U.S. Grants a Patent on AJAX. WHAT!??!?!?

Tell me I'm not reading this!

Phew! Ok, take a deep breath. Relax. Because I'm about to get worked up. :-)

After reading this article from Information Week, I'm surprised they didn't include a patent for the color black while they were at it.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Here's what the patent abstract says it covers: A host computer, containing processes for creating rich-media applications, is accessed from a remote user computer system via an Internet connection. User account information and rich-media component specifications are uploaded over the Internet for a specific user account. Rich-media applications are created, deleted, or modified in a user account, with rich-media components added to, modified in, or deleted from the rich-media application based on information contained in a user request. After creation, the rich-media application is viewed or saved on the host computer system, or downloaded to the user computer system over the Internet."

Hmmm...Does Google know about this? or Microsoft with their Atlas?

Anybody care to comment on this?!?!? Yikes!