Ben Slade

According to IEEE's Spectrum magazine, "from now on, you can get a U.S. patent only on a mousetrap—not on the idea of catching mice".

On 30 October 2008, the much-maligned “business method” patent died at the hand of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the very court that had given birth to it a decade earlier. The occasion was the case of In re Bilski, and although the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to utter the last word, the overwhelming likelihood is that you will no longer be able to patent the newest way of making a buck. If you want to protect new modes of shopping, delivering legal services, reserving a rest room on an airplane, or settling futures contracts, don’t ask the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) for help.

An actual "business method" patent on the concept of using a laser pointer to play with a cat:

The current Internet email architecture is slowly dying. Garbage spam email is choking the system. The current ad-hoc, heuristic based spam filtering is a messy spam eater, eating 10-20% of good email while letting an equivalent amount of bad email get through.

While the current email architecture is based on the model of a cooperative university environment (both free and security lite), the next generation of email is being defined by GoodmailSystems to help businesses make sure their email makes it to the masses.

Basically, if a business sender meets certain minimum technical and business behavior standards, and pays a 1/4 cent per email fee, an unmistakable "certified email" graphic flag is displayed to the email recipient in a non-fakeable portion of the web page (or AOL client window) displaying the email.

EmagGeek writes "The FCC implemented a Report and Order on Reconsideration (R&O on Recon) that uses some of the same exemptions for junk faxes that currently exist for the Do Not Call list.

The new rules specify that junk faxers can claim an Existing Business Relationship (EBR) to justify flooding you with junk faxes. Under the new rules, a junk faxer could visit your website and call that an existing business relationship.