The insane spitfire video clip

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:26:03 -0800, Jeff wrote:
snippage: patents

Patents are becoming a real problem in the technology field. So many
patents with very little merit are being allowed to pass.

The intent of the patent system is to encourage innovation by granting
temporary monopolies. But the invention must be novel, and not obvious
to someone ordinary skilled in the art amongst other things.

The trouble is many software patents don't meet this test. This Acacia
one is just one of hundreds that are making software developers sigh
all over the world (well, all over the USA at least). Amazon, for
example, have a patent on buying stuff with one click - something
that is so obvious that many many web developers have simultaneously
and independently 'invented' it. Just Amazon patented it first, and
the patent examiners aren't sufficiently skilled (and don't have
sufficient time) to see that it's obvious to someone ordinarily
skilled in the art - or that it has prior art. Unfortunately once
a patent has been granted, it is so expensive to get it thrown out
that most companies choose to roll over like giant twinkies and
cough up the licensing money. Patents in the software world, far
from encouraging innovation, are stifling innovation. Not because
the patent laws are bad, but because the USPTO are more or less
rubber stamping obvious 'inventions'. It's virtually impossible
to write a program - even a simple shell script - without infringing
a meritless software patent.

At least the issue seems to be getting a bit of airtime outside the
software world now - and maybe some pressure will be forthcoming
to make it easier to throw out bad patents and raise the bar on
what can be patented.

Now European countries are headed down the same insane route. Let's
hope that patent offices in Europe hire people who can see obvious
things and throw them out, but I hold out very little hope indeed.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
Patents are becoming a real problem in the technology field. So many
patents with very little merit are being allowed to pass.

For what it's worth, it's not just the technology field.

A recent example in the aviation industry is the ridiculous "spar doubler"
patent filed for and granted to Aerofab, the company that (at the time) made
Lake aircraft. That patent is under review currently, and one hopes the
patent office will see the error of their ways, but for now it's still in
force.

As near as I can tell, the patent office has decided that it is too much
trouble to do any work in evaluating a patent application for anything other
than having the right basic format. They appear to be figuring that if a
patent is invalid, someone will find out later in a lawsuit.

Of course, lawsuits are expensive, often much more expensive than just
rolling over on a threatened lawsuit and paying whatever extortion the
patent holder asks for. IMHO, the patent office is abdicating their
responsibility to the public, and in the process creating a significant
economic overhead on all variety of industries through their lackadaisical
approach to patent approvals.

My apologies if this post in any way brought the thread back to being
on-topic, or nearly so.

Pete

p.s. What's up with people still using the obsolete "rec.aviation"
newsgroup? Or the .misc, for that matter? Who reads .misc?

On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 18:43:39 -0000, (Dylan
Smith) wrote in Message-Id: :

Not because the patent laws are bad, but because the USPTO are more or
less rubber stamping obvious 'inventions'.

How about these "non obvious" patented devices: :-)



US5755184: Pet exerciser and toy device:

A Pet Exerciser and Toy Device consisting of an Attractor made of
brightly colored silicone rubber strips attached to a high tensile
strength steel Wire Member which is in turn embedded into a Handle
Member that is manipulated by a human hand to entice the pet to
attack. This device uses the pet's natural instincts of stalking,
pouncing, leaping, and rebounding to provide much needed exercise to
seldom used muscles. This also allows the pet and human to reaffirm
their relationship in a positive manner.




US6543391: Pet exerciser:

Abstract: A large pet exerciser utilizes but two readily available
major components. One is a galvanized pipe or post embedded in
concrete. The other major component is an extension or tension spring
having a loop or ring on each end. The spring is anchored in the top
of the post by means of one loop while a leash is connected to the
other or extending top loop. The spring not only elongates when
subject to tensile forces, but being mostly free of the post flexes or
bends laterally of the post axis in any azimuth or direction. Both
actions of the spring exert a bias on any pull by a pet secured to a
leash in turn secured to the top or projecting end of the spring. This
provides significant decelerating strain relief.