Pop-ups Are Patented Technology

Did you know that pop-ups are actually patented technology?  I learned about this a few years ago when the owners of the patent started suing people for using their technology without a license.  Here is a link to the official patent for the technology filed with the US Patent Office.  The patent was originally filed by a company that called it “traffic control programming” which was meant to pop up (or under) a message when a user tried to exit a page.  You can thank Ideaflood, inc. for the technology that plagued and crashed computers throughout the early part of the century.  The moral of the story; if you have pop-ups, pop-unders, or floating notice boxes on your site, for any reason, you may face litigation from Ideaflood for unlicensed use of their technology because the patent awarded to them is so vague and far-reaching that any “traffic control” program could be construed as belonging to them.