Subject: RE: [Asrg] US Spam patents: Partial list

From: "Bob Wyman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 14:56:43 -0400

Another Spam patent... This one covers a system for charging people who
send mail but are not on a whitelist of previously approved senders.
See: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6587550 
 
United States Patent 6,587,550 Council ,   et al. July 1, 2003 

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENABLING A FEE TO BE CHARGED TO A PARTY
INITIATING AN ELECTRONIC MAIL COMMUNICATION WHEN THE PARTY IS NOT ON AN
AUTHORIZATION LIST ASSOCIATED WITH THE PARTY TO WHOM THE COMMUNICATION
IS DIRECTED 

Abstract
A method and apparatus for determining whether a party sending an email
communication is on a list of parties authorized by the intended
receiving party. If the sending party is not on the list of authorized
parties, an electronic billing agreement is emailed to the sending party
indicating a fee that will be charged to the sending party in return for
the message being provided to the intended receiving party. Preferably,
the present invention is implemented with Internet communications and
utilizes a security protocol to enable the electronic transaction to be
transacted in a secure manner. 

Inventors: Council; 
	Michael O. (186 Hurt Dr., Cordele, GA 31015); 
	Santos; Daniel J. (3525 Roswell Rd., #721, Atlanta, GA 30305) 
Appl. No.: 783340
Filed: February 14, 2001

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From: "Jed Margolin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 18:53:59 -0700

Excuse this top posting.

A reminder.

1. The purpose of the Abstract of a U.S. patent is to provide search terms.
It has no other value.

2. The scope of the patent is determined by the Claims as interpreted by the
Specification and, possibly, by the prosecution history.

3. Patent applications that are published before they are examined (and
allowed) have the same value as a publicly available published article.
There is no more reason to get excited about such applications than there is
about contributions to this mailing list. (This is in response to a later
posting.)

Jed Margolin
Not a patent attorney but then, I'm not charging you $350/hour either

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