Wow, I wasn’t aware of this and it definitely predates our work.
I’d have presumed this would have come up in the evidence for that case but afaik it has not.
IANAL, but perhaps Craigslist’s response to our product, which included blocking its usage on the site after they implanted their version, served as a stronger example of the commercialization of the product still well ahead of the Rally Patent.
[wasn’t aware of this] That's odd. Anyone familiar with the history of anonymous email services and remailers would know about the penet, cotse, and cypherpunk communities in the 1990s. It was a fertile field. Odd that you haven't bumped into anyone from that space.
When I designed our take on it, I was solving a problem I experienced on Craigslist. I had not seen this prior art.
I built a simple refresh for a new email address interface that people really loved to mash, and it is nearly identical to the Use Different Address link behavior on Hide My Email.
To get to my original point, if Craigslist was aware of all of these examples, they did not seem to serve as impetus to provide it, despite it being in the best interest of their users.
I would highlight again that the system described by the Rally patent, if realizable in the example services means these groups also left potentially valuable IP on the table.
As the lawsuit over Hide My Email, afaik, is serious stuff.
I appreciate folks sharing links to prior art. I have more to say, that might explain my initial comment a bit more, but have to wait on that.
I’d have presumed this would have come up in the evidence for that case but afaik it has not.
IANAL, but perhaps Craigslist’s response to our product, which included blocking its usage on the site after they implanted their version, served as a stronger example of the commercialization of the product still well ahead of the Rally Patent.