MetaFilter posts tagged with patents

Because human operators are used...

Skeptic — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:11:41 -0800

Voicemail-to-text firm Spinvox strenuously denied accusations that they infringed privacy standards by actually having the voicemails transcribed by human operators in low-wage countries. Unfortunately, that's exactly what their own patent applications say they do. Also, apparently they aren't paying the transcribers...

Do they preserve scientific transparency, protect profits or both?

zarq — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:16:38 -0800

On behalf of medical organizations, universities, & individual patients, pathologists and genetics researchers, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Utah-based Myriad Genetics and the US Patent and Trademark Office. Myriad holds the US patents to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, associated with hereditary causes of breast and ovarian cancers. Their patents guarantee the company the right to prevent anyone else from testing or studying those genes, which the ACLU says is unconstitutional and inhibits researchers from finding treatments and cures. The ACLU has posted a FAQ explaining the suit. It might be news to some that genes, gene fragments and the tools used to assess them can be patented. Here's some general info on patent eligibility and qualifications. Some question whether such patents spur or stifle research Myriad's BRCA test to measure the likelihood that someone would develop ovarian or breast cancer was in the news a couple of years ago, when a study revealed that it produces false negatives. Concerns were also raised in the EU over the patents when they were initially filed. Previously on MeFi

Ig Nobel

Skeptic — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:42:57 -0800

Professor Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize Laureate for Medicine, is no stranger to controversy. Recently, he has been touting his approval for the ignominiously debunked "water memory" theories of the late French immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste. This is not altogether surprising, given that Montagnier has filed a patent application for a method for characterising "biologically active biochemical elements" based on Benveniste's more outlandish theories. But there's more... First of all, the patent examiner who has drafted the International Search Report, in his Written Opinion on patentability, seems less than impressed by Montagnier's invention. The killer quote comes in page 10: "This is all the more problematic since: (i) the invention is based on phenomena which contradict the basic principles of physics and of chemistry, i.e. the existence of a biological activity or effect without an active molecule, and (ii) no explanation or theoretical basis makes it possible at the current time to explain the results obtained." Secondly, a man called Bruno Robert claims that Montagnier stole the invention from him. Most disturbingly, Robert filed a nearly identical patent application right before Montagnier. BTW, this may not be Montagnier's first brush with quackery.

Free Parking

klangklangston — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:09:53 -0800

A games and economic theory argument against intellectual property. Watt's on first in academic paper.

The end of one-click patents?

delmoi — Wed, 09 May 2007 11:23:37 -0800

The end of one-click patents? The Supreme court recently handed down a decision in the case of KSR v. Teleflex requiring courts to use "common sense" in determining what is an is not "Obvious" and therefore not patentable. According to SCOTUSblog, this will greatly affect "combination" patents that involve combining two already existing ideas in a new way.

My Patent Is More Famous Than Your Patent

jonp72 — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 07:04:06 -0800

Google Patent Search can be a gold mine for a historical trivia. See the design for bucket seats patented by Steve McQueen, the secret communication system co-created by Hedy Lamarr that paved the way for the frequency hopping used by modern cell phones, the disposable infant garment made by Jamie Lee Curtis, the interactive music generation system made by Thomas Dolby of "She Blinded Me With Science" fame, and other unusual celebrity patents made by inventors that range from Abraham Lincoln to Zeppo Marx.

I (Y)am The Genius

humannaire — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:09:37 -0800

Yoshiro Nakamatsu aka Dr. NakaMats has invented everything, other than all the other stuff that the rest of us have invented. He has 3218 patents to his name. (Edison had 1093.) Among his many inventions? The compact disc, the compact disc player ('natch), the digital watch, a unique golf putter, the floppy disk (!), and a water-powered engine. Besides being the founder of the World Genius Convention (where the world first learned of ingenuity of ADR ceramic disks, for instance), Dr. NakaMats was voted by the US Science Academic Society as one of five greatest scientists in history - in the company of Archimedes, Michael Faraday, Marie Curie, and Nikola Tesla - and he plans to live until 144!

divide and conquer

The Jesse Helms — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 06:35:14 -0800

Math gets a patent.
"The field of invention relates generally to performing division operations using processing components and, more specifically but not exclusively relates to techniques for performing efficient software-based integer division using reciprocal multiplication."

Corporate Influence

three blind mice — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 01:32:13 -0800

Was U.S. Patent Number 7,000,000 reserved for DuPont? The USPTO issues utility patents every Tuesday. Patent numbers are normally assigned sequentially first to the week's general and mechanical inventions, next to chemical inventions , and finally to electrical inventions. In the Official Gazette (OG) published on February 14th, there was gap in the list of the list of electrical patents where the patent number 7,000,000 was supposed to be. And at the very end of the list of chemical patents you find U.S. Patent 7,000,000 assigned to E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Just random chance, I wonder, or perhaps just another indication of the ability of corporations to influence U.S. government agencies?

Patenting a Plot

three blind mice — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 11:56:48 -0800

Can you patent a plot? On Tuesday, the USPTO published an application for patent that is certain to test the limits of the USPTO's authority to grant or deny a patent. It is also an interesting exercise in self-promotion. U.S. Patent Application 20050244804 entitled "Process of relaying a story having a unique plot" is the brainchild of Andrew Knight, a registered U.S. Patent Agent. Mr. Knight is a principle in Knight and Associates a patent attorney firm who bill themselves as "[...] the first patent prosecution firm to attempt to obtain utility patent protection on fictional plots." Forbes Magazine described them as box office patents. It is part serious attempt, part parody on the wobbly state of the patent system and the entertainment industry, and part shameless act of self promotion. Very rock and roll.

Kobayashi Maru, what do you do?

Eideteker — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 21:32:17 -0800

Taiwan ignores drug patent - To save its people from a dangerous flu, Taiwan is synthesizing a vaccine without permission. This bears a striking resemblance to a classic moral dilemma of Kohlberg's stages of moral development. Kohlberg's theory is not without criticism, including gender bias, Western-centric thinking, and external validity. Simply knowing a person's decision doesn't tell you about their stage of development; you have to know the reasoning behind it, which is hard to come by in real world situations. Conversely, knowing a person's stage of moral development (even harder to come by in the real world) does not reliably predict their decision (moreso at the higher levels). Nor does Kohlberg's theory scale to what choices societies themselves make. Decision Making is a booming field of research, but how much research is being done on morality and group decision making? Not much. (initial article via /.)

Industrial Design

crunchland — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:36:21 -0800

Patent Room is a collection of early 20th Century industrial design culled from the archives of the U.S. Patent Office, featuring architecture, automobiles, toys, and trains.

European Parliament rejects software patent

elpapacito — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 06:47:22 -0800

European Parliament rejects software patenting ..and by a large politically crushing majority of 648 votes vs 14. This is a great measurable success for organization like Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure whose members, supporters and sympathizers have fought against the insane idea of software patent for more then four years (more info on euro software patents on the organization site).

Open Source Biology

OmieWise — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:10:23 -0800

BIOS-Biological Innovation for Open Society is an open source biotechnology initiative based in Australia. Along with its parent organization CAMBIA, it aims to foster a "protected commons" for scientific information and technology. Tools and techniques are shared, and can be improved and repackaged, just like in open source software.

New and...improved?

FormlessOne — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 07:44:44 -0800

U.S. Denies Patent for a Too-Human Hybrid - what happens when your DNA violates a patent? Not sure where to begin on this one.

The first one's free...

FormlessOne — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 08:48:15 -0800

IBM to give away 500 patents. Curiouser and curiouser. Why now? And, what patents? IBM makes a great deal of money licensing their patent portfolio - is this meant to stimulate additional licensing? How does this fit in with the open source movement? In other news, IBM just received the go-ahead to sell off their PC unit to a firm that just won a rather large contract to provide PCs in China.

Jesus Boots perfected!

skallas — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 09:54:18 -0800

Jesus Boots perfected! NYT: In the last 150 years, Americans have patented about 100 water-walking inventions. The first, in 1858, was by H. R. Rowlands, who lived in Boston, not far from where Mr. Rosen resides, in Newton, Mass. Most of the subsequent patents, Mr. Rosen said, are iterations of that same idea. "Unfortunately," Mr. Rosen observed, "none of them actually work."

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?

patent nonsense

talos — Fri, 27 Jun 2003 07:59:45 -0800

A gallery of obscure patents.
Bird diapers, a motorized ice cream cone and an apparatus for simulating a "high five" are among the treasures unearthed by delphion's gallery of incredible but real US patents.
See also their gallery of historic patents, featuring, among others, the patent for the hypodermic syringe (1843).

You Can Patent That?

MzB — Thu, 19 Jun 2003 21:50:10 -0800

You Can Patent That? (including Wrigley Chews Over Idea of Viagra Gum)
more: Online Newspapers; Online Auctions; Method of Exercising a Cat; 2 PCs in one; GIF is dead.

Jeff Bezos : Inventor

bluno — Wed, 26 Feb 2003 12:14:15 -0800

Jeff Bezos has patented the idea for "A method and system for conducting an electronic discussion relating to a topic." Clearly, an idea way ahead of its time... (via somebodydial911)

SBC patents web site navigation

DragonBoy — Tue, 21 Jan 2003 06:37:34 -0800

Evil SBC acts like bully going after small sites with an absurd patent. If you've ever designed a web site with "selectors or tabs that... seem to reside in their own frame or part of the user interface" such as Metafilter's header or Amazon's tabs or c|net's yellow side bar, then your design is in violation of SBC Communication's patent number 5,933,841. Here's the abstract:

A structured document browser includes a constant user interface for displaying and viewing sections of a document that is organized according to a pre-defined structure. The structured document browser displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes that specify the structure of the document. The tags are mapped to correspond to a set of icons. When the icon is selected while browsing a document, the browser will display the section of the structure corresponding to the icon selected, while preserving the constant user interface.

Armed with this patent SBC is going after web sites with a licensing fee of $100,000 to $16,000,000. Will this insanity ever stop?
via Jarle's Cyberspace

AOL owns Instant Messaging?

Argyle — Wed, 18 Dec 2002 09:06:30 -0800

AOL owns Instant Messaging? - MSNBC is reporting that AOL's subsidary ICQ has received a patent for Instant Messaging. I would have thought IRC was enough prior art to invalidate the claim, but the Patent Office knows best. Can AOL put the genie back in the bottle?

Science & Humor

Morphic — Thu, 14 Nov 2002 10:22:57 -0800

Scientists do have senses of humor. Also, funny science cartoons appeal to many of us, like this one or this . Whacky patents also delight the mind and tickle the funny bone. Absurd humor makes us wonder what the heck is going on. And what the hell is Chindogu really all about? What are you favorite science sites with humor or absurdity?

CrunchyFrog — Mon, 30 Sep 2002 21:16:46 -0800

EBay in patent dispute. EBay is currently involved in a patent dispute with someone who claims to have patented the idea of online auctions in 1995. EBay believes it has found prior art in a USENET post from 1994.