IBM Flushes Restroom Patent 146
jdkane writes "As reported in this CNet news article IBM has quietly eliminated a patent it received on a method for determining who gets to use the bathroom next.
I say Kudos to IBM because it is a relief (no pun intended) to see some common sense prevail in the patent news.
A funny quote from the article is "But just because the patent office granted this and other questionable patents doesn't mean the system is broken".;)"
Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only that but the technology as such is crap. Pardon the pun.
Here in Sweden automated next-in-line ticket machines are everywhere, and having to suffer them one major flaw comes immediately to light; lower efficiency.
You see, what was before a line, with the next person steping up to the counter (or toilet) in all of two seconds, now takes thirty or more. You first have to find the correct teller, then mosy on over there.
Add to that the fact that the people servicing the tellers now can take a brake or fiddle with God knows what (since there is no line of customers eagerly awaiting service). Before the 'improvement' the person behind the counter had to wait for a natural lull, before being able to file here (or his) fingernails, now it can be done with a hundred people waiting in line. Oh progress.
As an example of the lowered efficiency I can take the case of returning books at the local library used to be handled by one librarian, now that they've automated it, it takes three! Same amount of work.
About the only institution that has gotten it right is the (state) liqour stores, where the staff presses the button too soon (so to speak) and actually keep a line of two persons at each teller: the customer being serviced, and the next one. That increases throughput considerably. Wouldn't work here though. You'd have to press the button before you were all wiped off and squeaky clean for that to work in an airplane.
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:2)
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:2)
In France and in Luxembourg we have those too, and usually people are reasonably fast to react when their number comes up.
Big advantage of such systems: you get the ticket for the meat counter, you see that it's at least 15 numbers until your turn, so you can get your other groceries while "waiting" (of course, if you're not back in time, you lose your place, so you use your judgment).
Other advantage: if there are several counters, the system manages a global queue, so no "gosh, the queue to my left is moving faster, but it's to late to change now".
Looks more efficient (and fair) to me, at least from the individual customer's point of view.
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:2)
I had just that comment from a french girl I met once. She lamented the fact that "You can't cut ahead in lines here, because of the ticket systems... ;-)
However, forming a queue comes natural here, we are talking about Sweden; it's not for nothing they call us the Japaneese of the north ;-)
Personally, I'm partial to the system I've seen in US post offices. One central line for all tellers, organised with a tape barrier. Simple, cheap, and efficient, with few (if any) of the drawbacks of the fully automated ones.
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:2)
Yeah, and if you cut in line they'll shoot you.
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:1)
If the tape barrier won't stop you, a bullet should take care of that problem then! ;-)
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:1)
I like that ideal. People would be more polite if someone could put a slug in them. Hell I bet that fat bitch at the bank wouldn't have busted in front of me if I was packing some heat.
An armed society is a polite society.
Re:Prior art would have destroyed this patent (Score:1)
Re:OT rant: Sweden (Score:2, Informative)
Being swedish I do have to disagree with you on one point. The (state) liquor store or more accuratly the swedish state liquer monopoly is a good thing.
Take this the right way. Not good in the sense that it's a monopoly, but in the sense that they have "everything".
And being one of the worlds largest players they can get a pretty good price.
Take for example the Denmark. Small nation with good beer. But if I want something other than Carlsberg [carlsberg.com] or a Tuborg [tuborg.com] you would have to pay almost twice the amount I would have to pay in Sweden. And If you want't a wine, forget it...
So just to inform you. Systembolaget [systembolaget.se] is a blessing to me and every other beerlover out there in Sweden and if you don't belive me take a look [systembolaget.se] yourself.
Important words in swedish...
Beer - Öl
Wine - Vin
beer = oil? (Score:1)
In German, "Öl" means oil, which is an interesting notion when you think about it... Both are argually considered necessities, and both can be used as lubricants; oil in machines, beer in a social settings.
Re:beer = oil? (Score:1)
Right, but I believe that the Swedish word for oil is öl and the word for beer is øl ... there's a difference.
You should be comparing the swedish word øl with the English word ale, that also, in Old English, meant celebration.
Re:OT rant: Sweden (Score:1)
As many swedes you don't like the swedish state liquer monopoly. And that's understandable.
I was only hoping to add a dimension. A dimension often forgotten.
Let's hope this starts a new movement! (Score:1)
Very stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems that they make the same error here which they made with the personal computer: letting things go without enough patent coverage, giving the rise to power competitors like Microsoft or Compaq. Not very clever.
Re:Very stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
"For a good time, call IBM at...", etc.
Re:Very stupid. (Score:1)
Funny quote:
"We want our books to be used," he said. "That's our philosophy."
Gives a whole new meaning to pulp fiction.
Re:Very stupid. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Very stupid. (Score:1)
Re:Very stupid. (Score:1)
Don't give Microsoft any ideas! Have you ever seen a urinal BSoD? Do you want to?
Re:Very stupid. (Score:2)
IBM was under pressure to open up its systems because of the on-going anti-trust lawsuits against it. They did not want yet more anti-trust problems.
Unlike MS, they actually changed their behavior under such legal pressure.
Re:Very stupid. (Score:1)
CPM was pretty big back then. The biz market started cranking out lots of applications for CPM machines, including MS. If IBM kept the PC expensive and highly proprietary, then we would probably still be using CPM-based machines of some sort these days instead of PC-based.
Re:Very stupid. (Score:1)
It is impossible to argue with a straight face that there are any societal benefits for granting patents like this one. IBM made the right call on this one.
Re:Very stupid. (Score:2)
Funny...
The patent system needs reform, of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Another one: patents should be backed up by significant and provable documentation of the actual invention process.
Finally, there should be a bounty (payable by the patenter) for anyone able to break a patent by proving prior art.
The alternative is going to be a general constipation of innovation in those countries that allow software patents.
Re:The patent system needs reform, of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The patent system needs reform, of course (Score:1)
The way I read this situation is that all patent applications are first treated with an assumption of novelty. Is this some bizarre extension of the assumption of innocence? If I told you I had a brilliant idea, before telling you what it was, would you assume that I was the first person ever to have that idea? Of course you wouldn't, so why should the default response to a patent application be a grant?
The concept of Patent Clerks being paid piece rates for how many applications they can reject really is a good one. Of course, I wouldn't mind being a Patent Clerk during the first year or so of this scheme's implementation
Be careful what you wish for... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think someone pointed out last time, too, that almost all patent applications are rejected the first time around. They send it back to you with a list of reasons they rejected it, you fix it, and send it back. Maybe a couple times, until it's eventually accepted. So it wouldn't really make sense to pay them for each time they sent it back...
IANAPTOPE, but I read a lot of
Finally, there should be a bounty (payable by the patenter) for anyone able to break a patent by proving prior art.
Now that's interesting... but again, that would even further skew the patent system from one that tries to put the lowly peon on equal footing with the Established Interests. Example: OmniCorp has a Patent subdivision of their Legal org. The PTO requires an additional $2k (?) bounty deposit to be staked when first patenting something. That's chump change for OmniCorp, but it may be very tricky for John Q. DocBrown to pony up the deposit, in addition to his now-steeper filing fees (thx PTO reorg). So DocBrown is afraid to file his patent, for fear of losing 3-large if his idea turns out to be stupid, instead of just one.
And when do you get your bounty-deposit back? 20 years later, when the patent expires? Now, the PTO could pay the bounty instead, since they kinda screwed up, but I don't think that would help anyone. You might put in place a system where the PE no longer has any reason to approve a valid app, that may be close to prior art, for fear of getting it busted in court and racking up a demerit point.
Another one: patents should be backed up by significant and provable documentation of the actual invention process.
Umm, it's not that way now? You mean including the inspirational moment, or what? Because you have to have everything else well backed up, if you want to assert that you're the actual inventor, if anyone tries ripping you off.
I've got a suggestion for the
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:1)
A system that awards too many patents is more detrimental to the lowly peon than one that awards too few patents. It creates a situation where big business gets a huge wad of undeserved patents and uses them to keep the lowly peon out of the market because the lowly peon does not have the lawyers or a heavy patent portfolio of his/her own to challenge the bogus patents or defend against lawsuits.
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:1)
I am not a PTO patent-examiner. (It's true, you know.)
Don't worry, no sarcastic comments about your obvious lack of wit =)
--the biggest loser
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:2)
Because patents have become so pervasive and will continue to do so, large corporations have huge portfolios. It is a near certainty that a lowly peon with a great idea and a patent will be infringing upon a patent owned by a large corporation.
That is a very distinct possibility, and it is certainly the way that large corporations are attempting to (ab)use the patent system. However, concluding that there are no more original ideas out there is in the ballpark of the late great PTO Director, circa 1899, that argued Pres McKinley for the abolition of the PTO, stating that "Everything that can be invented has been invented." I cry bullshit.
If you can prove that you are the inventor of an idea, you can sue any corporation for infringement. A great way to prove you're the inventor is by having a patent. I say, the larger the corporation, the deeper the pockets, and if I can prove that I made them aware of the existence of my patent or patent-pending application before they went into production, I can sue them for additional damages. Any large corporation should have better sense than to willfully disobey the law, I'm sure over the advice of their Legal dept., and try to steal my idea after I've already got a patent. My legal team doesn't have to be better than theirs. It just has to be good enough to get a jury verdict in my favor. In case you haven't been following the US news, the current environment isn't exactly friendly [arabia.com] to big business law-breakers [nytimes.com].
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:1)
Yep, all true. Unfortunately, it works both ways.
The larger the corporation, the bigger its pool of lawyers, and the bigger its stable of patents. A corporation with sufficiently deep pockets can stop you dead in the water simply by alleging that your patented method infringes on their patent. Their patent might be totally unrelated, or might be invalidated by your earlier patent. It won't matter, though; the simple fact that they are threatening legal action will effectively cut you off from venture capital. If they never sue, you're probably stuck. If they do sue, they can bleed you to death, whether there is any merit to your case or not. You might be right, and you might even win, about the time pigs fly, but it might not do you much good.
Yes, patents offer us little guys some protection against the big bullies. The problem is that they can use the system against us just as easily. Bare knuckles on both sides is fair, unless one of us is a pro boxer and the other is a toddler.
I think that the patent system has become a dance of elephants, and us little guys can only hope to stay out of the way and not get squashed, while everything around us is flattened.
I'm not sure what we can do about it. If we make patents non-transferable, then the inventor would have a job for life (the life of the patent). This might make it harder for companies to justify applying for patents, since they could walk out the door with the inventor if he quit. I suspect that would also make it harder for you to try to sell your patent to a corp. Companies would have a lot of incentive to try to bring back indentured servitude. They probably couldn't make that fly, but they could do some harm trying. Just look at non-compete agreements.
We might try making patents holdable by natural persons only. The consequence of that would be probably be that the management types would be the patent holders for their corporations or divisions, and thus would have an even stronger bargaining position than now. This wouldn't help the inventors much. Again, this might make it harder to sell patents to corporations.
I suppose that if I did get a good idea for dealing with the problem, I could try to patent it?
It seems to me that most folks support the present patent system because they fantasize about ``inventing something'' and getting rich. This fantasy is promoted by the people who are getting richer by exploiting the patent system; they realize that popular support for it would evaporate if the reality became evident. The fantasy is also stoutly defended by folks who are dreaming the dream. The fact that a few people DO manage to go from rags [1] to riches via a patent lends an aura of legitimacy to the system, and a false appearance of reality to the dreams.
I haven't seen any evidence that our present system actually has the potential to help those daydreamers. What it would take is a system which couldn't be exploited by the rich and powerful.
Good luck.
[1] I would offer Bill Gates as an example of someone who climbed out of relative poverty by exploiting our intellectual ``property'' system. It's my understanding that his trust fund was providing only a paltry few millions a year, before he developed his monopoly. This proves that any millionaire can become a billionaire under our system.
Yes, I know that Gates' empire depends on copyright, rather than patents.
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:2)
Kind of an inconsequential point, but a patent itself cannot infringe on another patent. Only selling or manufacturing something can potentially infringe.
Their patent might be totally unrelated, or might be invalidated by your earlier patent. It won't matter, though; the simple fact that they are threatening legal action will effectively cut you off from venture capital. If they never sue, you're probably stuck. If they do sue, they can bleed you to death, whether there is any merit to your case or not. You might be right, and you might even win, about the time pigs fly, but it might not do you much good.
This would be a real horror story. Not sure if it's ever happened. My advice would be to get your venture capital before the Evil Corporations learn about your secret business plan (it had to be secret, in order to patent it..) Then you could only be burned by corporations attempting to steal your idea, and sue you for infringement, after your patent application and after you'd received venture capital. That should be some ambulance-chaser's wet dream, open and shut, and I bet, after some favorable local newspaper coverage, you'd have sharks lining up to get 50% of the compensatory and punitive damages... it might not be resolved for years, but you're already in business, and if you eventually win, you can, based on recent rulings, recoup hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Companies are abusing the patent system by patenting everything because of how many have been substantially burned by trying to evade it in the past...
I think that the patent system has become a dance of elephants, and us little guys can only hope to stay out of the way and not get squashed, while everything around us is flattened.
I see. I don't agree, but I can understand why you might see it that way, especially hanging out on slashdot. I say, take a chance! Invent something and find out first hand.
It seems to me that most folks support the present patent system because they fantasize about ``inventing something'' and getting rich. This fantasy is promoted by the people who are getting richer by exploiting the patent system; they realize that popular support for it would evaporate if the reality became evident.
Dude, all the shit I read on slashdot is the same stuff you're saying. I don't hear anything from any other media source promoting the way it is now. I don't hear public service announcements from PR firms proclaiming how great everything is right now, and how we should keep Congress from changing anything. I don't buy the conspiracy theory. Christ, even the administration is pushing its plans to reform the PTO. I don't think anyone believes it works very efficiently right now. Not even me. I'm just saying I haven't heard any ideas for reform that actually make sense, from the perspective of someone who wants to be able to patent something (as opposed to I think a lot of people on
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:2)
"don't know who?" (Score:4, Interesting)
What does the lady from the patent office mean?!
"We dont know who issue the patent".....is it so tough to track who is the issuing officer. I am surprised it isn't done.
Anyways the reporter should have asked why such an absurd patent was issued in the first place and probably put her in the spot by giving many examples of such crappy patents being issued. Sheesh, its almost like the patent office wants us to think its a clerical error.....and the best is they get away with it.
vv
Re:"don't know who?" (Score:2, Informative)
What she was referring to was the Request for Reexamination. I forget when they are made public, but, as of about 12 years ago, they were open to the public until a decision to Reexamine the patent was granted. After that. there was would be no public participation in the proceedings.
The requester should be identified when the public notice is filed identified, but it looks like IBM mooted this pretty quickly, so, perhaps, it never got to that stage.
stupid patent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:stupid patent (Score:1)
Re:stupid patent (Score:2)
The DMV in WA takes this idea a step further by having multiple ticket types, each type assignable to different personnel capable of handling each type of request.
In fact, come to think of it the tickets in the WA DMV may well have had the approximate time you should expect to be serviced printed on them (this is ca 1995, so it's a little fuzzy). If that's the case, then since they had arbitrary assignments for each ticket type, then I'm guessing that would be prior art for this patent since one of the ticket types could easily have been assigned to the bathroom.
I guess.... (Score:5, Funny)
<insert groans here>
Scott
This article isn't exactly pleasing to me.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's 187,586 short if you ask me.
Really, as much as I don't want to be a flaimbait, the "standard examination" or whatever is not quite good enough.
In this day and age, with the amount of educated people at an all time high, and their education at an all time high too, the patent office has to be extra strict with giving patents.
Though everybody at slashdot already knows this, it can't be stressed enoough:
Patents are more a drag than a boost to creativity.
And just a little rant:
For nine years running, IBM has been the leading recipient of patents from the U.S. patent office.
And
We dedicated that patent to the public so that we could continue focusing on our high-quality patent portfolio.
Seem to be in conflict.IBM and patents seem to me to be a issue of quantity not quality.
Re:This article isn't exactly pleasing to me.... (Score:2, Informative)
> Seem to be in conflict.IBM and patents seem to me to be a issue of quantity not quality.
I used to work for a large corporation (not IBM) who was among the top five companies issued the most patents annually in the US. The culture there encouraged us to apply for as many patents as possible, and granted cash awards to people just for filing. We filed many patents of questionable utility. Apparently it was more important to try to be #1 in patents than to make money. I'm sure the culture at IBM is the same.
The company I now work for also encourages many patent applications, but they will only file patents that have a clear revenue generation opportunity. Otherwise, it's a waste of money to pursue and maintain the patent.
Re:This article isn't exactly pleasing to me.... (Score:2)
Actually, if IBM wanted quantity we could simply submit every patent suggestion that employees come up with. As it is, only a subset of the ideas submitted to the internal process make it through and get submitted. No, the focus is quality and licensability.
And here I thought I was joking... (Score:5, Funny)
...when I said I could make the big bucks by patenting the use of wiping with toilet paper. I mean, heck, I figured I'd be doing the patent office a favor. Surely the place would start to smell better after they were introduced to this novel technique. The only question for them would be whether there was enough room left for the paper, what with heads up in the way.
-Rob
Re:And here I thought I was joking... (Score:1)
If you really wanna help them out, patent a method for wiping with software patent applications. That way we can cut down on the smell and the useless trash at the same time. Let's see, how about:
This patent describes a method of cleaning one's rectum after the act of defecation utilizing unexamined software patent applications. The method, briefly described, is thus:
1. Obtain a job at the patent office
2. Gather together all patent applications mentioning the words or phrases "one-click", "e-commerce", "software", "Amazon", or "EBay".
3. To soften the paper, crumple up each individual sheet of the application. Unravel it, then crumple it again. Repeat this process about 15 times per sheet, or until it is quite soft.
4. Eat a meal with lots of fiber.
5. Moniter your gastrointestinal system. Be on the alert for a sort of pushing sensation on the inside of your rectum.
6. Go to a designated place for the excretion of said pressure-causing agent, taking with you the softened patent applications.
7. Defecate normally.
8. Use the softened applications afterwards by rubbing them along your rectum in short vertical sweeps. Deposit them into the excretion facility when they have been thus used.
9. Flush the facility
These patents scare me ... (Score:5, Funny)
(Anyway: I should have my sisters take a look and the patent, they may actually LEARN something
(Anyway 2: Thanks god MS didn't patent it. A bug in these code could really KILL people. And I can foresee the script kiddies all going to the bath as they see fit.)
For Those That Don't Read The Articles (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I guess the system isn't "broken", but it would be like a wall with cracks running from top to bottom, it's technically still a wall, but it's not something I'd want to lean on.
Re:For Those That Don't Read The Articles (Score:3, Interesting)
Marvin is leaning against a wall. A woman comes along and asks, "Little boy, why are you leaning on that wall?"
Marvin responds, "I'm holding the wall up."
The woman says, "Don't be ridiculous. Run along home."
So Marvin leaves, and the wall falls down.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news... (Score:2)
That's rather optimistic. Somehow, I'd expect they'd only find a way to pack the same number of people into an even-smaller space. "Here at American Airlines, we believe you should get to know the people sitting around you. . . intimately."
Very very happy American Airlines (Score:1)
Well... (Score:4, Funny)
When I'm waiting for a washroom on an aircraft, if I *really* need it in a hurry, perhaps becaue I'm sick.. I will ask the people waiting if I can go ahead. Usually they will say yes, if they can handle it.
LIkewise, I will often let a small child or other person who looks really uncomfortable go ahead of me if I can bear it. It's called sharing. I got there first, okay, but I also sat closer to the washroom, perhaps. Or it took me less time to get out of my chair because I have an aisle seat. First come first serve is not always best; it should be more like most needed goes first.
I suppose if we all had some kind of squid detector (ibm patent #4332123) hooked up to our brains, wired into the aircraft central computer (ibm patent # 98344223), then they could actually let us know before we even realize it that we have to go to the washroom. By analyzing how fast an individual bladder or digestive system is working, it could even schedule such things ahead of time. Pre-boarding screening could be done in order to let people konw they cannot fly, because there will not be washroom time available on the current flight.
Such an app could produce an interesting database (Score:5, Funny)
Employers could finally get some real figures as to how the "restrooms" are used... A nice Web Based interface with, amongst other widjets, a long list of checkboxes for different activities...
Of course, how many people wold actually admit to some of the things on that list is another matter. :)
Ali
Re:Such an app could produce an interesting databa (Score:1)
I mean, you would have to be a complete and utter pervert to want to moderate slashdot when you're sitting on the can!
#include "two_kinds_of_shit.joke"
Re:Such an app could produce an interesting databa (Score:1)
All you really need is 802.11 or a long enough network cable... Erm, not that I know anything about using my laptop while on the john. Sure, those AIM conversations can wait until I get back...
Computer Algorithm (Score:4, Interesting)
I would bet that some engineer was trying to explain the new resource management algorithm, and used the bathroom analogy. They then registered the patent out of humor, or to ensure nobody later claimed their algorithm was prior art as bathroom usage.
Re:Computer Algorithm (Score:2)
"Oh, that's just my computer taking a dump again. Been doing that a lot ever since Microsoft bought that bathroom patent from IBM..."
Coming from IBM... (Score:1)
I was thinking this would be some high tech system involving bladder scanners and anal probes. Then I read...
"As envisioned in the patent, the system would be run by a computer that would assign customers a number based on a first-come, first-served basis"
...and realize it's just another "no tickey, no laundry" system...
::sigh::
Prior art (Score:5, Funny)
Prior art exists, it's called a line.
Re:Prior art (Score:2)
I see no reason we should restict patents to entirely new problems that have never been solved before. Rather, if we did, we wouldn't get any of the advantages that the patent system does genuinely bring.
Re:Prior art (Score:1)
More specifically, a FIFO queue...
Holy S... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks God, thank you, thank you, thank you that you gave some reason to IBM folks. I cannot imagine what would be the mood in the airplane if some funny joker decided to play the best DoS ever...
Re:Holy S... (Score:3, Funny)
A relief (Score:4, Funny)
(Sorry, someone had to get all the obvious puns out of the way. Now we can all get on with the serious issue of discussing this story)
Key point (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if only the everyone else would realize this...
I thought (Score:4, Funny)
Hmm.
Re:I thought (Score:2)
Where do you think all those dot-com "business plans" came from?
500/day (Score:1)
The office granted 187,882 patents in 2001
That's more than 500 patents every day. And since getting a patent nowadays is as simple as applying, the numbers are probably rising. Damn. 500 a day. There's no way this system will ever get reformed.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Er, anything that makes mistakes is "broken"? (Score:2)
A system that passes several orders of magnitude more patents than reasonable is broken. It's an error rate far above 99%.
And that _is_ broken.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Er, anything that makes mistakes is "broken"? (Score:1)
Anyone who reads the actual patent [uspto.gov] can clearly see that it is a simple programming algorithm. Not that patents can't be applied on simple algorithms, but this algorithm in particular is just a common sense everyday occurance simulated on a computer. It's obvious that prior art has existed as long as the domestic bathroom has existed (and maybe even since people lined up for a tree). It's good that aiken_d doesn't work at the patent office, because he/she would not have seen the flaw in this patent either. Maybe the patent office needs better screening measures for employees.
I agree with this poster's views on the patent system, and that "broken" is an overkill word as quoted by the author of the CNet news story.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Er, anything that makes mistakes is "broken"? (Score:1)
The main reason why they hundreds of thousands of applications in the first place is because they have a high tendency to grant many patents for trivial products or prior art. The patent office and the lawmakers have created a situation where they are likely to be bogged down by so many applications that they cannot give them the proper scrutiny.
If the standards for granting patents were as rigorous as they should be, there would be far fewer applications for them to review because most people would realize that their creation doesn't have a chance of getting approved, and the patent office would have more time to dedicate towards the applications which do get submitted.
Bathroom patent the Linux Way. (Score:1)
A more detailed view... (Score:3, Interesting)
The patent includes the possible use of printers and scanners. I may understand printers but scanners?.. What they intend to scan?
They go all over by decribing a whole fullscale network with Windows NT or UNIX and using TCP/IP. Unfortunately they forget about firewalls, IPSec, secure authentication and so on. So one may wonder what might happen to this network and the effect it will have on passengers...
They even talk about databases... To register what?
These ones killed me: "As shown in FIG. 3B, the information contains field corresponding to, for example, passenger identifier by seat assignment, passenger name, whether the passenger is flying first class, price the passenger paid for the ticket, frequent flyer status, time at which the reservation request is received, reservation number assigned, and current position in the queue.
(...)
Alternatively, the central controller may grant reservation according to a set of rules which determines priority based on information stored in the database such as whether the passenger is flying first class, whether the passenger is a frequent flyer of the airline, the price the passenger paid for his ticket, the location of the passenger's seat in the cabin, etc."
Look at the elitism of the sentences. So one goes to the restroom according to the price he paid for the ticket... Everyone else hold up and don't even imagine to do it in place...
Another out of this world claim is the how they warn the passenger. One of the variants is:"or displayed on a screen in front of the cabin where the safety signs are displayed." For some people, mainly children, this sounds good - so everyone knows that he goes to the toilet... Besides it is quite cool to mix warning signs with the fact one needs to go to the toilet.
The tracking system is also something from the other world: "The central controller may employ a tracking system to detect the movement of a passenger and the status of the restroom. For example, when a passenger leaves his seat and arrives at the restroom in fulfillment of his reservation, a sensor may detect the passenger's departure from his seat and/or arrival at the restroom and transmits the signal to the central controller. Likewise, the central controller may receive a signal when a passenger leaves the restroom. The central controller updates the queue based on the information it receives." And we thought that child tracking was evil... Now even adults are tracked to the toilet.
Besides I don't get why the phone is needed here. Considering the beaurocracies of the crew I wonder if we would see some people crying over the phone that they need the toilet fast and for what reason.
Too many people... (Score:2, Interesting)
Would you say... (Score:1, Redundant)
Who issued this patent? (Score:1)
Primary Examiner: Lee, Benjamin C.
I think they need to demote examiners that allow such crap turn into patents!
The USPTO's "Benefit of the doubt" philosophy (Score:3, Insightful)
The USPTO's procedure is to give the benefit of the doubt to the would-be patentee, and then let the courts sort it afterwards if its validity is questioned. This is based on their apparent philosophy that to mistakenly NOT grant a patent that has validity is more harmful than granting an invalid patent, so they prefer to err on the side of the patent applicant.
But reality works the other way. It is more harmful to grant a bad patent than to deny a good patent application. Denying a patent does not necessarily mean the product will not be produced. The rejected patentee can still go ahead and create the product, and the rest of the world is also free to create the product, although they would not have the benefit on the monopoly. On the other hand, granting a patent that should not have been granted prevents or hinders everybody else from producing it (and derivative products) even though they could have thought of it on their own. In addition, sometimes the patentee does not even produce any working models of the product, so the effect is that the patent has caused the product not to be produced at all. Caution should be exercised in favor of the rest of the world, not the patent applicant.
There should be a penalty for submitting a patent that gets rejected on the basis of prior art. If the fine is kept by the USPTO, they will have plenty incentive to search properly for prior art, and the applicants will also have added incentive to search for it. If the patent is actually granted and the applicant uses the patent to extract license fees, and prior art is discovered afterwards, the penalty should be based on the license fees which the patentee has extracted.
Sounds brutal, but by making a patent application you are making an extremely strong claim against the rest of the human race -- that none of the other 6 billion people has done what you have done -- and attempting to put a restriction on their behavior, that you better be damn well sure that your creation is so brilliant that nobody else has done it before. One of the main reason why the USPTO has so little time to review patents is the high volume of trivial patent applications. If you aren't just about 100% sure that no prior art exists, get out of the way and keep the system open for those who do have actual legitimate inventions.
To help enforce the nonobviousness aspect of it, when a patent application is submitted there should be a short description, of maybe 50 words or less that summarizes what the supposed invention does, with care taken not to reveal any of the claims or how it is actually done. Then that summary should be published, after which there is a set time period of maybe a month or two during which the public is allowed to submit documentation or even a working product that does the same thing. If somebody else can come up with a solution in a few weeks based on such a short description, it does not meet the novel and nonobvious criteria. If any the submitted documents or products are substantially similar to the patent application, the patent must be rejected. Some things would only need a short phrase like "online auction" or "one click shopping" or "swinging on a swing" [uspto.gov] for somebody else to come up with a solution in a few days or even hours. ("Substantially similar" can be defined as whether the submission would be likely to be guilty of patent infringement if the patent were actually granted and the submission created afterwards, and there can be a nominal fee for such submissions to discourage frivilous challenge submissions, if the volume is too high.)
Re:The USPTO's "Benefit of the doubt" philosophy (Score:2)
Just a brilliant phrase (hope you don't claim a patent for it). You said the most fundamental thing about patents. And that's what genuine patents are for, no matter the positive or negative effects of the restriction. This should be written in granite over the US Patent Office building, so that anyone can see it well. People mod this up.
Re:The USPTO's "Benefit of the doubt" philosophy (Score:2)
People who gripe about software patents might feel a little better if they view them as a reward for open-sourcing their code (eventually :-).
Granted, the patent office issues bogus patents. A lot of them in fact. But that's a very hard judgement call to make. It's very easy to say that something is obvious even 1.5 years in the future. In fact, it's a great sign if things that are patentable now are obvious in a couple years. That means the system is working.
Another thing I've never understood about people who argue against patents is an argument made in this comment: denying a patent won't ensure that it won't be produced, but granting a bad one might cause people to not do it. This is a bogus argument. If the patent is *so* obviously bogus, no one will actually avoid infringing it, and if it isn't where do they get off being so self-righteous about it?
Re:The USPTO's "Benefit of the doubt" philosophy (Score:1)
I am very well aware that was the (original) intent of the patent system. Which is all the more reason to be very restrictive of how patents are awarded, because many patented "innovations" would have been made public anyway without the patent. The priority should be weighted towards what is best for the public, not what reward the patent applicant deserves. The granting of the patent is only a means to accomplish the goal of increasing the innovations which can benefit the public. That is why business methods should not be patentable, because if a company can increase profits by changing their method of doing business, the company who thought of it will do it anyway regardless of whether they can obtain a patent for it. Or somebody else would think of it and implement it. And that is exactly what they were doing until recently when business methods were declared patentable.
"People who gripe about software patents might feel a little better if they view them as a reward for open-sourcing their code (eventually:-)."
Software patents do not require the patent holder to reveal any source code. The patent holder only has to show the algorithms. Publishing but restricting the use of an algorithm for twenty years does less to foster innovation than if the algorithm were kept secret and everybody else was left to come up with another similar algorithm on their own (of which many will be voluntarily published) and were more free to build upon existing algorithms.
"It's very easy to say that something is obvious even 1.5 years in the future."
Which is why there needs to be some sort of obviousness test performed before the entire contents of the patent are made available, as I described in my original message.
"If the patent is *so* obviously bogus, no one will actually avoid infringing it, and if it isn't where do they get off being so self-righteous about it?"
Barnes and Noble had to avoid using "one click shopping" because of Amazon's patent. Web sites and software developers have had to avoid GIF and JPEG because of the patent claims on them. There are many other cases where people have had to do expensive modifications to work around bogus patents, or they infringe the patent accidentally and get hit with a lawsuit or at least a chilling "cease and desist" letter from lawyers.
Re:The USPTO's "Benefit of the doubt" philosophy (Score:1)
But seriously, patents are not like "world records." "World records" are for things we easily understand intellectually ("smallest measured time taken for human to run one mile") but that are physically difficult. Patents are for stunts no one has thought of yet.
Hmmmm.... A non-obvious idea for confirming non-obviousness!! Excellent work! Have you thought about taking out a patent?
Eh (Score:2)
I know slashdotters tend to be supportive of IBM because of their Linux funding, but 3400 patents??? I honestly don't think there are that many good, original ideas that can be discovered in one year. It sounds like IBM is abusing the system : I would strongly suspect that much of what they patent is fairly obvious to those in the know or has already occurred to someone else. But instead, IBM has the patents and plans to knee^H^H^H^H anyone who thinks of an idea they happened to have patented and tries to use it.
This is NOT how it was meant to be. Instead of protecting brilliant inventors who come up with nifty gadgets, these patents are basically a big corporation leaching off the future. With this many patents, I'm sure at least one of them could be argued to apply to just about any conceivable, REAL breakthrough that the REAL inventors make in the computer world. When that happens, IBM will send their lawyers to hit you up for money and you'll have to pay unless you are also a big corporation with enough lawyers on the payroll.
The system is called (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The system is called (Score:4, Funny)
And their competitor is Deep Shitz in Europe.
(sorry, coudn't resist
Don't think about Niagara Falls.... (Score:2, Funny)
if (shorts.isSoiled) reservation.Cancel();
Stock Price (Score:1)
Not so funny . . . an important observation (Score:3, Informative)
It is tremendously important to understand that it is NOT the mission of the patent office to issue 100% valid and fully examined patents. Such an effort isn't possible, given the definition of validity. Nor is it even possible to issue 100% decent, not obviously invalid, patents. The cost of such examination would be prohibitive, and neither the government nor inventors would be willing to subsidize it.
A novelty search (which is all the office can do for the sub-thousand dollar fee it receives and examination doesn't review all, or even the best, prior art -- just what can be found with a decent, reasonable review of the search databases. Examiners in some art areas get quite good at it, because they become quickly familiar with a narrow area of art -- and in others (business methods in particular) cannot get good at it because the scope of their examinations is so wildly broad and uncategorized. The office adapts and does ok.
The system isn't broken, it is acting pretty much as designed. Some places it works better than others, but that is the nature of a human process. The question is not whether bad patents exist (they do), but whether bad patents cause more bad, on balance, than good patents cause good. While that is a reasonable question for debate, it is different from observing from the failure of a few individual examples the supposed bankrupcy of a system at large.
This is something like saying that the entirety of a Unix system is bad, because it contains a single design failure or because it contains a single bug. We know it has both -- and yet we use it because it is an excellent environment in which to work and be productive.
(By the way, tha vast majority of spectacularly whacky patents issue, in part, because they are deemed "harmless" or "mostly harmless" by the examiner -- and unworthy of substantive waste of government resources. )
IBM Bathroom Technology (Score:5, Funny)
I have worked at 3 IBM sites and been in many of their buildings and this has happened almost without fail. There are also "blessed" bathrooms where this never happens. I can only imagine that those are reserved for upper management.
I think this is a great idea! (Score:1)
Being able to press a button ay my seat, and having a light go on when it's my turn to go is a great idea. I'm all for it.
I don't think this patent was so silly.
Re:I think this is a great idea! (Score:2)
Even the "take a number" system at the deli has a computer behind it, and the printer and scanner on the plane are so you'll have a number with you in the aisle to let the door know that you're the actually the one whose turn it is.
This isn't even an idea, much less a patentable one. There's no such thing as a harmless patent. The "sue people to get settlements" business model is too prevalent and successful to wantonly throw legal backing around.
Things would be so much better if the USP&TO staff didn't commute via short bus, though.
Bathroom Humor (Score:2)
The patent system is most certainly broken.... (Score:1)
See the URL below...
Heart of the problem (Score:2)
If you didn't have one you could hold in your hand, you couldn't (originally) get a patent.
Then they applied patents to business methods, and then software. (which at it's heart, is a number)
So now, you can patent a number, and not let anybody else print that number.
I know the hard work decent software takes, I'm an independent software developer myself. But to patent an idea (which is about the most you could claim software to be) is against the original concept of a patent.
You want ideas? They're cheap!
Get a 12 pack, go to a family reunion, and ask everybody for their "best ideas". You'll get (under current law) at least 10 patents some thanksgiving for $8.99.
Crazy. Simply crazy.
Arrest Them (Score:1)
Last Post! (Score:1)
This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction
techniques are very popular, even the military used them.
SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction.
We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true
for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n
as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is
trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We
can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just
about _n.
QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?")
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Re:Summary (Score:1)
But that's not high-tech. Remember, IBM NEEDS PATENTS!
FAQ #17> What if I have to go NOW?
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IBM's patent attorneys should be happy now.