Targeted Advertising? Patented! Bunch Of Media Companies Sued

from the and-here-we-go-again dept

Back in 2004, we wrote about a ridiculous patent (6,712,702), for a "method and system for playing games on a network." The guy behind the patent, Sheldon Goldberg, was claiming that a bunch of online solitaire games violated his patent. When the EFF launched its patent busting project, they went after a different but related patent from Goldberg. In 2008, we noted that he had sued Digg, CNET, the NY Times, the Washington Post and others for violating this patent (yes, the solitaire patent). Now, it appears he's going after even more media companies, over both this patent and a second patent (7,496,943), which is for a "network system for presenting advertising," which describes sending targeted ads to Blackjack players.

It really makes you wonder what sorts of examiners they employ at the USPTO that crap patents like this get approved in the first place.

Anyway, the latest lawsuit goes after a ton of media companies and Amazon:

The defendants in the lawsuit are: Advance Publications; which owns Conde Nast magazines and several newspapers; ALM Media, which owns The American Lawyer magazine group and several legal newspapers; Amazon; American Media (Playboy, Flex, Fit Pregnancy, Shape); Rodale (Men's Health, Runner’s World, Bicycling); Scripps Interactive (Food Network, HGTV, DIY Network); Demand Media; Viacom; and alt-weekly publisher Village Voice Media.

Suing a magazine for lawyers? Wonder if they can find some good legal help...? In the meantime, I'm curious if any of our regular patent system defenders can explain how these patents help to promote progress. Better yet, explain how these two patents present a single, non-obvious invention.

Filed Under: advertising, patents, sheldon goldberg, targeted advertising