There are good insights in this exchange: https://register.epo.org/documentView?number=US.201113244836.A&documentId=11-7-US++132448360FP1+ https://register.epo.

There are good insights in this exchange: https://register.epo.org/documentView?number=US.201113244836.A&documentId=11-7-US++132448360FP1+ https://register.epo.org/documentView?number=US.201113244836... The invention pings both an IP address of a first server, and a URL of a different server; The patent examiner found an earlier disclosure of very basic pinging (the document is referred to as "Sinha"); no mention of IP+URL pinging (at least according to Theranos), or switching network providers as a result. You may read this and think how obvious it is to ping both a domain and an IP address, and switch providers based on that; but unless you can find it in an earlier reference with this (before Sept 2011), or convince a court it's an abstract idea ("101" in patent parlance), this is what's patent-worthy according to present laws.. If you spend 200-800k, this patent can be invalidated easily. These patents get granted because examiners have less than a day to evaluate them, and the PTO survives off the maintenance fees (it receives zero tax dollars), and the cost of invalidating them later.