So I am trying to launch World of Warcraft but it comes up  ''Launcher cannot obtain patching information. Please check your internet configuration.'' Why is this happening and what can I do to fix it? 
 
Thanks.

Okay.. So I know you're Australian, which ISP are you with? 
 
Both my friend and I are having this issue, he's on iinet and I'm with Westnet (which uses iiNet's infrastructure). 
 
If you're with either of them, or someone else who piggybacks on iinet, then I THINK it's to do with them losing some connection redundancy's with the flooding in QLD. 
 
Edit: Linky

" Okay.. So I know you're Australian, which ISP are you with?  Both my friend and I are having this issue, he's on iinet and I'm with Westnet (which uses iiNet's infrastructure).  If you're with either of them, or someone else who piggybacks on iinet, then I THINK it's to do with them losing some connection redundancy's with the flooding in QLD. "

Hm.. Optus might be using some of the same connections or some such.. Not sure. It's also possible it's somehow related to the current WoW downtime, but I've never had this happen with downtime before. Only started today for me.. This evening when I went to fire up the launcher I got that message. If it's somehow a downtime issue, should resolve itself once servers are back up. If it's actually an issue with ISP's trying to make the connection outside of the country and being unable to, then it's up to them to fix it. If it's also related to the flooding then that could be some time indeed.

Just throwing it out there, but their servers are down and a patch is probably in the works. Maybe their patch server is just down?  
 
Else, I'd run the repair tool in the WoW folder, just to be sure, even if it turns out to be an ISP related issue. Other than that, just wait I guess. Check again when the servers are back up

I just checked, and I'm getting the same issue. It's because of the maitenence. Check back in a few hours.

" Hm.. Optus might be using some of the same connections or some such.. Not sure. It's also possible it's somehow related to the current WoW downtime, but I've never had this happen with downtime before. Only started today for me.. This evening when I went to fire up the launcher I got that message. If it's somehow a downtime issue, should resolve itself once servers are back up. If it's actually an issue with ISP's trying to make the connection outside of the country and being unable to, then it's up to them to fix it. If it's also related to the flooding then that could be some time indeed. "

yah wait till maintenance is over,  I'm also getting these errors as well.

It may well just be the maintenance (though I guess part of me assumed the worst). I figured if it was a maintenance and everyone was getting it then the wow forums would be chock full of posts about it (they weren't when I checked) which made me think it was more local possibly.