[Atlas Sneezed]

Bogus patents can easily be invalidated with a re-examination proceeding or in litigation.

Where are the prior publications that disclose what is claimed? There is an $8800 fee, but anyone with a prior document that invalidates the claims can take care of the matter right away. If there is a basis to invalidate, no problem. If not, then these guys deserve the patent for their invention. "Obviousness" in hindsight is not a reason to invalidate a patent.

[MichiganConservative]

The stuff from the patent application that you posted here could apply to database systems that have been in use for decades. E.F. Codd described relational databases in the late 1960's. Did companies not use databases that were searched by text strings and that returned text or graphics before 1994 when the patent was applied for? Prodigy, AOL, and Compuserve, as well as IBM and others probably had systems that could do what was described in your previous post in the 1980's or earlier. The World Wide web is essentially covered by this patent. This website is. Bulletin board systems of the 1970's and 1980's also seem to be covered by this patent.