IBM Wants Patent For Lotus Notes-Free Meetings 179
theodp writes "Over at IBM, the Lotus Notes team has 'invented' preventing the use of their own product during meetings. Self-described patent reformer Big Blue has asked the USPTO for a patent covering Suppressing De-Focusing Activities During Selective Scheduled Meetings by forcing meeting attendees to 'submit to the computing system suspension requirements.' What's next — a patent for Verizon for blocking cellphone usage during movies?"
Re:Useless feature (Score:3, Informative)
Patent stupidity? It's been done already! (Score:4, Informative)
... such ridiculous patents that the patent office can no longer take itself seriously, if indeed it still does.
They're too late. Much too late:
766,171 "Apparatus for signalling from a grave" (before horror movies even existed)
1,749,090 "Apparatus for obtaining criminal confessions" (oooh, scary ghosts)
2,929,459 "Rocket-propelled pogo stick" (yay for Wile E Coyote!)
3,216,423 "Facilitating birth by centrifugal force" (I kid you not)
4,016,875 "Penis locking and lacerating vaginal insert" (the mind boggles)
4,429,685 "Surgical procedure for unicorns" (WTF?)
5,443,036 "Method for exercising a cat" (fun with a laser pointer)
5,456,625 "Jesus doll lights when crucified" (surreal BDSM toy, intended for kids!)
6,025,810 "Faster than light communication" (physics from another reality)
6,368,227 "Method of swinging on a swing" (eventually cancelled, alas)
This is just a sampling from my collection of US PTO brainfarts. Other wierd wonders have titles such as "Body condom", "Santa Claus detector", "Making a drink hop along a counter", "Thermochromic urinal mat", "Motorized ice-cream cone", "Electrified table cloth", and so forth. I've also collected turds from the French, German, Japanese, and UK patent offices, but they are less profligate than the US patent orifice.
Re:Grrrrr (Score:4, Informative)
Basically uses cell site triangulation to assist where GPS signal is poor
Re:What is IBM trying to do? (Score:3, Informative)
IBM has recently changed their internal patent awards so that patents are worth less now and publishes to ip.com are worth more, at least for individual inventors. I can't speak for the patent attorneys.
So, they are, to a certain extent, putting their money where their mouth is. IBM does leverage its patent portfolio but it doesn't tend to "patent troll". Instead, it tends to use its portfolio defensively against patent trolls like SCO.
Re:Or you could tell people not to bring their lap (Score:4, Informative)
Crossword puzzles. Just put one on the top page of a clipboard holding a pad of paper and lean back a bit and it will look like you're listening and taking notes, but you're actually trying to figure out what 5 across is.
In other news... (Score:1, Informative)
...Microsoft plans to patent running any computer system without a Windows operating system.
Re:Grrrrr (Score:3, Informative)
DTOA is superior; it uses cell cite triangulation to replace GPS, which is stupid when you have multiple cell sites to triangulate from. You only need two cells to locate a phone, because the cells have sectors and they know which side of the sites you're on. DTOA has resolution comparable to aGPS, without needing GPS. The biggest drawback to GPS (after the very serious line-of-sight issues that generally make it a non-starter) is the long first-fix time, and DTOA doesn't suffer from it. There's also the fact that GPS often doesn't work inside, especially when you're dealing with the tiny antennas that they put in cellphones.