This feels like another case of "Odex" one more time...

Never in my long-lived life would I expect to see a day a company or anyone for that matter of fact to use the "technology" that enables image linkage from one site to another to be patented!

Talk about an April's Fool joke gone bad.

Vuestar, a Singapore "patent-holding" firm describes itself as the "Pioneer of visual search", and is asserting patent rights in the technology that enables websites to link to other webpages using an image rather than text.

According to Ars Technica (in other words I'm not just bullshitting about this), the firm recently has been sending invoices to companies that it believes are using its patented technology. This means that as long as you have an image that is click-able either to enlarge the image, open a new page within your site, or open a new website - you will be affected by this claim!

Imagine how huge this whole "patent claim" thingy can become! I mean, which site in this whole god-damn "cyber realm" have never linked a single photo and/or graphical image to another page before? (I'm sooo dead.)

Although not all countries are affected, we (Singapore) definite am. Along with Australia and the United States that is. Oh wait, did I miss out New Zealand?

Anyhow. Read the rest of this entry »