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Subdomain names are obvious
You can't patent them
The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected a patent that had the potential to stuff up the world wide wibble completely.
The PTO has ruled that the idea behind how to manage subdomains ordomains hosted within larger domains are too obvious to patent. The PTO rejected all 20 patent claims over Internet subdomains held by an outfit called Hoshiko.
IdeaFlood was granted the patent for subdomain names in 2004. It used it to threaten companies like LiveJournal, which hosts more than 3 million personalized subdomains for its users. It also threatened Freehomepage.com and T35 Hosting.
The patent rights were transferred to Hoshiko and that company now has two months to try to narrow its patent claims to make them more reasonable or convince the PTO to reverse its January 15 ruling.
More here.