These Internet patents are really starting to bother me.

http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/silly_patents_trix_are_for_kids/index.html

Huh?

Wi-Fi hot-spot developer Nomadix announced that it has landed a patent for "redirecting subscribers to log-in pages when they access public networks." Basically, it's a method for redirecting all un-cookied http requests to a gateway page before authorizing unregulated access.

Crazy...

Ugh...strange is all I can say.

Indeed - this was talked about on slashdot (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/27/033200&mode=nested&tid=137&tid=155&tid=193&tid=99) a week ago or so and true to Slashdot's nature they listed many instances of prior art (Like College/HS logins - since the patent Nomadix has is a blanket one, not specifically tailored to just wireless connections) as well as workarounds to avoid it. hehehe