I just found this patent for 404 web page handling by Amazon (US Patent #7,325,045) on the Web. The abstract states:

A client component runs on a user computer in conjunction with a web browser and detects errors, such as but not limited to “404: page not found” errors, in which a requested web page or other object cannot be displayed. In response to detecting the error, the client component notifies an error processing server, which uses the URL of the failed request to identify an alternate object to display. The alternate object may, for example, be (a) an object retrieved from replacement URL, or from a URL that is otherwise related to the requested object, (b) a cached version of the requested object, (c) an object retrieved from a closely matching URL found in the user’s clickstream history, or (d) a dynamically generated page that includes links to one or more of the foregoing types of alternate objects. Also disclosed are methods for identifying alternate objects for a given URL.

This is a clear example why the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) needs to stop processing and approving software patents of any kind immediately. The USPTO process needs to be fixed to stop this nonsense ones and for all.

This is nothing more than the result of an ordinary innovation and as ruled recently by the US Supreme Court not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws.

What we have here is patenting any means of processing an error. Whether by displaying an alternate web page from some means of lookup. Something that has been done for a long time by those creating web content. As it stands now, if any web master does any kind of logical error processing for his/her site he/she would be infringing on Amazon’s patent. Way to go USPTO!.

The patent can be seen here.

Tags: Government, Patents