Look at this site: http://www.higheredjobs.com/ at the bottom, it says "patent pending." what? a job site patent pending. Then how about yahoo job, monster? Do they infringe the patents of this site. Go ahead to sue yahoo and monster. Anyone have any idea on this type of patents? Or they just put this type of words there to prevent people following them and competing them? If that is the case, then everyone can apply for one patent and all other webmaster infringe your patents.
then how about DP. I guess Shawn can apply for a patent as well for its business model and operating principles.
But Yahoo job and monster do have high education job section in the whoe category. Would that mean they infringe the patent of this site. Personally, I don't think a site can apply for a patent. only undelying tecniques such as searching technique (for example google's searhcing techniques) can apply for a patent.
You can not patent an idea by itself like a job site. The idea must have a function, therefore if you have a unique business process then you can patent that business process. For example, if you have a business process that requires specific and definable steps to find a right candidate for a job, you can patent it. To see if they have actually applied for any patent, you can visit the pto site and search on company name.
It could also be that they are patenting their coding and how their system works right? I don't think thats it actually their site category so to say that they are patenting but more the way that it works. At least that is what I would think....I'm not a pro by far about patents lol.
If Amazon.com can patent one-click buying, anything on the web can be patented... just have to break it down to a process like the person above said.
You could patent a fricken TURD if you wanted to. You call those Invent-Help patent places and no matter what your idea is, they say 'Oh thats wonderful!' and empty your wallet with all sorts of uneccessary crap.