The Montoya Herald, a weblog about Blueprint, jQuery, design, music and life, publishing on the web since September 2005. Written by Christian Montoya: developer, designer and entrepreneur.

This is kind of important

Posted on February 26, 2006.

I read on Zeldman.com that an obscure web shop got a patent from the U.S. government on AJAX.

Uh-oh.

This really doesn't look good. The shop is Balthaser, and as you can tell by this article written by the president of the company, they really don't get the web. Apparently this patent gives them very loose and wide rights over a lot of rich media applications, including AJAX and Flash. I really have no idea why the government grants patents like these, but this could really cause a lot of trouble across the web, especially considering the fact that the company is looking to sell the patent to a big player… Adobe, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo being some options.

I repeat: Uh-oh.

I don't have time to write more but this is really something to watch closely. I don't like it at all.

Read more in this great article from InformationWeek.com.

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2 Comments

1. Jem on February 27, 2006

   Uh-oh indeed.

2. Phil Renaud on February 27, 2006

   ughhh
   reading the president's message renders me very, very unhappy