Stupid Patent of the Month: 100+ companies sued over “personalized content”

(credit: USPTO via EFF)

"Personalized content" is a phrase so vague that it could mean just about anything. That quality makes it just about perfect for use by a patent troll. This month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's patent lawyers have honed in on a patent describing a way of "presenting personalized content relating to offered products and services," owned by Phoenix Licensing LLC, a patent-holding company controlled by Richard Libman, an Arizona man who's sued more that 100 companies.

The main claim of US Patent No. 8,738,435 is little more than a description of sending a "communication" with "identifying content" to a "plurality of persons." The patent essentially describes any type of personalized marketing, as long as it involves a "computer-accessible storage medium."

In other words—personalized marketing, but on a computer.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments