. It already is a few thousand to get a patent, deterring your average homeless guy from patenting the designs to a cardboard box. But to Verio, Microsoft, etc, that's nothing. Raise it to $100,000 and they'll still go for it.

    No, instead we must have another penalty. Like having the CEO lick an electric fence (not strong enough to kill, mind you), or be forced to live in a big vat of peanuts for two days (no other food/water). Then they'll start to learn their lessons.
  • We here at TMing. Inc. (r)(tm)(sm) are shocked that you would think poorly of our "Product, what product?"(patent pending) marketting approach to doing business. We all knew the market for products to consumers would saturate someday, and we're just trying to make a fair (*) buck by trademarking "computer" related terms -- and suing other people who use them! We admit that while perhaps having prior art and general usage on computers, these terms and algorithms are not generally obvious to a person who has no experience with computers or rational thought in general (like a newborn or US congressman). In the daring world of today's business, companies must feed off of each other to survive!

    (* Ok, so it's not fair by webster's definition, but our lawyers assured us that a lot of things people don't consider fair are perfectly legal in the US, and can even be enforced internationally via rulings in small regional court houses in the US. If you have a problem with that, we'll be more than happy to send a few cease-and-desist letters.)

    ---

  • My question is this: shouldn't they have known this before doing anything?

    Why would you expect a large web hosting company to have ever heard of whois? (tongue planted firmly in cheek)

    ======
    "Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

  • Did I miss something? thajungle is part of the same company that is nkn which merged with Verio in Texas. http://companies.altavista.com/factsheet?id=898792 189 Why did they bother bringing this to our attention? I'm missing something, aren't I? Answer that nicely.
  • And know you know... the rest of the story.

    I'm Paul Harvey.
  • Thanks goodness somebody in the U.S. trademark/patent office finally has had a bout of sanity.
  • All those people thinking about fines for refused trademarks and patents are missing a point. Even if the system is abused badly a the moment, raising the cost of entering a patent would leave the field to big corporations.

    This is the problem, the patent process was supposed to solve and give smaller inventor a fair chance.

    Small companies with something really worth patenting (in the classical sense, not those stupid software patents) probably couldn't risk getting an application rejected by the patent office and wouldn't patent its stuff.

    Big corporations wouldn't care and use those patents they get to bludgeon smaller competitiors even worse than today. Not having a department full of patent lawyers is big enough of a handicap today, this needn't be increased with big fines.

    And even if a small company entered a valid patent, the big ones would probably contest it just on a matter of principle. Maybe they'll get a favorable licensing conditions.

  • My work used verio for hosting/etc for a while and finally dumped them. Our "T1" line was maxing out at 20KBps TOTAL combined, and the link to our servers went down at least once a week, and upon calling tech support we'd get put on hold for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. We affectionatly referred to them as "VeriSlo" also.
  • Verio can be fined.

    Go to www.junkbuster.com
    Near the bottom of the page, click on Junkbusters Home
    Now, just right of center on the bottom, click on Telemarketing
    This page has some information on what to do about telemarketers.

    Or, just go to http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/telemarketing.htm l

    - pez
    --
    "May you live in interesting times." -- Curse
  • Your right to a point. They did back out, but not for the right reasons. Ethically that is.
    They backed out because of pure -Risk/Reward- , there simply wasn't enough profit margin to justify the legal expense of having council shove this through the courts and the other appelate processes. So it short they punted to use their resources on another track.
    Right thing, hardly, but a good thing, non the less.

    Never knock on Death's door:

  • but it can't control who you buy from

    .... unless it's the MPAA.

    nick

  • I'm glad you jumped in. Seems that verio management only backed out when it became too expensive. Can't blame them for wanting to make a profit, but the tactic seems to generate huge amounts of negative PR. Sort of like a VA Linux type wanting to trademark the term "Open Source".

    Never knock on Death's door:

  • Pspeed dun said (while replying to someone):

    Yeah, I have told him to take me off his list" Then he can be fined for continuing to call you. I wish I knew where to look this stuff up, but this was a big deal when I was working for a company that wrote auto-dialers for call centers.

    Fined a good amount, at that--$500 per offense, $1500 per offense (if you can prove it was a willful offense--in other words, they knew damn well they were doing a Bad Thing and did it anyways).

    Once you say the magic words "Please put me on your do not call list and send me a copy of your do not call policy", they are supposed to maintain your name on a do-not-call list for ten years, and they are supposed to provide a copy of the do-not-call policy on request. If they call you after you've requested to be put on a do-not-call list, or if they claim they don't have a list or policy, you have officially got them by the balls and can go directly to court and claim your $500 (or $1500, if you can show there's been a pattern of abuse of this kind with the company and people have successfully sued them under the law--ChemLawn and AT&T are fairly notorious for this).

    In most states, $500-$1500 is small enough that you can actually file in small claims court--no lawyers required. If the company doesn't send someone to court, you can get a summary judgement and the judge can actually put a lien out on the company to pay you your money (even garnishing profits if necessary), because if they don't pay they are officially in contempt of court.

    There is a very thorough page at Junkbusters [junkbusters.com], including a handy little script that lists literally EVERYTHING you can potentially screw a telemarketer over with on that law (not just refusing to put you on a do-not-call list, btw-- collection and/or telemarketing calls after 9 pm local time are also illegal, for starters). Needless to say, I do use the Junkbusters script, and telemarketers learn one way or another that when I say I don't want any bloody calls I damned well mean I don't want any calls, damnit :)=

  • Re:No penalty for attempting to scam the USPO (Score:3)

    by Gromer ( 9058 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @02:39PM (#1304465)

    I really like this idea. There are a couple problems with it, though.

    First of all, it is essential that the penalty not go to the USPTO, or else they will have an incentive to deny patents and trademarks, even if they are valid. The money would have to go back to the US Treasury.

    Second, and more difficult to resolve, is the following. Rules have to be uniform, by definition, so if such a rule applies to huge companies, it must apply equally to everyone who applies for patents and trademarks, including small businesses, and individuals with good ides. Such individuals do not have the resources to throughly research the validity of their claim, the existence of prior use, and so fourth. Thus, we are caught between a rock an a hard place. If the penalty is substantial enough to make any difference to a huge corporation, it would be so big that individuals and small businesses simply could not afford the risk of applying for patents or trademarks. Thus, big corporatrions would actually come out better for a rule like this, since they get to exploit the unpatented ideas and uncopyrighted trade names of their smaller competitors. I'm not sure if there is any way around this.

    One could try to qualify it by saying that there is a penalty for intentionally applying for an ineligible mrak or patent, but proving intent is incredibly difficult even in a court of law, and with the case load the USPTO has to deal with, it would be totally impossible. One could also try applying different penalties based on ability to pay, but there are a number of legal problems with that- government services charge uniform fees rgardless of ability to pay. Lawsuits are the only case I know of in which ability to pay plays a role, but the USPTO does not have the resources to bring lawsuits over such matters, and does not have the legal authority to act as a court in its own right. Fundamentally, the problem is that although it is obvious to us that the application was ineligible, there is no way of legally defining obviousness.

    Any ideas?

  • Re:True story (Score:3)

    by hummer ( 15382 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @02:48PM (#1304467) Homepage
    Then, this guy Phil Katz comes along, with a new shareware program called PKARC, which is faster

    ha ha... pkarc? as in noise a chicken makes?

    /me scratches and pecks at the dust.

    pk! pk! pk! pkAARc!!

    alright officer, i'll come quietly.
    hummer

  • Re:Yeah, but... (Score:3)

    by gargle ( 97883 ) on Friday February 04, 2000 @03:06PM (#1304468) Homepage
    How about if you had to make a sizable (I know, define sizable) deposit that would be forfeited if your application were turned down? That would tend to discourage the opportunists.

    There already is a sizable non-refundable deposit, it's called a patent application fee. The application fee and the lawyer's fees can easily go up to tens of thousands of dollars. All this does is make it difficult for small inventors, while having no impact at all on the big companies.
  • This [slashdot.org] is a link to slashdot.com. It will redirect you to microsoft.com! This is some funny shit.

  • DOH! broken url. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    forgot the http:// so it should be here [slashdot.com]. Forgive me. Netscape is actually crashing in another window as I write this.
  • The Data in Peter Baylies' Slashdot Posts are provided by Peter Baylies for information purposes.

    Sorry, I already patented Peter Baylies (TM), it's a software algorithm used to empty bottles of Bailey's Irish Cream (TM,R,C,YNOT) in an efficient and timeley manner. You'll have to cease and desist in using that name. You can call yourself Fred Baylies, I think I left that one open for you.

    Sincerely,

    The Ugly American Legal System, Inc. (TM)
  • Duhhh. Everybody knows Al Gore invented ping.
  • who decides what the potential gains are in order to determine the penalty? then there is the inevitable court challenge which drags out for years.
  • PKARC FAST! Archive Create/Update Utility Version 3.5 04-27-87

    Copyright (c) 1986,1987 PKWARE Inc. All Rights Reserved. PKARC/h for help

    I'm sure a little searching would turn it up on oak.oakland.edu...
  • in my case. They are calling me at work and businesses are not included in the TCPA...

  • Can you say "dumb-ass"?

    I doubt that these companies and individuals realize that they are making a really bad name for themselves. They are hurting themselves by the bad publicity that these dumb stunts earn them. Did they ask their techs and admins about this before they even tried it? Problaby not. They would have been laughed at.

    The thing is, when it came out to us, it was not a little bit funny. When a telemarketer calls me up I ask what company they represent and what they are trying to sell me. I let them know that I will hold that against the company in the future as bad judgment upon their part. Then I let them talk to the carpet. I will do the same with stupid moves by individuals representing a corporate entity. Spam earns you a bad name. Being stupid earns you a bad name. Dumb companies in the future will just not survive, I hope.

    Jump the cluetrain [cluetrain.com], on NPR last week!


  • Isn't this standard procedure? I, mean, that's what happened with that silly Leonardo [slashdot.org] incident?

  • Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur!

    Uh, I'm no Latinist, so feel free to correct me... "If it was said in Latin, it came from above"?
  • >The moral? 'Innovate, don't litigate'.

    But keep in mind that this occured during an age of computers where the enduser was relatively sophisticated. I doubt that if it happened today, arc would be dropped for zip because it's "uncool."

  • Can't blame them for wanting to make a profit

    Yes I fucking can.

  • I presume he/she/it means the two pepperpots watching the television. "Well, what's on the television then?" "Looks like a penguin."

  • Trolls, Anonymous Cowards...and their wives.

    And large quantities of fish, if you believe that daft film.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • Query: whois
    Altavista: 95 550 pages found

  • I still have it around here somewhere, assuming that the floppies haven't died. Sigh... that was a simpler time.

    Thanks for the improved info. As you can probably tell by the vagueness, I was posting completely from memory.

  • Copyrights and A Former Verio Emplyee (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Pat Obrien's Bar in New Orleans has copyrighted the expression "Have Fun!" Go figure. http://patobriens.com check the small print. Verio is a hodge-podge of ISPS. AND very does have some issues. BUT they have bought some great companies. I-SERVER, Digital Nation just to name two. Fortunately, they let those guys pretty much do what they did before. Unfortunately most ISPS they have absorbed were for customer base and their concurrent revenue streams. They realize most people have invested a lot of time and money in bandwidth and really have to be put through hell to change. Laziness dictating action. Verio. As an employee I asked what Verio meant and was told that the name was an "empty" vessel. So they just pulled it out of thin air. The problem is the 65% of Verios network is not connected to their backbone. So in the areas where it is, it is wonderful. Here in New Orleans Verio's bandwidth cannot be beat. Course the customer service sucks ass. One of the reasons i resigned was that we were not allowed to service customers locally but had to ship them to a CCC in Dallas where employee attrition was on a monthly basis. Nuff bitching - I still have my bandwidth with them. And they are always watching. Frizzo
  • > shouldn't they have known this before doing anything?

    i've worked at an ISP. the bizdev types at many organizations frequently don't know a thing about systems stuff. What's a DNS?

    on the other hand, what do you know about product placement, or some other type of bizdev arcana? The other day, I didn't know what "Bill Stuffers" were ...

    Right.

    Since those days, I've come to notice that better companies tend to have more well-rounded employees. Right now I work for a most excellent company with lots of really bright, well-rounded people, and I am not sure that our our GC would know what a WHOIS is. Luckily, we also have a lot of energy and internal communications, so even if our legal team might be unaware of WHOIS, they'd very likely run in to somebody who was before committing such a heinous gaffe.

    So, if you ask me, this does not show that Verio are dumb; rather, it demonstrates that they may lack a healthy infrustructure where employees communicate effectively with each other.
  • Do you remember the Saturday Night Live fake commercial earlier this year about the investment company that took so long to get on the internet there was only one domain name left: www.clownpenis.fart? Well, evidently 30 seconds of exposure on late night network television were enough for Verio: www.clownpenis.com is now registered with them. ;-) (See, I TOLD you it was on topic...)
  • Try here. [lycos.com]

    --

  • Actually, Peter Baylies should be public domain, as there have been many of them, including (but not limited to) my uncle.

    However... I always wanted to sue and win against the Ugly American Legal System, Inc. :)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • This is cute... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    On top of this page just now... a banner ad for Verio. Do you really think they'll get any business from people reading this page? (Of course, those banner ads are random, right?)
  • Yes, but that doesn't make it right. My point was I won't let Verio off the hook just because they were denied.the patent. They are still in my "evil" category.

  • Yes, but... isn't the decision to trademark something a strategic business decision?

    I really don't know, which is why I'm asking. I mean, I can't see a company keeping a bunch of lawyers on retainer, just to trademark whatever verbage the company has cranked out that week.

    I'd expect that a responsibly-managed company would have a meeting involving top execs, marketing execs, and the company legal department. They'd have a list of prospective trademarks, and the decision to apply for exclusive rights to each one would be an executive management decision, not strictly a legal dept. decision.

    Or am I totally wrong about how responsible companies are managed?

    The point is, the lawyers surely didn't know about the history of whois, and could reasonably be expected to apply for whatever trademark Verio paid them to, but the instructions to apply for whois should not have originated in the legal department.

    Yes, lawyers are not tech-aware. But that shouldn't be an excuse.

  • ....anything it damn wells pleases....i dont see much giving it indigestion, really..

  • Also, go take a look at Sluggy freelance [sluggy.com]. Bun-bun also has some information on what to do abo^Wto telemarketers.

  • Ha, that's a good one but certainly not uncommon for Verio: Their German subsidiary (otherwise nice people to deal with) own the domain name FAQ.DE, hosting _internal_ support documents for their customers.

    Next, they'll register INTERNET.COM. Ah well, that's already taken. Never mind.

  • Even if the system is abused badly a the moment, raising the cost of entering a patent would leave the field to big corporations.

    We are already there here in Europe. To get a patent in a couple of European countries will set you back a cool US$40,000 to 50.000 because it will have to be translated into every single language.

    No small-time inventor in their right mind can foot the bill for this.

  • Sort of, it's: If it was said in latin, it sounds profound.

  • "Lawyers are busy people, and when the paperwork for "whois.net" dropped on their desk, they probably didn't realize that the generic term was already in use"

    Thats their job. Thats why they're so busy, and thats why they get paid: to check these things. If they didnt check, its because they werent doing their jobs.

  • You try quadrupling your sales, increasing your sales staff by a factor of ten, tripling the rest of your staff, and heptupling your data center space while trying to find competant tech staff in a period of just a couple of months and see just how well you do!

    Disclaimer: Yes, I am an employee of DigitalNation, a Unix Developer, and we're hiring across the board, Sales, Tech, NOC, and Interactive.
  • Ah, so Verio has a corporate policy that employees are not allowed to look things up? Ask any geek and they _will_ look it up. So should anyone else. Its part of the job, and not looking things up when you work with them is worse than gross stupidity.
  • Well, hey, give them a fine based on their market cap value, ranging from 1 to 10 percent, depending on how clear it is they're trying to pull a fast one. That ought to stop even companies like Verio and Microsoft, considering their inflated stock. Especially since it seems the inflatable companies are the ones who do this most.

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