“Image Hyperlinking” Patent Owner Threatens To Sue Every Website On The Internet
By stormy at 19 December, 2008, 2:35 pm
A Russian businessman trademarked the emoticons. Now it turns out a company has patented hyperlinking images, the foundation of Web 2.0.
VueStar Technologies, a Singapore-based subsidiary, owned by Australian parent Goldspirit Investments Pty Ltd. has patented the technology of linking images to web pages in the US, Singapore and Australia, although the Australian patent has expired for not receiving a renewal fee in 2007.
Vuestar has caused quite a stir in May after starting to demand license fees from websites that use image hyperlinking. They have already demanded fees from several Singaporean websites, but plan to also take on sites based in the US and the rest of the world. Giants, such as Google and Microsoft have also been threatened for their image searching technologies that rely on hyperlinks.
According to VueStar, website owners who “use visual images which hyperlink to other web-pages or web-sites in accordance with the patent … whether on the first page or subsequent pages of a web-site” require a license from them to continue doing so legally.
The fees demanded by VueStar depend on the popularity of the site in question and its extent of using image hyperlinks. The first sites that were contacted don’t intend to pay, so VueStar has threatened them with a lawsuit. If VueStar succeeds, it will change the web for ever.
US patent 7065520 registered in the name of Ronald Langford, the owner of VueStar.
The following image shows a VueStar invoice received by Like.com:
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