] Nizza Group, which last week
] announced that it had been issued a key internet naming
] patent, today
] announced that it has filed a lawsuit in the U.S.
] District Court for the
] Central District of California against Network Solutions,
] Inc. and
] Register.Com, Inc. for infringement of that patent.
]
] U.S. Patent No. 6,671,714, issued on December 30, 2003,
] covers the
] issuance of URL's and e-mail addresses to members of
] groups in the format of
] "member.group.tld" and "member@group.tld" such that the
] URL and e-mail address
] differ only in that in the URL the "@" of the e-mail
] address is replaced with
] a "." in the URL.

Thats it! There it is! That is the dumbest patent I've ever heard of! If this doesn't fit the legal definition of "obviousness" nothing does.

Network Solutions and Register.com Sued for Infringement of Domain Name Patent