IBM "Invents" 40-Minute Meetings 161
theodp writes "On Thursday, the USPTO disclosed that self-described patent reform leader IBM wants a patent covering its System and Method for Enhancing Productivity. So what exactly have the four IBM inventors — including two Distinguished Engineers — come up with? In a nutshell, the invention consists of not permitting business meetings to be scheduled for a full hour during certain parts of the day. From the application: 'The observation is that if an hour were shorter, by a small amount, we would be more focused, and accomplish the same amount of work, but in less real time, thereby increasing productivity.'" I just knew someone would one up my 43-minute-meeting patent. That's why I've already begun intense R&D on my latest invention: the 37-minute meeting! Register early for an early-bird discount. Register even earlier for more of one.
IBM Says (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Patent madness (Score:3, Informative)
Other than that, the patent is for more than just a 43 minute meeting. Of course that is too obvious. It is a vast patent, with an implementation that covers cell phone towers, HTTP, and references the 802.11 specification. And it's not easy reading: it would take hours to fully digest the whole thing.
The main point of the patent is a template system that can be sent to everyone in your business, that will set the default size for meetings in your chosen calendaring application to something other than one hour. It is probably a new idea, but it is not something any other programmer looking at the problem wouldn't have come up with.
The Obvious... (Score:5, Informative)
No one yet seems to have mentioned a 42 minute meeting as the perfect time. (for any time over 0, zero minutes is more perfect)
Re:Bad summary (Score:4, Informative)
Re:THE BEST way to fight this (Score:1, Informative)
Let's not just whine here in the /. bubble, while we can hit where it hurts.
Re:Bad summary (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's not what it says. By my reading, the patent is actually reasonably innovative. At least, I've never heard of any calendaring system doing it as described.
What the claims of the patent say, in essence, is that the day should be broken down into schedule-able blocks of differing sizes configured by a system administrator. So if you have a 40 minute meeting, you can reserve the 40-minute block during that day and not the 30 or 60 minute block. Instead, most people today would say, "Well, it's going to run longer than 30 minutes, so I'll reserve an hour." I actually think I'd love it if Outlook operated in the way described in the patent instead of making it easiest to reserve meetings on 30 minute boundaries.
Re:Bad summary (Score:1, Informative)
In other words, this patent is for something trivial that already exists (have your admin type in the times for X minute blocks throughout the day on iCal. Oooo, I'm the Einstein of our time.) Granting this patent isn't exactly going to inspire companies to up their R&D budgets. Maybe it'll inspire them to up their patent lawyer budget, but not their actual research budget.
Re:THE BEST way to fight this (Score:5, Informative)
Congratulations on proving why Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. IBM does not have a patent on a 40 minute meeting, they have a patent application that claims setting up a time template on a scheduling server (claim 1) that allows for using different time intervals (claim 3). If you actually look at the file history on the USPTO site, you'll see the patent office hasn't even picked the case up to examine it yet. But that would assume people on slashdot care about things like facts.
The article quoted says "wants a patent", not "has a patent." The Slashdot editor then implied IBM had a patent. And what you did, seriously, is spread FUD because you took something you read on slashdot (but clearly don't know anything about) and posted it to a place people read and rely on as an accurate source of information. Pat yourself on the back. You spread misinformation today.
Informative my ass.