Concerning patent from the vBSEO team

[Dean C]

Apologies for cross-posting, but I wanted to get feedback from both sides of the pond

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=crawlability&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PG01

It's a long read, but in short they are trying to patent the technology used to rewrite URLs on all web portal/forum applications.

They can patent their technology, i.e. the way in which they approach it, but what concerns me and what should concern you is if they try and enforce the patent (assuming it gets approved) on other software developers irregardless of how they implement their approach.

This kind of thing hasn't been seen in the vBulletin community to date, so I'm wondering what everyones thoughts on it are

[ManagerJosh]

I'd be alarmed as "web portal" is technically defined very loosely. It can cover a myriad of applications. A gallery could be considered a portal to some degree.

[Dean C]

Absolutely Josh, and that is what concerns me the most I have known about this patent and its details for a while, and have resisted publically posting it, as the vBSEO team have been trying to say it's private. However, I felt it was time to bring it to peoples attention, and get some feedback on what the general community feels. It's the first time a third-party vB add-on has filed a patent for their technology (as far as I'm aware)

[AlexanderT]

Thanks for posting this, Dean. This is very worrisome indeed.

Plus, how can a patent application be private? (other that we now know that the inventors are all from Germany despite the fact that their company crawlability has its mailing address in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico)

[AlexanderT]

Looks like one of them, Leue, Carsten (Sindelfingen, DE, US), has also written a software for genealogy research:

http://www.genprofi-stammbaum.net/

He also appears in a previous patent application related to SEO:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20070022082.html

The other guy, Stefan Behl, has a patent application related to portal pages:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20060212454.html

Seems to be they are all related to IBM?

[Dean C]

A patent application cannot be private Alexander. They say on their forums however:

The patent covers an SEO methodology. Unfortunately, at this time, we cannot disclose the contents of the application.

Source: http://www.vbseo.com/f5/crawlability...html#post53071

[MRGTB]

Are they not just trying to patient the way "they" Re-Write URL's to protect themselves from other people copying there exact method? Seems to me all there really trying to do is protect the work they have created really. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Jose Amaral Rego]

The method they use will never see a patent. It just a rank cheater that needs to work off of another product to work. You can get same results by displaying tags and or recent search words on index or from any page on your site.

I just like the url(s) and that is about it.

[Joe Gronlund]

Why they're not using terms such as forum software, or bulletin board software is a little interesting.
Perhaps their choosing to use the word "Portal" as their planning to extend their SEO to other products, and want the patent to cover any future development..

A Portal can basically be any Gateway with access to information on the Internet, so it is not very specific...

[DanaSoft]

It's what companies do to protect their investments; why should coding for vBulletin be any different?

[ManagerJosh]

I don't think we're disputing they shouldn't protect their investment. Rather I think we're disputing WHAT and HOW they are protecting their investment. The technology has been around for sometime and used on a myriad of applications prior to vBSEO.

[Zachery]

I'm pretty sure using a 404 to manage all redirects via htaccess and a php file has been done before. Further their code is encoded, someone could develop the exact same method of how they do it on their own without ever seen the code.

[KW802]

Further their code is encoded. ...

Changes are afoot.

[MRGTB]

Ah that makes sense, once they have the copyright in place they can remove the encoding. Thats make great sense from a business point of view, because they know a lot of people won't buy vBSEO because of the encoding that requires Ioncube

[Zachery]

Ah that makes sense, once they have the copyright in place they can remove the encoding. Thats make great sense from a business point of view, because they know a lot of people won't buy vBSEO because of the encoding that requires Ioncube

Its not a copyright, its a patent, they're fairly different.