NavMonster, a popular flight planning website, has been put up for sale by its owner Mark Alexander because he doesn’t want to deal with the patent issues that have arisen surrounding online flight planning. As AVweb has reported extensively, a patent covering general elements of Internet flight planning technology was obtained by Oregon-based FlightPrep a year ago and its efforts to enforce the patent have been controversial. Earlier this month FlightPrep launched a lawsuit against RunwayFinder claiming patent infringement and damages resulting from the infringement. RunwayFinder owner Dave Parsons is considering fighting the suit and trying to invalidate the patent. Alexander has no interest in joining that fight.
“Due to the litigious environment that we live in today, NavMonster is no longer in operation. I make little to no money off this site, and have neither the time, resources, nor money to defend myself against absurd patents,” Alexander said in an announcement on his site. “You just shouldn’t be able to patent common sense and good programming skills, but sadly someone has. Best of luck to those that stay in the fight.” He said it’s not an admission of any wrongdoing and that he would be interested in selling the site.
