EFF, PubPat Each Seeking Some Patent Sanity

AbstracTus writes "According to Wired, The Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to get the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to re-examine 10 patents that were selected from public submissions. We slashdotters often curse patents that should have been rejected, but are not. Do you think that the EFF can have any influence on the U.S. Patent Office? Are there other actions that are more likely to work?" And sharkb8 writes "The Public Patent Foundation is searching for people with experience in all technical fields to help examine patents. This is the perfect chance for attorneys, law students, and geeks in general to do some pro bono work. PubPat is the group that recently challenged one of Microsoft's FAT patents."

My application

[Anonymous Coward]

The Public Patent Foundation is searching for people with experience in all technical fields to help examine patents.

As a prominent member of the computing community, I feel that I would be an excellent candidate for "patent examiner". My experience with operating systems, particularly, makes me an excellent choice for verifying technical details. Furthermore, I have a broad knowlege of existing patents, and will be able to discover so-called "prior art" easily. Please consider my application.

Sincerely,
Darl McBride

The classic ways are always the best...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that the EFF can have any influence on the U.S. Patent Office? Are there other actions that are more likely to work?

You go get the torches and pitchforks, and I'll round up the angry villagers.

Re:Patents should be examined...

[tanguyr]

Nonsense, next you'll claim that slashdotters should read artcicles before posting comments on them.

Re:Influencing the PTO

[Tuffsnake]

And the best way to influence congress is through "donations"

Patent office needs to hire nerds

[cball2k]

If they hired some nerds that have a CLUE(tm) this wouldn't be needed.

*by reading this you acknowledge all copyrights regarding the placements of letters and numbers in a manner to form meaningful structures for the intent of public communications*

I have the solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Patent the patent system then issue a cease and desist to the USPTO.

Re:Patents should be examined...

[scovetta]

In other news.. PUBPAT received 414,600 applications for technical experts. PUBPAT is now soliciting technical expert application reviewers (pro bono).

Re:Hmm

[Scratch-O-Matic]

The USPTO recently underwent some changes (new computer system, IIRC)

Oh, you mean they have access to Google now? That should help.

Re:Very Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. Patent Office is full of technophobes and techno-idiots. Listen to my crappy techno!

Fitting?

A patent proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anybody ever considered applying for a patent on the fact of granting a patent? ("Pat Ant+ is a revolutionnary technique aimed to grant an inventor a temporary advantage over bla bla bla...")

I remember some time ago, a anti-patent group of French guys applied (and were granted IIRC) a patent for... the reduction of work duration! (which was particularly funny since at that time the French government was in the process of reducing the legal duration of work -the so-called 35 hours - :-)

Re:Influencing the PTO

[Alsee]

This government seems to run off of "donations" instead of "logic".

Hmmm, well there's so keen on it there must be something to it. Maybe we should try out the same system with computers? Redesign a CPU to scrap all the logic circuits and replace them with donation circuits. Just imagine the power of donation circuits processing cache at gigahertz speeds! Of course you'd want to pair up such a CPU with DDR(Double Donation Rate) RAM.

And then stick in a Trusted Computing chip and watch as the entire universe annihilates in a quantum paradox collapse.

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Fat patents?

[Uninen]

"one of Microsoft's FAT patents"?

Oh, my. They're patenting software that's bloat?