Surprised this hasn't been mentioned already on WHT today. This little snippet on news.com indicates Web.com (formerly Interland until a recent aquisition & name change) is suing GoDaddy for providing their customers with "remote access to a control panel that is part of the Web hosting service."

I'm sure there's more to this story, but it sure sounds like they are claiming to hold patents fundamental to web hosting control panel software.

I'm not usually an alarmist, but if there's anything to this it could have a profound impact on us all. Anyone have any additional/insider info? I seem to recall a recent interview where the CEO of Interland indicated there were some key patents included in the Web.com acquisition that they would be pursuing. This must be the opening salvo.

EDIT: The patent statement is on page 20 of the April 2006 issue of the WHIR:
http://whirmagazine.texterity.com/whirmagazine/200604/?pg=20

Brandon


Link: http://news.com.com/Domain+registrars+in+court/2110-1030_3-6085599.html?tag=nefd.hed

Full Text:

Domain registrars in court

Domain name registrar Web.com filed a patent infringement lawsuit on Monday against rival GoDaddy.com. The lawsuit alleges that GoDaddy's Deluxe Hosting Plan infringes on Web.com's patent called "Synchronized Server Parameter Database," which allows customers to have remote access to a control panel that is part of the Web hosting service.

Atlanta, Georgia-based Web.com filed the lawsuit against Scottsdale, Ariz.-based GoDaddy.com in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta. A GoDaddy representative said company representatives had not been served with the complaint and therefore could not comment.

Patent law in the US is totally out of control. I don't know the specifics of this claim, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's something as generic as you think it is.

When companies have too much money, or not enough.. they often turn to patent suits for something different.

I don't think it will have any effect on us "little guys" in any way.

If I am reading this correctly, this would signify that any hosting company with their own control panel would be violating, correct?

Any US hosting company, I guess ;)

Odd, web.com used Hsphere, then was moving to SWSoft PEM when Interland purchased them, they had patents for software they wrote, but used other companies software?

True about the US hosting company comment.

I don't think it will have any effect on us "little guys" in any way.Sure it will.. they're going after the money (and one of their biggest competitors) first. **IF** anything comes of this, they'll turn their lawyers loose on the CP vendors next. Which means either the price of Ensim, CPanel, Plesk, etc goes up to cover licensing settlements, or they (the CP vendors) go out of business.

Well i don't know much about patent laws and this is my personal opionion but how can you patent a control panel that is a generalized idea?

Thats like modernbill patenting the idea of a client managment script and saying whmap, whmcs, Lpanel, and the such have to pay them for something that they coded and developed with there own ideas in mind.

i don't see this going anywhere but costing them money for wasting everyones time.

Im sure someone has pattented the wheel. No one hears anything about that o_O.

Sure it will.. they're going after the money (and one of their biggest competitors) first. **IF** anything comes of this, they'll turn their lawyers loose on the CP vendors next. Which means either the price of Ensim, CPanel, Plesk, etc goes up to cover licensing settlements, or they (the CP vendors) go out of business.
Personally, I think this is nothing more than a publicity/spotlight grab. There's just too many big(ger) companies in their path. This will go away very quickly. The concept of managing websites remotely is not new and they know it.

I'd liken this to online banking. I believe it's Lloyds / TSB that had the patent for managing your banking funds online. There's not a chance that they'd ever try and sue all banks that use that idea. They'd go out of business before even entering the court system.

If they managed to get this past the first stage in the system then they would have an army of opposition that would be simply too great.

Simon

Sure it will.. they're going after the money (and one of their biggest competitors) first. **IF** anything comes of this, they'll turn their lawyers loose on the CP vendors next. Which means either the price of Ensim, CPanel, Plesk, etc goes up to cover licensing settlements, or they (the CP vendors) go out of business.

Wrong.

If they were going for precident, they would have gone after the little guys first.

Think about it this way.

If you were going for victory, would you rather go after someone with deep pockets or shallow pockets?

Now, if you were going to make a headline and a nice long court battle, which would you pick?

Make sense?

Wrong.

If they were going for precident, they would have gone after the little guys first.

Think about it this way.

If you were going for victory, would you rather go after someone with deep pockets or shallow pockets?

Now, if you were going to make a headline and a nice long court battle, which would you pick?

Make sense?While your point is well taken, do you really think they're just going to give everyone else a free pass if they're successful against GoDaddy? Not a chance.

While your point is well taken, do you really think they're just going to give everyone else a free pass if they're successful against GoDaddy? Not a chance.
Well, it really depends on the patent. Maybe there's something specific GoDaddy is doing that others do differently. I know if I were out to set precident, I wouldn't pick GoDaddy to do it with. It will be easily a year or more until we know the outcome of this.

I guess till we know the specific patent, we won't know much for sure. Myself, I'm not going to open us to trebble damages by going and finding out what the patent is... are you? :D