Court Denies Smucker's PB&J Patent 388
lbmouse writes "The AP is reporting that on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected an effort by the Jelly & Jam maker to patent its process for making pocket peanut butter and jelly sandwiches." While the company was only trying to patent the "crimping process" used to create a specific type of mass market sandwich, they had also "...asked Albie's Foods of Gaylord, Mich., to stop producing ready-made PB&J sandwiches for a school district".
Jesus! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am ready to join the protesters who want to destroy corporate america. The ones who go to G7 meetings and economic forums and fight the nasty police. If some asshole wants to deprive me of the right to a PB&J sandwich because they have a patent, motherfuck them. The corporations have too much power. Too many lobbyists. And the laws are getting rediculous.
PB&J vs. Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
There are software patents being passed that are 100 times more ridiculous than this, yet you don't hear much about it outside of Slashdot or some short blurb in the tech section of the NYT.
Most of these software patents are just as absurd as patenting a method of making a PB&J sandwich, often worse. A "System and method for creating, processing and managing educational content within and between schools," [uspto.gov] I mean come on, or a "method and system for processing input from a command line interface." [uspto.gov]
I wish the general public would realize the ramifications of software patents like these. It is essentially re-patenting the wheel.
ob old commercial (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:dot dot dot (Score:5, Insightful)
The same thing that canaries have to do with coal mines.
The patent office rejected a patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
My question is this: if they accepted swinging on a swing [uspto.gov] as worthy of a US patent, why did the USPTO decide to deny Smuckers this one?
Re:ob old commercial (Score:5, Insightful)
ROFL. If I had mod points, I would mod that insightful. LOL.
Seriously, we need to do something about patent law. It is getting to be a joke. I remember when anyone could work on their car. I bet in 5-10 years there will be systems that GM and Ford and Toyota will patent so only they can fix it, and charge much more money. People joke about patents to blow jobs. Wait til you get a sunshine job, and the bill.
When did patent law become a way to make a monopoly?
Re:I don't understand.. (Score:0, Insightful)
Average Patent Office Worker (Score:5, Insightful)
Worker: Hey! I could have thought of that... hell, the wife makes one every Tuesday... DENIED.
Patent comes in for a new "technology." A Web site will have a box labeled Username and one labeled Password, and a Submit button that logs on the user to the Web sites system.
Worker: That sounds complex about computer web site things. Must be some new technology. APPROVED.
Re:ob old commercial (Score:5, Insightful)
That was always the point. When you file a patent, you share your idea in exchange for a monopoly for a limited time. The problem is that the patent office is being bombarded by applications so they just figure "grant everything and let the courts sort it out". The problem with that is that it allows deep pocket companies to bully anyone they want by filing for ridiculous patents.
Re:OMG! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell it is still kinda
amusing I guess
Re:PB&J vs. Technology (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, no one is going to fix until we get the USPTO-induced equivalent of flying airplanes into buildings.
After all, Congress is too busy roadblocking each other over judicial nominees or debating back and forth to decide if Social Security will self-destuct in 2020 or 2025, and how much of the U.S. economy it will take down with it.
Re:Jesus! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:God damn geek anti-patent rants (Score:4, Insightful)
I think what offends the "geeks" you're arguing with is that patentability implies that an idea has some novelty and is not obvious to anyone "skilled in the art" to which it pertains. Yet, patents are often granted that violate these principles, sometimes to an absurd extent.
patents are not about incentives, they're about outright survival in a competitive market place.
The purpose it to promote innovation, not to grant monopolies simply for the asking. The government does not owe you success. Success in a competitive marketplace comes from competing successfully.
Re:God damn geek anti-patent rants (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is anything unique about the machines they designed, they should get a patent on that. But they didn't. They got a patent on the sandwich.
The idea of "leaking" the secret about a crimped PBJ with PB on both slices of bread is absurd. It's not innovative, it's obvious, and it took just about zero investment of time and capital to come up with. Here are the exact claims from the patent:
There are two parts to this patent: (1) So the jelly soaks through the non peanut-buttered side. 90% of the population could solve that dillemma in 30 seconds by putting PB on both sides. (2) So the sandwich is loose. Crimp it just like ravioli has been crimped for over a century.
Notice that there is not a single reference to any machine that could make this sandwich. Just two dead-simple ideas that even a person of low intelligence would think of as soon as they saw the problem description.
This is not some mysterious rocket-science research that needs to be nurtured. It's just a sandwich that you could make in your kitchen in 60 seconds, except that now it's illegal.
Re:Jesus! (Score:5, Insightful)
If the system was working the way it was supposed to, this patent & 90% of the others would be laughed out of the Patent Office front door.
The fact that the _backup_ system (the U.S. Court of Appeals) managed to work in THIS ONE CASE, hardly means that the system is working the way it's supposed to.
There is nothing wrong with patent law ... (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't need to do anything about patent law. What we need desperately is to do something about proper enforcement of the existing rules.
Patent law forbids granting patents on inventions for which there is prior art. Yet there is a flood of patents for which there is prior art which is against existing patent law.
Patent law forbids granting patents on inventions which are obvious deductions from prior art. Yet there is a flood of patents which do not meet the criteria of non-obviousness, again against existing patent law.
Patent law also forbids granting patents on applications which are not described in enough detail to allow persons skilled in the art to carry out the invention (ie build the apparatus). Yet there is a flood of fuzzy patents which were not specified in the required detail, yet again against existing patent law.
The one primeval problem there is with the patent system today is that enforcement of existing legislation is anywhere from too lax to non-existant. That is the issue we ought to acknowledge and do something about.
The fact that we, the public, do not acknowledge this to be the root cause, that we usually talk nonsense when it comes to patent issues, that we consequently do not lobby for better enforcement, this only works into the hands of those who abuse the system, who take advantage of the lack of enforcement of patent law.
Re:God damn geek anti-patent rants (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right.
Why?
Why? Are you so special that if someone else works out how to synthesize that drug independently of you, that you should be able to stop them from taking advantage of their own research?
If their "process" is so braindead that a chimpanzee can imitate the process after viewing it once, why in the hell should they be granted a patent on it?
Too bad the so-called justification is without merit
B.S. We'd have innovation coming out of our eyeballs if big companies weren't using "intellectual property" laws to squash their competition.
If a company can't survive in a marketplace without being granted a government-enforced monopoly, then THEY DON'T DESERVE TO SURVIVE. Propping up failing companies is called corporate welfare, and prevents more economically-beneficial entities from taking their place.
Re:dot dot dot (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In a post 9/11 world... (Score:1, Insightful)
What pisses ME off... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not like we don't know the PB&J over here in Holland but come on, a school should primarily serve a nice fresh cheese sandwich or something else without so much sugar.
Re:OMG! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's next - patenting how Mom makes Hash Brow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What pisses ME off... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the land of synthetic imitation cheese-like substances, manufactured in factories that most closely resemble an oil refinery. Who needs cows when you have chemical engineering?