Mostly the text does not actually deal with wish lists in general, although it is mentioned. The underlying technology is about storing meta data of fields belonging to products. If a simple wish list site is not storing meta data of fields, but simply storing records (simple, normalized structures) then 80-90% of the claim is not relevant.

Besides being loosely worded, if wishlists existed BEFORE the patent, then the patent can be invalidated.

As a former customer of Channel Intelligence, I can tell you that their software runs far more eCommerce across the web than you’re aware, and as they are a very reputable company, I’d be hard-pressed to imagine them doing anything frivolous. Their software is powerful, and they have every right to defend their technology.

You can’t beleive everything you read, but obviously many of you seem to be quick on the trigger when you read something that is just plain wrong.

In the relational db world, let’s go back to the first sales literature for Oracle in 1978-79, or for DB2 before that, or for all the published work arising from the Ingres db research at Stanford in the same era, and see what you see – lists, items in databases arranged in rows and columns, selectable, sortable.

Or how about the American Airlines reservations system in the early 1960’s as prior art – databases with tickets/itineraries ‘on-hold’, accessible via a file number at a later time (call it a ‘wish list’ if you want to).

Or how about the SAGE missile control system from the 1950’s – with its small databases residing in ‘core’ memory?

The USPTO system is farcical with respect to software patents, and the trolls who take advantage of it ought to be put up against a wall and shot.

http://blogs.or...el-intelli.html

CEO, Rob Wight: “When someone comes in and develops something that steals one of your core ideas, it’s incumbent on the company to protect its core technology.”…

JR, after you’ve spent 200-300 uncompensated hrs and several thousand dollars developing a killer app which you hope to market and discover someone is distributing it for free on the internet, come back and tell us how you feel about your involuntary contribution to humanity. I’m sure you’ll be basking in the glow of all that unintended altruism.

Things like cell phones, PCs, DVD players etc don’t invent themselves. They are result of individual effort and risk taking.

Feel free to give away whichever of your posessions you wish but please leave us grownups the tools needed to smack budding socialists such as yourself when you attempt to distribute that which does not belong to you.

It might be easier working together here.

I hope they eat a big plate of bumpkiss here.

These people need to be actually sent to prison for felony fraud.

Or go into any SQL Database Company’s documentation for their products going back to the early 1980s. Ingres, Rdb, Oracle, Sybase, Progress, Postgres, DB2, Phil White’s company, etc., and I’m sure that you’ll find examples of lists.

I can’t defend the issued patents for exercising a cat, etc., though. Those are inexcusable AND were reviewed by an examiner.