Just in case you’re not fully up on reading patent language, that means that if your Web site uses frames, and there’s a navigation frame on one side, with links that load content into the main frame — you’re violating their silly patent, and they can come after you for licensing fees.
So if you used what frames suddenly made possible — content in a window with common navigational stuff outside it — you stole Ameritech’s, now SBC’s, intellectual property.
Or worse still: “The letter suggests that any website which has static, linked information (top banners, menus, bottom banners) which are displayed while other sections of the page are displayed as non-static (the area where products appear on most websites) infringes upon the patents they hold.” In other words, it need not be a frame: all that’s needed is a navbar and some content that’s linked to from it.
Is it any wonder why the notion of “intellectual property” is held in such low regard?