EFF Busts Bogus Internet Subdomain Patent

The US Patent and Trademark Office has announced that it will revoke an illegitimate patent on Internet subdomains as a result of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) Patent Busting Project campaign. US Patent No 6,687,746, now held by Hoshiko, LLC, claimed to cover the method of automatically assigning Internet subdomains, like action.eff.org for the parent domain eff.org. Previous patent owner Ideaflood used this bogus patent to demand payment from website hosting companies offering personalised domains, such as LiveJournal, a social networking site where each of its three million users may have their own subdomain