IBM Snags Patent On Half-Day Off of Work Notifications

theodp writes "The USPTO appears to have lowered the bar on obviousness, awarding a patent to IBM Tuesday for its System for Portion of a Day Out of Office Notification. 'Out of office features in existing applications such as Lotus Notes, IBM Workplace, and Microsoft Outlook all implement a way to take a number of days off from one day to many days,' acknowledges purported patent reformer Big Blue. 'Yet, none of these applications contain the feature of letting a person take a half-day or in more general terms, x days and x hours off.' Eureka! And yes, the invention is every bit as obvious as you can imagine."

Huh

[masternerdguy]

Then I demand a patent on going to work.

I wonder

[slackware 3.6]

if any one has patented the process of taking a crap yet?

Re:Imagine..

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

It's probably a bunch of guys sitting around, trying to "one up" each other on who can get the most outrageous patent.

I sense a new drinking game!

Re:Obvious question ...

[nschubach]

"Method and system for taking a crap on a computer."

1. Eat food (see our related patent application for "Method and system for eating food";

2. Wait. (period of time depends on food eaten and any contamination such as salmonella, see our related patents and our "brown paper" on "Montezuma's Revenge")

3. Do what comes naturally on a computer.

Excellent, I shall file this immediately.

Re:Imagine..

[demonbug]

It's probably a bunch of guys sitting around, trying to "one up" each other on who can get the most outrageous patent.

I sense a new drinking game!

Sorry, that was the second patent they filed.

Re:Huh

[NicknamesAreStupid]

I am writing a patent for taking portions of a day to slack off. The calendar will display all kinds of bullshit excuses, including writing a patent.

Cool! My patent is in the mail to the USPTO ..

[roguegramma]

.. a system to deliver quarter-day off notices ..

Re:Huh

[EdIII]

I work in IT :)

You can't tell if I have taken a half a day off or not.

Boss: Uh why were you not at the office between 12 and 4?
Me: I had to go to the datacenter.
Boss: For what?
Me: The EPS conduits were all gunked up because the flux capacitor in the power converter was 3 degrees out of phase.
Boss: Ok. Isn't that what happened to my laptop last week?
Me: Yes, but this was not caused by porn.