Quote
As part of VeriSign’s (VRSN) 2001 purchase of eNic Corporation (operator of the .CC registry) the company became the owner of a patent application, which has now been granted on March 4th of this year under patent number 7,337,910 b2. While the original patent application, at the time written by eNic’s CEO Brian Cartmell and eNic’s CTO Jothan Frakes, was used in order to resolve and offer non-existent domain names for registration, it would also cover Verisign’s Sitefinder application, implemented in September of 2003, causing any unregistered .COM/.NET domain to resolve to a parked page. VeriSign, was ordered by ICANN to cease the practice shortly after they introduced it.
Quote
They argue that by effectively reducing the potential gains, people and companies may not have such a great incentive to obtain their livelihood by sitting on patents until they can find a company to sue for infringement. Misener also called on politicians to outlaw the practice of awarding compensation for estimated lost profits to patent holders who don't offer a product that competes directly with the company they're accusing of infringement. Those who "do not compete in (the) marketplace are not entitled to lost profits but instead to a reasonable royalty," he said.