Patently outrageous? SBC claims patent on framelike browsing

IDG News Service - SBC Intellectual Property owns two U.S. patents on a Web site navigation tool called a "structured document browser" and it is asking MuseumTour.com and other sites to pony up licensing fees.
The structured document browser's definition sounds like the technique of using frames to link to other documents on a Web site, something used by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of sites. SBC Intellectual Property President Harlie Frost said the patent claims are "related to frames." However, he referred other questions to SBC's public relations representatives.
"If you find something interesting in this, that'll be curious to me," Frost said of the patent claims.
Several Internet activists, including members of the free software movement, have for years blamed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for granting patents on technologies that were already widely used. The most publicized case was in September 1999, when Amazon.com Inc. was granted a patent for its one-click shopping service. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos later called for patent reform.
According to U.S. Patent No. 6,442,574, dated Aug. 27, 2002, a structured document browser "includes a constant user interface for displaying and viewing sections of a document that is organized according to a pre-defined structure." The documents are tagged with embedded codes, and the tags are "mapped to correspond to a set of icons. When the icon is selected while browsing a document, the browser will display the section of the structure corresponding to the icon selected, while preserving the constant user interface."
A similar patent, No. 5,933,841, was filed by Ameritech Corp. in May 1996, and was granted Aug. 3, 1999. SBC Intellectual Property, a division of telecommunications company SBC Communications Inc., now owns that earlier patent.
SBC Intellectual Property released a statement in response to questions about the patents, saying that actively protecting patents is a common practice among patent holders.
SBC Intellectual Property is working with several commercial Web site owners on the structured document browser patents, the statement continued. "SBC Intellectual Property is committed to working with these and other entities to establish patent licensing terms that are reasonable and fair for all parties."
An SBC representative said he couldn't comment further.
SBC's letter, part of which is posted at MuseumTour.com, outlines licensing fees for sites using SBC's patents. The fees range from $527 for an annual royalty for a company with revenue of $100,000 per year to $5 million for a fully prepaid license for a company with revenue of $10 billion per year.
MuseumTour.com, an educational products catalog site owned