Remember the Lodsys stupidity? Well, another, similar patent troll has popped up, and they’re targeting even more developers — indie and otherwise. Kootol software issued a press release, targeting (deep breath)
Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Apple, Bharti Airtel Ltd., Webaroo Technology (India) Pvt. Ltd., Amazon, AOL, Nokia, Bebo Inc., ExactTarget Inc., Ford Motor, Foursquare Inc., IBM, Linkedin, MySpace, NING Inc., Research In Motion Inc., Quora Inc., Salesforce.com Inc., Seesmic Inc., Siemens Enterprise Communications Inc., Sina.com Technology Co. Ltd., StatusNet Inc., PopBox Inc., Twitpic Inc., Peek Inc., The Iconfactory Inc., Ubermedia Inc., Yammer Inc., Facebook and Twitter.
You may say that’s a lot of very big names — but those are the ones who can afford to fight this. They’re also going after some smaller fish, like Iconfactory. What’s their patent? Oh, just the entire idea of a constant news feed/stream. Officially it’s “application number 11/995343, covers core messaging, publication and real time searching technology and effect whole products & services”, which amounts to the entire concept of a twitter or Facebook feed.
As MacStories points out, this patent hasn’t even been granted, only applied for, so Kootol is attempting to get in and grab money from people who don’t want a fight before it’s even an issue. FOSS Patents has done a pretty good writeup of the situation and how dangerous this is.
By the way, Kootol? Your logo looks mighty similar to Google’s. Just saying…
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