

Hi, I'm From the Government and I'm Here to Help - rpsubhub
http://allthingsd.com/20130107/hi-im-from-the-government-and-im-here-to-help/

======
tptacek
The award for least sympathetic story of government mishandling of startups
goes to this guy, who was prevented from hijacking NX records at the root name
servers by the commerce department, and then prevented from obtaining a timely
patent for same from the patent department.

This is the rare case where a mistaken midnight raid by a militarized ATF team
might actually be cause for jubilation.

~~~
tallanvor
I also found it funny that he felt the problem of patents taking so long could
easily be solved by hiring more examiners. Because, after all, that must be a
job that requires little education, skills, or training and should be able to
be done by anyone, right?

~~~
jcrites
Is it not true that the problem of waiting years for one's patent to be
examined could be solved by hiring more patent examiners?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>Is it not true that the problem of waiting years for one's patent to be
examined could be solved by hiring more patent examiners?

The problem with this part of the patent system is that there are too many
software patents filed. Moreover, the amount you get paid as a patent examiner
is a small fraction of what you get with the equivalent computer science or
engineering education in private industry.

In order to fix the problem (other than by using the proper solution of
eliminating software patents), they would have to do three things
simultaneously: Give each examiner substantially more time to do the work of
searching for prior art and fighting with the applicant's lawyers, hire
significantly more examiners, and pay each examiner substantially more so as
to be wage competitive with private industry and attract sufficiently high-
quality examiners.

Doing any without the others just expands the scope of the problem. If you
hire more examiners but still don't give them enough time to vet patent
applications or still don't pay them well enough to attract the sort of people
who can match wits with patent applicants' teams of lawyers, all you get is
bad patents _faster_. And, naturally, if you can get patents faster (bad or
otherwise) then you increase the incentive to file patent applications (bad or
otherwise), which puts more load on the patent examiners. Which they won't
want to (or be allowed to) hire more of again since they just did, and they'll
continue to be under pressure to shorten the time to patent issuance given
those they just hired, so the pressure on each examiner to examine patents
quickly instead of thoroughly increases, it becomes even easier (rather than
just faster) to get bad patents, and the number of bad patent applications
increases again.

And, of course, doing all three of the things that would be necessary to fix
that would be extraordinarily expensive, because they multiply together: You
have to hire more, higher paid examiners to each examine fewer patents.

Or we could just eliminate software patents. That would sort it.

~~~
npsimons
_Or we could just eliminate software patents. That would sort it._

I tend to agree with this, but: what if we had some other rules in place, not
just for software patents, but all patents? Like for instance, anyone who
files a patent must also file documentation that they have searched for prior
art and either not found any, or have documentation as to why their patent is
different enough. If the patent examiner finds prior art that the filer didn't
disclose, automatic denial of patent and the filer's privilege to file is
revoked for a limited period of time. That and outlawing non-practicing
entities from holding patents would probably go a long way to fixing the
situation, and might even have a chance of happening.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>If the patent examiner finds prior art that the filer didn't disclose,
automatic denial of patent and the filer's privilege to file is revoked for a
limited period of time.

Revoking the ability to file is no real deterrent because they'll just file
the next one under a different shell corporation. And you're falling into the
"small inventor trap": "The little guy can't afford such a comprehensive
search so you're excluding him from the patent system." (Never mind that the
patent office is expected to do such a search for the amount of the filing
fee.) That's the argument you'll get.

>That and outlawing non-practicing entities from holding patents would
probably go a long way to fixing the situation, and might even have a chance
of happening.

You have a much better chance of abolishing software patents than preventing
trolls from holding patents in all industries -- the trolls are the main lobby
for keeping software patents. The balance of major software companies is, if
anything, probably somewhat against software patentability.

------
ynniv
I can't decide if this is honest or a fantastic troll. At each point where the
government "stepped in", it acted in a way that likely provides any technical
reader with relief.

I had assumed that when "[the government] did play a role and, for the most
part, it was not a good one", it would be in the form of business or labor
regulation. Instead, this company laments that setting up their private
revenue mechanism in the middle of public infrastructure was met with
government regulation? And their inability to gain patent protection on an
idea that is obvious but not previously implemented only works in this world
that seems to assume that truly anything is patentable. The government acted
in both situations to protect the common good from the selfish desires of a
business.

For my own sanity and faith in humanity, I will assume that this is a
fantastic troll. To assume otherwise requires me to fear entrepreneurial
"innovation".

~~~
makomk
My personal guess is that it's an honest article from an utter scumbag.
Imagine if you were reading this as someone who isn't a geek and isn't already
familiar with what he was trying to do - it'd be an entirely different
experience.

For instance, there was actually a fair amount of geek-subculture support for
Lightsquared's even more awful attempt to make a quick buck whilst breaking
GPS in the process, because their promises were geek-friendly and most geeks
didn't have right the technical knowlege to understand what was wrong with
their business model. That was also stopped by Government intervention and
they tried to spin it as the Government driving an innovative new startup out
of business to protect incumbents, with some success.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Lightsquared's even more awful attempt to make a quick buck whilst breaking
> GPS in the process_

I think I missed this, do you have a link?

~~~
makomk
They had the smart idea of buying up cheap wireless spectrum right next to GPS
that's only licensed for low-power satellite transmissions and using it to run
a high-powered terrestrial 4G network, hence the geek appeal. It didn't work
for fairly inevitable technical reasons: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2012/02/why-lightsquared-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2012/02/why-lightsquared-failed/) (If anything that article's more
sympathetic to Lightsquared than they deserve - it's not clear it's even
physically possible to build GPS receivers that wouldn't be affected.)

------
revelation
Spoofing DNS results so you can deliver advertisements? Thank god they are
gone, and spare me the "government" stuff. Thats all I need to know.

Heres what the ICANN says:

 _• ICANN strongly discourages the use of DNS redirection, wildcards,
synthesized responses and any other form of NXDOMAIN substitution in new and
existing gTLDs and ccTLDs and any other level in the DNS tree for registry-
class domain names._ [1]

[1]: [http://archive.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/nxdomain-
substi...](http://archive.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/nxdomain-substitution-
harms-24nov09-en.pdf)

~~~
dsr_
ICANN is awful for so many things... but on this, they are absolutely correct.

NXDOMAIN isn't just an error message, it's a piece of information that can be
absolutely essential to debugging.

------
anonymouz
This idea is absolutely not innovative. A couple of years back VeriSign tried
this crap on *.com and got called out, loudly, harshly and correctly, for
messing with basic infrastructure.

The idea that replacing sensible error messages by worthless ad-portals is
somehow innovative is ridiculous, and granting a patent for it would be even
more so.

I am very happy that this company died. This is one technology that is not
"innovative and disruptive", but merely disruptive, namely, disrupting the
basic working of the Internet. It is a pity that taxpayer money was spent on
it.

Edit: It was VeriSign not Verizon.

~~~
Spoom
I was under the impression that this was the contractor that put together
VeriSign Site Finder. Where else has this sort of thing happened?

~~~
anonymouz
Could be, but I couldn't find any information linking them to Site Finder.

At present they seem to be running this on the ISP level, but the article
claims they have previously done this "deeper" in the network. I don't know
any details, unfortunately.

------
ryanricard
"We learned that government officials are often wary of, if not downright
hostile to, the kind of disruption that is an all-but-inevitable consequence
of innovation."

"The original idea was straightforward: Replace “error” pages, which are
generated when you type a mistake in your web browser... with search results
that contained paid advertising."

Cognitive, meet dissonance.

------
jrockway
This is why the concepts of startups typically rubs me the wrong way. You get
a guy with some technical expertise and a plan to make money. It's not that
good of an idea, and it has many negative effects on people that will never
know who he or his company is. Then when he experiences the reasonable
backlash for his idea, he blames everyone and everything except himself and
his stupid idea. Yeah, it's the government's fault that they're not going to
let you siphon money out of a public resource.

What's next, the government preventing me from damming the Hudson River and
charging boats $1000 to go through my locks? Why must the government stand in
the way of me getting money by screwing the rest of society over? Why must
they only support businesses that _add value_ to society? The system is rigged
and everyone is out to get me.

Uh huh. _The government_ is the bad guy...

------
yahelc
"Government is broken even though I got the got the government to invest in my
startup on really favorable terms, because I got predictably shut down by
_the_ regulator of my industry who wasn't comfortable with my spammy product,
and I couldn't convince the government to let me patent my spammy idea. Why
can't I just get everything to go my way?"

------
mbesto
This start-up brought little to no value to anyone and is complaining their
business model failed because of legislation. Mind-boggling.

------
hudibras
"rules make it a snap, and potentially quite lucrative, for people to file
civil lawsuits"

"One suit against us, a proposed class action, came from an elderly woman in
New York City"

Seems like I'm in the minority on this, but I'm always amazed by the rage some
people have for other people using the courts to redress wrongs. Call me
naive, but the U.S. justice system is for all Americans, not just for the rich
and powerful.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>Seems like I'm in the minority on this, but I'm always amazed by the rage
some people have for other people using the courts to redress wrongs. Call me
naive, but the U.S. justice system is for all Americans, not just for the rich
and powerful.

The trouble is that the court system has ceased to be a forum in which it is
_cost-effective_ to obtain justice for ordinary people. If you're a small
business, anyone can file a lawsuit against you for millions of dollars using
lawyers working for "free" on contingency that they get a large chunk of the
judgment if they win, and the cost of defending against that lawsuit in court
even if it's totally without merit is enough to bankrupt the large majority of
small businesses. Which converts the primary consequence of filing a lawsuit
from "redress grievances" to "impose large unrecoverable costs on ultimately
victorious defendants" and makes unjust settlement of specious claims the norm
since it costs less than fighting them.

That said, the jackass in this particular instance got only a part of what was
coming to him and no one should have any sympathy for him.

------
macspoofing
I'm very happy that things turned out for him the way they did. I'm glad that
there was push-back to the way they replaced http error codes with "search
results and paid advertising". I'm glad that USPO didn't grant them, what
sounds like, a ridiculous patent. It was a terrible anti-consumer product and
a bad patent.

------
bjhoops1
Are we all supposed to feel sympathy for this guy? This is an example of
government doing something right! I freaking hate it when a mistyped URL takes
me to some crappy fake search results ad page. I can only imagine how
misleading this must be for the elderly or less tech-savvy.

And no, I don't feel sorry that your crap-producing company got eaten by your
crappy competitors because the government didn't let you build a "moat"
against competition from fellow crap-peddlers.

Good riddance to this troll!

I might add that just because you're earning revenue does not mean you're
doing anything productive or useful.

------
forgotAgain
What a surprise: The Wall Street Journal using any and every possible pretext
to attack government. This looks like nothing more than a setup piece to be
quoted by members of Congress when attacking the FCC.

------
HarryHirsch
This fellow faffs about with error pages _on taxpayers' money_ and has the
guts to complain about it!

WTF is wrong with the world?

------
DanBC
> Early on, we had asked them to reward our innovation with a patent,
> effectively establishing a moat around our business that we hoped would
> deter competitors.

There must be prior art in the form of people hosting 'nearly URLs' or 'typo
URLs' with many ads.

------
powertower
Still operational - <http://www.paxfire.com/>

And is suing people that filed suit for 50 million -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paxfire>

------
terhechte
How is delivering adds and offering no value whatsoever "innovation"?

------
jellicle
TL;DR: "The government gave me $100,000 in free money to pursue a slimy
business idea, which I failed at (and kept the cash). My sense of entitlement
is outraged! Why does the government hate me so?"

------
tomasien
The people at CIT GAP, from whom they got their funding, are cool people who
are trying to do good work. I hate the insinuation that they had any negative
effect on this company, enen if it's not strongly implied. They do uncapped
convertible notes on their investments, it's awesome.

------
Tichy
How did the competition survive without patents? Or maybe it wasn't the
governments fault that they failed after all...

------
kybernetyk
> relevant search results

I hate it when a ISP does that. If I mistype an URL I want to get a 404 or
server not found. Not ads which are certainly not relevant in that case.

To me this article is on the same sympathy level as SEOs complaining about
Google updates.

------
Proleps
Brilliant comment below the article: [http://allthingsd.com/20130107/hi-im-
from-the-government-and...](http://allthingsd.com/20130107/hi-im-from-the-
government-and-im-here-to-help/#comment-760034039)

------
Nick_C
The other annoying thing is that he is assuming every DNS request comes from a
browser. Imagine the cock-ups when you are writing a web tool and you are
relying on valid DNS msgs for your app's logic path.

------
ww520
Government's role is to enforce law and order to ensure a level playing field
that all players can have a fair chance. Glad the government stepped in this
time.

------
smutticus
I hope this guy crawls into a dark hole and never emerges to start another
company.

------
DanielBMarkham
I like this because it deals with the very real complexity of actually
innovating in any area involving lots of regulation and governments.

Needs a little tightening up, though.

~~~
tomp
Redirecting errors is not "actually innovating". Even if they were doing
something useful, respectable and not leeching on international infrastructure
that they did nothing to help set up, to expect a technical patent for this
business idea is patently absurd!

