Comments on: Patent bending

Patent bending

cbrody — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 06:15:24 -0800

The New Yorker's James Surowiecki writes about patent creep. With eBay losing one court case and being threatened by another, Spike Lee trying to stop his first name being used, Amazon owning the concept of threaded discussions, the never-ending Un*x wars, and bands trying to protect certain chord progressions (OK that one's a hoax), is this a worrying pattern that needs to be reversed, and is it just the beginning of an anti-competitive trend that will see our own genes being patented?

By: byort

byort — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 06:30:58 -0800

I believe I own the patent on asking a question at the end of a MetaFilter post. You can send the $4.19 you owe me via PayPal.

By: Yossarian

Yossarian — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 06:32:15 -0800

Great post cbrody. I work for a manufacturer of furniture and have to conduct due diligence because we are being sued by a famous baseball player for having a product that has the same product name as his last name (which is not by any means distinctive).

By: stonerose

stonerose — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 07:06:58 -0800

One of the more distressing manifestations of this is when pharmaceutical companies patent new processes and compounds even though they have no use in mind for them - they do this merely to raise drug development costs for their competitors, and potentially rob them of opportunities to develop lucrative products.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 07:10:22 -0800

What a great post! This is how it should be. *nostalgic tear*. Now I have to think of a great idea to patent before the bandwagon moves on. Putting water into a receptacle for transport to the mouth? Hmm...

By: tingley

tingley — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 07:36:21 -0800

The print copy of the New Yorker article has a rather cute cartoon which is unfortunately not in the online version -- some sort of proto-amphibian is crawling out of the water, but is confronted by another, wearing a stern look on its face and presenting a patent (presumably for the process of "living on land").

By: cbrody

cbrody — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 07:41:41 -0800

I'm thinking of patenting a method of patenting an idea, by means of bribing patent officers with offers of one's first-born child. As this is a new, unobvious and useful innovation, is there any reason why it shouldn't be possible? byort: of course, I forgot. The cheque's in the post. tingley: cartoon coming right up. Sod copyright law.

By: cbrody

cbrody — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 07:49:03 -0800

By: cbrody

cbrody — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 07:55:31 -0800

That image should have linked to Christoph Niemann's site.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 08:06:25 -0800

I'm patenting the phrase "Trout Fishing". Try Googling THAT to see how many people will owe me 49 cent royalty checks. Bwahahaha! BWAHhahahaha!

By: GrahamVM

GrahamVM — Thu, 17 Jul 2003 08:09:42 -0800

Has anyone patented "Hunting for Bambi" yet?