More NetRatings lawsuits
Nielsen//NetRatings has filed some more lawsuits. This time against Sage Metrics, Visual Sciences and Sane Solutions (a.k.a. NetTracker). This follows on two earlier suits against Omniture and Coremetrics. The patents supposedly cover the techniques that all these applications use to collect data.
That basically leaves Web Side Story, IBM Surf Aid and WebTrends as the
remaining big vendors who have not been sued. I know that Web Side
Story and WebTrends have similar patents in the area so maybe that is
holding NetRatings at bay. IBM holds more patents than any company
on earth and I’m sure they have an IP law department that would make
most law firms quake in their boots, so maybe they’ll escape as well.
In any case, it doesn’t seem to be good for the industry. I’d rather
see these companies fail or succeed on their merits. Getting sued for
something as obvious and common as a page tag is a) a shame and b) a
very good argument against software patents. In this particular case
the patent system is stifling innovation instead of encouraging it.
Recent Comments